16 years old and being prescribed

[MOlaf]

Hi, i'm Matt, i'm 16 (turning 17 in January) this is my first time on this website.

I have been suffering in silence for around 3 years now but on the 22nd i was called in to my college assistant principals office.

they had heard that i was feeling 'gloomy' and apparently many of my acquaintances, friends and teachers had actually reported their concerns with my state of mental health. some had even reported my prior attempts at suicide.

i explained my situation and was asked about what help i sought.

a year ago i went to see my GP about depression but backed out before i reached the door, then about 2 weeks prior i went to my college councillors but again never fully committed to going in.

they set up a time and a reference letter, even informing my GP of what was going to happen college-side.

on the 23rd (yesterday at time of writing) i went, and after waiting i was appointed to my practitioner. I was diagnosed with likely-severe depression. i have been referred to a group of psychiatrists and she has said if i feel i need to, if things ever get worse, i should go and see her and she will prescribe me either paroxetine or fluoxetine (i cant remember which) as my symptoms are very clear she just wants me to think it through.

do antidepressants really help? im thinking of going back asap.

[Hidden]

The first thing to say is that medication certainly does work but it's not the whole answer, I'd say its about 50%. I tried to stay off it first time I encountered depression but 6 months later I had to have 6 weeks off work to recover very slowly.

I've battled with mental health problems now about 12 years, the worst is definitely the first time you get it - once you beaten in the first time, even though it comes back, it has never come back with the same force

Acknowledging you're a teenager and in a totally different set of circumstances to me, the 2 things I'd like to say as follows:

- be careful on the way you look at life and living with yourself. Reduce your expectations as much as you can, think small. You might find things very uninteresting eg going for a walk in the country, how boring that is, yet others love doing that - if you don't rely on the walk to make you happy then that's the mindset you need to work to, relying on things to make you happy will mentally end in disappointment. Try and develop a humble nature and be content, many people can be content and actually have very little. Work at this, it doesn't come overnight though and might take years

- what you do counts a lot. Feeling depressed makes it hard to do anything because you simply don't feel like it because it's too painful mentally. But do what you need to do anyway, slowly if necessary, your feelings will have to catch up later - this could be a short time or several hours. Take rests when you need to - if you are really suffering or are hanging on then its about 1 hour doing something then an hour rest, that sort of ratio - don't stay in bed too long.

hope that helps a bit, you are not alone though, there are many suffering like this