How do I overcome depression without using medication?

How do I beat depression?

• I am a 22 year old female, and I have been suffering from depression since I was in middle school- maybe even before that. I am not sure, because I have suffered from this for so long that I'm not sure how depression-free people feel, but it seems that my illness is rather severe. I have a strong family history of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, anorexia, and bulimia (depression and anxiety coming from both sides of the family). I have always had trouble relating to other people and letting others in, as well as struggled with pretty severe anxiety. I was recently diagnosed with ADD, and the medication has helped a lot, but I still feel that I am struggling much more than I am succeeding. I am also on setraline and lamotragine (sp?), but I have not noticed a marked difference with these. Everyday, it is difficult to get out of bed, and trying to force myself to go to classes, study, and even socialize with people is a struggle. Insomnia is a huge problem for me- I can go days with only a couple hours of sleep a night (without naps), but I as soon as I go to bed, I start feeling incredibly anxious. I almost always feel sad, and a lot of this is probably due to the problems that I am now dealing with as a result of my constant inactivity when I was in university. I have graduated with very mediocre grades, and I want to attend occupational therapy school, but at the same time, I can't really muster feelings of passion or excitement for this vocation. I also really have to force myself to spend time with anyone who is not my family- most of the time I want to be alone, but then I also go through periods of feeling very lonely due to my lack of social life. I have never seriously considered suicide, but only because I know that it would hurt my family so much. It's so hard to try and keep going because all of my problems are my own fault, and I am trying to change my habits (trying to not lay in bed so much, go out more, have a regular schedule, be more disciplined, etc), but I have such a hard time in sticking with my new behaviors. I have been exercising regularly and have found that this helps a lot, and I am trying to form a habit of meditating and doing yoga everyday, but these changes aren't enough. My life is a mess, and my family is so disappointed in me and worried at the same time, and they don't deserve to feel like that. I am so disorganized, and I just feel like I am drowning in my own inadequacies- I have so many faults that trying to correct them is overwhelming, and meanwhile I keep making more and more of a mess of my life. I am so behind other people of my age, and I feel like my family is sick of giving me chances. By far, the things that I have made the biggest differences for me are my ADD medication and exercise. I would like to increase my ADD meds, but I lost a lot of weight when I first started on it and am a little too thin- and I struggle to maintain my weight where it is right now. At this point I am just struggling to maintain my head above water emotionally, and I feel so out of control of my emotions that I am constantly afraid of backsliding and getting worse and don't have much hope of improvement. I realize that people who don't suffer from depression go through ups and downs too, but I feel that I am too sad and anxious too often. While I feel that my life is not really going anywhere right now, I still think that I am blessed in many other ways- I have a very supportive family, schooling comes easily to me, and my family is very secure financially and willing to help me. Still, at this point I should be starting to be more independent, and I am not really close to that point, and this fact really gets me down. While I fully intend to stick to my routine of working hard, exercising, and meditating, I have gone through so many phases of deciding to change something about my life and then not sticking to it, and I almost expect myself to fail. At this point, I hope that the force of my desperation will give me stronger willpower, but I was hoping that someone could give me suggestions of things that they have found helpful in staying positive and improving. I realize that I will probably never completely overcome my depression, but I hope that I eventually find more useful coping mechanisms. I realize this is ridiculously long- I just wanted to be thorough in explaining my symptoms and what I have tried so far. Thank you so much for your help!

• Answer:

  There's loads of ways of answering your question. But, let me offer one tip: accept you are depressed. Yes that may seem weird but if you stop fighting it and trying to be 'normal' you will start your recovery. If you don't it's like pushing wet sand, it just gets harder. Accept the depression everyday and you will see results quickly. Warm wishes, Alexandra Massey