I started suffering from depression at 18 and it got progressively worse, with periodic bouts putting me in bed for days. True misery. I switched to a very disciplined lifestyle of exercise and a diet as suggested above and it helped a lot, but it did not cure me. I just suffered less.
What cured me was SSRI medication (Lexapro). I still try to maintain healthy diet and exercise but the SSRI was night and day. I had minimal side effects and it completely changed my life. My 2 cents.
For me, an SSRI worked wonders, but was just a short term band aid. I had to adjust my dose or switch medications pretty early on. I also felt like I lost something ephemeral while medicated.
Diet and exercise also helped tremendously and had lasting effects. I not only felt better, but it was earned. It took a lot of discipline to make this happen while depressed.
Therapy is what worked. Everything else was great at relieving symptoms, which gave me the capacity to work through therapy. But, for me, they didn’t act as a cure any more than cough syrup and chicken soup cure a cold.
I tried years of therapy but honestly never found a therapist that clicked. I am a very corporate, achievement, “work 80 hours a week” type person and therapists didn’t understand and constantly identified my lifestyle as a source or symptom of my depression which is 100% not true.
The human brain is enormously complex. You can be depressed by patterns of thought, past trauma / historical issues, or simply a chemical imbalance. I firmly believe I had a chemical imbalance and the SSRI fixed it. It was seriously a night and day difference in my life.
I think there are many varied causes of depression and this is why the same techniques don’t work for everyone. But for my situation the drugs worked.
I get depressed from 36 hour weeks. Maybe the therapists arent wrong thinking that 80 hour weeks aint healthy, even if you love your job lessure is super relevant too
What cured me was SSRI medication (Lexapro). I still try to maintain healthy diet and exercise but the SSRI was night and day. I had minimal side effects and it completely changed my life. My 2 cents.