Had depression for about 5 years, then finally went to University and it then got a little bit better, but then the only person who helped me left nearly a year ago.. Now I decided to go to counselling, which recommended I go to the gym, which helped a little i guess. A few weeks ago I started taking an SSRI and noting down how I feel everyday with a score. And the trends show very little improvement...

I get depressions all the time, even from the smallest things (like bad replies on forums :-p). Getting the WiiU last year has helped a lot though, I've had so much fun playing games that those bad days doesn't come very often anymore..

Yeah gym makes me feel great I got into weight lifting about a year ago. It def helps.

Got bad depression and a bit of anxiety. I've used games for years to help with my depression. However, recently I had a massive mix of anxiety and depression which put me in a dangerous position of heavily considering suicide. I'm fine now, but I ended up losing 14 pounds in 2 weeks from being unable to eat at all :S

I have asperger syndrome and ADD. I have anxiety and suffer from panik attacks from time to time, especially when I'm near many  people (Especially loud ones.) Medication helps a bit but I'm thinking about to start swimming and eating proper. Maybe that will help.

Had depression all my life (55 years). Been to all kinds of therapy and used a lot of different medicines. SSRI helped but gave me weird adverse effects (breathing was affected, numbness etc). The best "drug" for me so far is Lithium, which supposedly is very good for bi-polarity. When taking Lithium you have to monitor the blood levels to prevent renal injury. I have had no adverse effects from Lithium. Lithium is a chemical element and the way it works for depression is not fully known.
In my experience depression is a state of mind where if something wrong happens it is because of my inadequacy - if something good happens it is because of circumstances out of my control (even if it is really me who made something good).
I hid my depression for everyone, not even my wife knew until I told her - I am not sure she realize how severe my problems are yet.What I want to say is that "jock mentality where you can't deal with emotional issues or you're deemed a giant pussy" is a sure way of hiding very severe mental disorders.
Since 6 - 7 years I try to be completely open with my condition and try to support all the other friends and colleagues that have mental disorders. (Still I hesitate to write this as I know that it can be used against me) I would not have been open with it when I was younger!
My advice: do not hesitate to seek help from professionals, do not hesitate to try drugs (I did for too long). Find a friend or a family member that you can talk to. Seek help from therapists. Talking about it has helped me a lot.

(Un)fortunately, it's not either-or; Everyone has at least periods of depression, triggered by all kinds of bad things happening in personal life and elsewhere, especially if these are repetitive. I feel that separating it into "yes I have it" and vice versa is kinda artificial. We are talking about degrees only.

I'v been around many diagnosed and undiagnosed depressed people in my life. Work with and live with a few. So it's a part of my everyday life. I'm used to it and how to deal with them. It really drags you down if you can't pull them out. I have white hair now because of it.

ow wow.. i can't stop laughing and feel insulted in a way..


anyway your dad passed away.. its ok to feel down.. are you sure your not overanaylyzing all this stuff right now?

I've had depression on and off since I was 16 and whilst it's often the worse place to be, it can also be the most productive because I go into my own head with a sledgehammer and a scalpel. It's a gift from a family that never appreciated me, always looked down on me and a school that bullied me. It made me realise early on in life that 'I' am not this body, 'I' am this mind and my body is just the vehicle that transports or serves my mind. I used to hold on with dear life to the edge of that dark precipice but realised all I was doing was prolonging the pain and lengthening the recovery period. Now I just drop willingly into tears and loneliness. While I'm there I write so that when I'm back to something resembling normality I have something to help me welcome that imposter again when it comes a calling. This is something I wrote when visiting:

Coats For Wings

I watch the others from the window of my second floor flat, engaged – as they always are – in aimless chitchat or wandering without reason. They have scripted intent and are preoccupied with the humdrum activities that stuff an ordinary life. I envy those flat stones, the way they skim across the surface of this vast, bottomless ocean.

I lift a cigarette to my mouth and hold it steady for exactly three beats before drawing. Smoke fills my lungs and gathers there, before I purse my lips and blow it to the ceiling – evenly. My shoulders are relaxed; my feet planted exactly six inches apart. Although I have no curtains, no one notices me there: this shadow, this colourless chameleon. It chose me though, this life. I could never untangle myself from it, just like the twisted, wet blankets of my childhood nightmares.

