Day 1

I'm a single white male, recovering from clinical depression.

In a contact ad, that would probably not be a good thing to say, but this is not about attracting or impressing people, it's about documenting my recovery, and it's primarily for my own benefit, though it might interest people in a similar situation, or who have loved ones who are depressed.

Yesterday I started reading How To Lift Depression [...fast], by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell. I only read about a third of it, but I felt so good, so optimistic, afterwards, that I decided this was it, I was on the right road at last, and I should record and share the journey. (The book is subtitled The Human Givens Approach, and there's a website. I have no connection with them.)

I'm not going to say much about my history here. In fact, focussing on the past is explicitly discouraged by these people. Maybe I'll feel robust enough to go into it later. But I've been depressed, to various extents, for many years, and have tried Prozac and therapy.

Prozac was really good, for a while. At first, the side-effects were difficult to deal with, especially the sleep disturbance. Eventually it allowed me to rediscover what non-depressed life can be like. But, inevitably, like any physical treatment, it failed to tackle the underlying causes of my depression.

I went into therapy long before depression was diagnosed. It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been interested in it intellectually. My first degree was in philosophy and psychology, then I moved into information technology to get a decent job, but still hankered after my old interests, so took a introductory course on dynamic psychotherapy. People who intended to go beyond that course had to get into "training therapy", and though I didn't actually pursue the training, I ended up in weekly therapy for three years. At the time I felt it did me a lot of good, but I don't think depression was ever mentioned. A number of years later I began to suspect I'd been suffering from it for most of my adult life, then it was "officially" diagnosed by my general practitioner and confirmed by a clinical psychologist. The GP prescribed Prozac and I saw the psychologist a few times, and as far as the National Health Service was concerned, that was it.

That was about eight years ago. (I ended up writing a lot more about the past than I meant to!) Since then I've been better at some times, worse at others. I've self-medicated with St John's Wort, which is better than Prozac side-effect-wise, especially during the winter, as it does seem seasonal to some extent, though it's not seasonal affective disorder. (Even so, at the moment I'm using a 125 watt fluorescent "grow lamp" in this room because it's a very gray, misty morning.)

I took up that book yesterday (I had gotten it then put it on a shelf for future reference, like many others) because I'd been feeling particularly low recently, with quite badly disturbed sleep. I'm very glad I did. Last night I slept better than I've done in a couple of weeks, maybe more. I'm just about to take it up again, and I'll probably read another third or so today. I'll let you know how I feel later today or tomorrow.