@ maustin
Well, as I said it depends greatly on the individual and the severity of the condition. But it is fair to say most sufferers of clinical depression are never really free from it - it's a part of who they are/become (for many and varied reasons).
The treatment process is just about exactly as I described - merry-go-round of drugs whilst being entered on a very long waiting list.
I should point out that I'm not referring to my own personal experience, but to one who was very dear to me once.
Telling me I'm wrong, then adding the caveat of not 'discounting my own experience' is a view that much of clinical diagnosis has a great deal of trouble with... ie getting the patient the right treatment regime. A matter of opinion that differs from gp to gp and from psychiatrist to psychiatrist. It's a view I don't much care for to be honest.
10 years of living with someone who had (probably still does for all I know) serious clinical depression and going through the trouble of supporting them through the lies, emotional blackmail, madness, highs and lows and effects of the treatments that were successively proscribed, is more than most people ever have to deal with in their own lives, let alone understand fully.
The typical response was 'you don't understand' well, nobody really does, including those who actually suffer from such illnesses and those who attempt to treat it.
Medical treatment is but one tiny step on a very long and difficult road to something that may one day approach what is subjectively referred to as 'normal'.
I stand by what I say as one who has been there and seen it all as close as I ever want to be to it. You cannot just walk away from it in someone you love - you have to watch it destroy that person from within and know that you are utterly powerless to stop it or help in any way that will make any difference. All you can do is watch it happen.
It is a truly frightening and distressing illness for the sufferer and those who are close to them. Many months or even years can elapse with little or no problem whatsoever, but then it can return from out of the blue with no obvious trigger.
The hardest initial stage is admitting that help is needed - it's almost like admitting there's a problem makes the problem real for the first time, allows it to become manifest, as it were. But there's no easy answer or diagnosis, just a succession of small triumphs and failures. Being stubborn and bloody minded and having family and friends to give support can help a great deal, but those things will never remove or change what is wrong inside the persons head, because it's not as simple as re-balancing brain chemistry, it's about changing the way people have learned to think, about themselves and others - in short altering the personality of who they are to allow them to function on their own and independently.
Quite often those who suffer serious clinical depression choose to isolate themselves from all of the things they have difficulty assimilating, in order to achieve a kind of stasis in their own life where they can cope from day to day without the complication of the kind of lives and relationships the rest of us negotiate every day without a second thought as to how we do it.
Some people manage well, others don't.
Of all the illnesses that people can endure, mental illness has the potential to be one of the most unpleasant and painful conditions, because it varies so much between individuals.
I would not wish it upon my worst enemy, not now, not ever.
. One major thing I found out though through all of this was who your friends really are!
