This is week #6 of the Working On Us Mental Health prompts over at Beckie’s Mental Mess. Have a look at her post for the guidelines on how to participate.
Prompt #1 Questions:
- There are so many varieties of depression out there, such as Bipolar Depression, and (SAD) Seasonal Affective Disorder. What type of depression do you suffer from, or have? I have major depressive disorder.
- What do you do to fight your depression? (Meaning, therapy, medications, meditation, ECT). Medications are the main part of my treatment, but I incorporate a number of different wellness strategies as well. I’ve had ECT in the past and it’s been helpful, and if it was logistically feasible I’d probably be getting outpatient ECT now.
- Does anything help you, and if so… What? ECT has helped in the past, but aside from that medications have been the only thing that’s had a clear benefit. In the past meds were able to get my illness into full remission, but that’s no longer the case. Various non-medication strategies have never had much of an impact, but I use them with the idea of trying to promote overall wellness rather than treat illness. I’ve never had much luck personally with therapists, but I try to incorporate concepts from a few different therapy approaches into the work I’m doing on myself.
Prompt #2 Pictures:
(I am posting 2 pictures to select from, out of the 2, please select one and tell us how it makes you feel. Again, you can write in any format you see fit.)
I chose to go with photo #1. I see the dark cave as representing Illness, but within the confines of the illness there’s something bright (i.e. the glowing tree). For me that glowing tree is the online mental health community. It’s something that I wouldn’t access without the darkness of the illness, but yet it’s something very bright.