The white, matt walls of my hallway feel smooth as my fingertips glide across them, except in two places where the paint had dried thicker. There are fifteen steps to the bottom of the stairs, each taken with an equal distribution of weight, the only eyes my own, yet cruelly judgemental. A bin and my bike are crammed into the six-by-four foot space there, static like a snapshot. I kick the mudguard to see it rattle and so verify my presence.

It was time, time to join them.

What will be the first thing my eyes see when I open the door? This would be my point of entry, the catalyst for a sequence of moments, noted for future reference. A blackbird looks at me, its simple soul torn between the worm and the trespasser closing the door. Clearly, its fledglings are more important than this ghost that wafts silently by, because, although its wings flutter as if to take flight, its claws cling firmly to the fence.

I pause by the roadside, watching an open top convertible hum by and consider the starlet at the wheel, her auburn hair snaking around her sunglasses in the vacuum of displaced air. Delicately and with poise, she plucks strands from her lips and continues on, oblivious of everything except ‘There must be an Angel’ playing on the car radio.

As I step onto the curb on the other side of the road, the spaces I vacate diminish, while the space I step into swells with the noise of possibility. I live there in that void, ethereal, weightless, like a finger through smoke. There is but one constant in my disjointed existence: the smile on my face. It had been one of the first moments I thumb-nailed as I grew into my skin, and it served me well over the years. However, just like the smoke, it is fragile and my eyes convey the sadness my lips attempt to conceal. The world presses at my back, the unknowable chilling the warmth of the rock I carry deep in my pockets. I cling onto it, trying to ignore the ugly, dim-witted fool I see reflected in the shop windows as I pass, unable to ignore him, unable to forgive him.

A willowy youth strolls towards me, face ashen, eyes unseeing. There is no joy in his gait, just a stumbling forward momentum that speaks volumes of the autopilot sat uncomfortably in his head. His words are hidden behind thin, dried lips, and even though I tempt them with a nod of recognition, they are prisoners of his tongue.

How do people lose themselves in a world full of mirrors?

The supermarket is in full flow, its blood the feet of a hundred patrons, shuffling backwards and forwards through the maze, each lost in this world of marketing. Here, the abstract merges with the real, the promise of quality, as thin as the label they are printed on. A woman considers two tins of beans, reading the small print carefully. Once she has decided upon which is healthiest, she drops her choice into a trolley – alongside the multi-pack of assorted crisps, and the jumbo tub of chocolate-chip ice-cream. Her chubby son plucks at her hem, the podgy finger of his other hand, pointing out the pick-and-mix. Further down the aisle a suited, sour faced man, lolls on the handle of a trolley and feigns intrigue as his wife weighs size with cost, chirruping like a trapped canary.  I’m here for my dole, which is served up as an affirmation of my insignificance.

The doors slip aside and I leave the warmth of the blower in the lobby, emerging into sunlight. A jam of cars is backed up from a set of traffic lights and I scoot through a gap, my eyes focused on my flat a block away. I wait for ‘Walk’ and cross the crossing, seeking the shadow of the houses, with their lace curtains and hanging baskets. There are many eyes but I do not feel seen as I amble along the pavement, sanctuary only one minute and thirty-five seconds away.

There is no blackbird to welcome me back.

I run up the stairs and close the door to my flat with my back, the public smile slipped off like ill fitting shoes. I take a cigarette paper from the table and pinch Amber Leaf tobacco from a pouch, teasing it along the paper until it is spread perfectly. With the tip of my tongue, I lick along the sticky edge and then roll it between my fingers and thumb, twisting one end, which I poke between my lips. I flick a clipper and take a few drags.

The window is calling.

I remember when I was twelve, sitting on the balcony at the Saturday matinee and marvelling as those enormous curtains swept aside. The hush that fell was so sweet, so comforting, as the reel flickered into motion and the certification hopped and crackled, before the main feature began. A tubular craft spiralled to earth, sparkles for thrust. It was just me, the screen, and a bag of Opal Fruits. Flash Gordon towered above me, bigger than anything in the theatre. For two hours, the world did not exist, just a distant planet, a cartoon with Daffy Duck and a documentary about polar bears.

I was always disappointed when the lights went on and the exits let in the outside. I would sit there until the cinema was empty before rising to leave; because through that exit I could see the thing I could never be; through that exit, I could see the thing I could never know:

I saw the children using their coats for wings.