Looking for Suggestions on how to manage symptoms.

[linco515]

Hi. I'm Linda. I have major depression and anxiety. I'd love to hear from people who have suggestions on how to manage the symptoms of these illnesses. I'm having a hard time. I am treatment resistant. I have tried most anti depressants. Thanks

[AnxiousSilver]

Hi, and welcome to this site.

This is a good and supportive community, but please keep in mind that we are not professional help.

.

When people come on here, and say that they have major depression, that can mean a lot of different things.

If you are currently having any thoughts about harming yourself, please call the suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

If you are not at a point of harming yourself, then give yourself credit for reaching out and finding this website.

& I encourage you to look at some of the other threads on this site, to see if anything relates to you.

[EtoE]

Hi Linda,

I'm really sorry that you're struggling with this at the moment, anxiety and depression can be a really heavy weight...

Anxiety is one I can't really seem to get a handle on myself so I'm not sure I'm any help there... All I know is to try and stay in motion, even doing little things can help with keeping some momentum.

For depression, the best thing I've found is practising gratitude. Just writing down or saying things I'm grateful for as and when they come. I usually try and pick the little things, like when I make my coffee just right in a morning, or when I get inside right before it starts raining. I'm not always great for keeping it up, but when I do manage to I really see a change in my perspective.

[linco515 in reply to EtoE]

Thanks so much for your kind reply. I will try to practice more gratitude in the future.🙂

[EtoE in reply to linco515]

That's okay! I hope it helps I forgot to mention as well... You might know this already but I only recently discovered that most of our serotonin is not actually produced in our brain. Over 90% of it is actually found in our gut. There's fairly recent literature actually on the gut being a sort of second brain that we have which is pretty interesting . If serotonin is really as crucial to our mood as scientists suggest, that'd mean keeping our gut happy is key to keeping ourselves happy. People always stress the importance of eating well when trying to help depression but I never really realised how important it could be until I read about all of this.

Eating well is hard when you feel depressed and there's no motivation to cook or make food. But even adding spinach or broccoli to my instant noodles makes me feel like I'm giving my gut a few more nutrients lol. I do always notice my mood is better if I feel like I've eaten better.

[linco515 in reply to EtoE]

Hi Eto. yes I've heard that many neurotransmitters are in the gut. I do have trouble with eating. I live alone and usually eat pre packaged frozen dinners. You are so right-- I do feel better when I add broccoli or another vegetable. Good to hear from you.😀