Hi Ashley,
It is nice to hear from you.
What’s funny is that once depression lifted I naturally started having many interests. I have to make priorities among all my interests because it is impossible to do everything and it is important to balance pleasant activities with my responsabilities.
Along my work I am studying now for my second master degree program and I am doing a particular form of yoga which I love (Ashtanga Yoga) most of the days.
Yesterday I had some important news on my recovery from depression. My pdoc told me that I no longer needed to keep with meds to treat my depression since my recovery is complete. I am really happy because I had been dealing with severe depression for about 3 years with a period of psychotic features along the way. I even had to stop working for 1 year.
The recovery was not easy, envolving a lot of trial and error with many frustrations. I had to consult 5 pdocs and other 5 therapists. Among these people only 1 pdoc really helped me and I didn’t have any results from the therapists. These means that in 10 people only 1 was really helpful and it made all the difference finding this pdoc. Depression is a serious illness and it has to be treated like any other serious illness and the right meds were fundamental on my case.
But CBT was also very important for changing behaviours and thoughts that were associated with my depression. I only found relief through this online program here on the Depression Center.
Because I did CBT for some time (9 months), even some time after feelling better for the prevention of any relapse, today I no longer need what I call formal CBT practices (CBT homework), because all the CBT hard work I did is in certain way registered at a subconscious level and the process is more or less automatic now when I am presented with a new negative though.
