I have had depression of varying levels for about 15 years now, ranging from just feeling a little numbed (emotionally) to being very, very close to actually killing myself. I’ve been hospitalized for it six times in the past three years (four of those times in one year). Nothing seems to help me. I’ve tried a bunch of different medications, intensive outpatient programs (at hospitals), being inpatient for it as I mentioned, CBT, DBT, ECT, and TMS, some of them helped a little for a little while, but then maybe a month or so later, my depression comes back again. For me, it seems to be a cycle where I don’t have any choice but to wait it out, until it eases up a bit again. (But I don’t think I’ve ever been manic in my life, and also don’t seem to fit into the category of hypomania (a less severe form of mania), so I really don’t think it’s bipolar disorder or anything despite the fluctuation, because I don’t get the “highs” that are a part of it.)
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"