Adult Clinical Depression
Q.I'd think that no one but yourself can actually say if your depression is "gone." If being treated by medication alone, without some sort of therapy to deal with (what I'd call) the "adult" in you dealing with the things that made or make you depressed, my "guess" would be that yes, it's still an underlying condition.
A.I guess a good way to look at it, via therapy, is that when someone says or does something that "he" feels is directed towards him, and reacts in the victim role (which obviously causes guilt and depression from the perceived attack), he'd have to ask "what made me feel that way before?" The obvious answer, without doing much digging, is that what had been said to him (and his reaction) reminded him of how "mom" treated him, and how he reacted "then." So his "reaction" can easily be traced back to how he "felt" as a child. BUT, he's supposed to be, at 51, an adult. The problem is that he still sees himself and behaves like the "child role" that he'd been cast into. His mission, should he decide to accept it, is to understand that the situation now is different. Again, at the age of 51, and acting like an adult, would he accept the verbal abuse he took as a child. Obviously, he'd say no. The problem is that he "does." There lies the underlying cause of "his" problem, and his inability to, well, grow up, and see and deal with issues as an adult. Again, unfortunately, he remains cast in that "child role" and doesn't know how to get out of it. A good therapist, IMO, could help him greatly in this regard, but he refuses to go through it. So for him, the meds have greatly reduced his depression, but without dealing with the "obvious" underlying cause, IMO, and just learning that NOW is not THEN, he will not be rid of it. I have PD and GAD and became very depressed BECAUSE of having them. I went untreated for 3 years (meaning no meds) and it never went away. I also wanted to die. Once I started taking Xanax and the PA's went away, the depression lifted right along with them. But, since Xanax is so controversial now, Proxac is suppossed to work on both at the same time. You may want to try it. Just a suggestion. I have GAD and dysthymia. I get so worked up so easily, then I crash. My dr had me on Paxil, but I didn't like it. I told him that I had heard about BuSpar, and maybe that would work? He said that it depends on what you specifically want to treat. Was I more anxiety filled, or more depressed. If I wanted to treat the depression, he suggested I try serzone. If I felt that the anxiety was more of the problem, he would let me try BuSpar. Both drugs work for both, but serzone works more on the depression while easing the anxiety, and BuSpar did the opposite. I opted for serzone, because I don't know which I suffer more from. I have been increasing my doesages of serzone for the last two weeks, to prevent the side effects, but I also crashed really hard last week. I am not sure what brought it on. But, my anxiety level has been low too, so maybe I need the anti-depressants more.
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