Re: It's not working....

Re: It's not working.... ----- From: David - Date: 19 Dec 1997

None of the anti-depressants work for the first 4-6 weeks. I found a good site on the internet once that had a lot of suggestions in a section called something like "What to do while you are waiting for your anti-depressant medication to take effect." I'll see if I can find the link, I think I have it in my files somewhere.

You mentioned your counselor. What is it that you are dissatisfied with? I've had a number of different people I have worked with. Some of them I was more comfortable with than others, but just about all of them have been able to help me to some extent.

A friend of mine was talking to a psychologist, pouring out all his feelings about a disaster where some of his friends had died. He looked up and the counselor had gone to sleep! I guess that would be one reason to be dissatisfied. . . .

I don't know if leading a sheltered life makes the shock worse. But that's the worst part I think, the shock. You get hit by something you weren't expecting. Not only that you weren't expecting -- something you didn't think was possible! It turns your whole world upside down, totally disorients you. It's no wonder that you are feeling depressed, but that's just part of the process of dealing with something like this.

I identify with your feeling about the "nightmare." It feels like one! But it's not a dream. You don't wake up from it. It's a true story, but the ending hasn't been written yet. Later, it will be a story where something terrible happens at the beginning, then the process of straightening everything out and making a happy ending begins. When you look at the story from the end, it isn't a nightmare after all.

It's been about three months now since I was really depressed, but I still drop into it occasionally for a short time. My doctor said she wanted me on medication to give me a little more room to work. She said that when your depressed emotions are so overwhelming, it is hard to work on the issues that are bothering you because you can't think about them clearly. But the medication won't cure your depression by itself. It is supposed to let you get into a place where you can understand and resolve things. That is the real solution.

I guess I'm saying, be patient with yourself. It will take time to deal with all of this and to learn from it everything you need to learn. It takes time to understand what happened and time to accept what happened. I know you feel like "it's not working." But you ARE working. It just takes a lot longer than we all wish it would sometimes.