This is the first of a series of articles on depression — my depression. They are written from a very personal perspective; they are my views of how I see things working and what it feels like on the inside. Your views and experiences may be vastly different. My views and experiences are not necessarily backed by scientific evidence or current medical opinion. These articles are not medical advice or treatment pathways. If you think you have a problem then you should talk to your primary care physician.

My name is Keith. I have depression.
I have been in a serious bout of depression for most of the last 6 months — yes all summer and autumn — and I have no clue why.
I’ve decided to write a occasional things about depression; my depression. Just because.
Unless you are one of the half a handful of people closest to me you would probably not know I have depression, because most of the time when I’m out and about I can put on a mask to hide it and function more or less normally.
I want to get rid of the depression but I don’t have the first fucking clue how to.
No that isn’t an invitation to tell me how to do it – so please don’t! — because over the years I have tried almost everything and it hasn’t worked (as you’ll see by reading on).
I’ve been on antidepressants for many years; this time around I know it is well in excess of 12 years because I was on them when I changed doctors shortly after the millennium. I’ve been on the tablets for so many years I no longer have a clue whether they are doing any good, but currently it feels as if they’re useless.
Unfortunately the antidepressant I’m on is one of the worst for withdrawal symptoms when you try to get off them. I’ve had several attempts over the years but failed every time. After talking with my GP recently I’m currently having another attempt to switch to a different antidepressant. I’m hopeful this time I will succeed; but I’m fearful that I won’t.
What makes this worse is that I don’t really know why I have depression. I know that it is multifactorial and I know what some of those factors may be. For instance I know that I am worse during the winter and that I do technically have mild SAD (I was tested for that about 25 years ago). I know change and overload are also big factors. And there may be a genetic predisposition as my father and his father were also both depressives. Worrying about all the things I know I should do (exercise, lose weight, blah, blah, blah) makes the depression worse too. So it isn’t as if there is one cause which I can change to fix the problem. I wish there were.
Along with the depression, for me, go anxiety and panic attacks. Fortunately the panic attacks are now relatively rare; much rarer than they were back in the 1990s. But only because I have found strategies to avoid putting myself in the position where they are likely to happen; so I can to a large-ish extent control this.
For instance, I dislike the London Underground: the motion; the lack of fresh air; being packed in like sardines; the claustrophobia. So ask me to travel on a packed tube train and you’re asking me to have a panic attack. So I don’t travel on the underground if I can avoid it, although short distances and the over-ground parts are doable, sometimes. I feel similarly about buses, although there the problem is more to do with motion sickness — something I’ve always suffered from. Compensating for this gets expensive as it means using taxis. And luckily I am OK with normal trains; I’ve always loved proper trains.
Here’s a useful graphic which will tell you a lot more about depression. (Click the image for a larger, readable, version.)

To be continued …