" Lexy, I read your posts too with great interest, and I truly understand what you expressed, because someone very close to me went through the type of severe depression you described. I spent many many hours with him, on many many days, during most weeks for the best part of a year(in 2002). Somehow he came through it, and when he began to improve, after about 10 months, he improved very rapidly, and he is now in fine form "

Thankyou for reading my somewhat harrowing post and replying in detail.If it was helpful, I'm glad.When I was going through the worst of all that I remember thinking " If I ever get out of this I'm going to help others going through the same thing..."   but I never did. When you are no longer there it's difficult to be reminded.

When I was ill I felt like " a leper " ( no offence intended ) and that people might somehow " catch" my gloom, or that I might spoil their life so I was often alone. I think it was fantastic of you to be such a true friend to people who,at that time , could give you little in return.I am sure they will always remember how you stood by and still stand by them.

Interesting that your friend started to recover in a similar time frame to me....when I said it carried on for five years....actually that was different as I was getting stronger and stronger..a gradual process. It's almost as if

the severity of the depression made me very psychologically fragile and it was my psyche or whatever that had to become strong again in a perfect analogy of what happens with severe physical illness.

I am relieved to say I never had delusions but I would suggest that anybody with depressive tendencies should  always avoid recreational drugs, especially pot.  More and more seems to be understood now about the relationship between pot- smoking and mental illness and from my own experience and that of friends,I would not argue about this. ( my illness was definitely not caused by pot smoking  but I know that it had a bad effect on me ).

Personally I think that the best thing anyone can do to foster good mental health is to love and watch over their children with great care. The seeds of my illness were sown when I was very young and abandoned in a childrens home. I think you Gok were also in a home .Weren't you ?

" But the good news is that in the last couple of months she has improved amazingly. Again I am not sure exactly how or why, but again I think that counselling has helped her, and she says it has, but it's only in the last few months she has been attending counselling. Prior to that she felt insulted by the suggestion that she should consider counselling. So even the fact that she is positive ...."

Glad your friend is recovering.I also avoided therapy for a time ( mad ? -me ? never ! ) but a good therapist did help me. He didn't seem to do much but just having a safe listening post was good.I could hardly believe my own story as I heard it coming from my own lips !!!

There was a particular horrible event in my life that triggered my depression but it really was "the straw that broke the camel's back". The rest of the burden on the camel's back was the pretence I had managed to keep up for so long ( with the odd lapse ) that I was just fine when ,of course , I wasn't.

I would recommend that anybody like me and your friends take special care to avoid stress as far as possible,never push themselves too hard ( especially not to OVERDO helping others and in doing this giving themselves away with nothing left over ). Do all the things they love which aren't harmful or destructive and try to appreciate all the small things which make every day.

Re: Medication...my recommendation is cope without it if at all possible and I'm sure that often it isn't and that's O.K. I don't think that I was a "negative thinker" and nor am I now. I don't really have the vocabulary for all this...but I feel that my  "spiritual"/psychological  depletion/exhaustion may have caused some kind of a drop in chemical levels in my brain (???) which I have now read about but that would be  result rather than the cause.

Now ...what about Prem Rawat and Knowledge in all of this ? I am working on that. Forgive me , forum readers if you think you have accidently stumbled onto a Mental health forum...but Pat D. was quite right with her observation that PR and K. and depression often seem to go together. I will post more about this subject ( PR and K and depression ) when I can.

Apologies to forum readers pissed off with this whole subject. xx.