Depression
The world of medicine has advanced greatly in the past ten years. Some studies done at McGill on individuals with severe psychosis who would have otherwise never left the hospital are now seeing certain interventions with a success rate of 20% where one in five patients are able to live independently within a matter of years (Latimer et al. 2006). Long gone are the days of electroshock therapy. Truly remarkable!
However, institutionalized individuals are not the only ones who have benefited from the last ten years of work. Individuals with severe depression have increasingly effective treatments with fewer and fewer side effects at their disposal.
The most important factor in getting better, however, has remained one’s desire to get better.
Have You Tried…
Step 1: Lifestyle Changes
- Physical activity regulates sleep, cravings, and mood.
- Meditation/prayer does much more, but it definitely helps with concentration, physical pain, and reducing depression/anxiety.
- Being unable to make these changes may mean you are too depressed/sick to form these habits. Skip to the next step and keep trying to see if various treatments make step 1 more possible on a daily basis.
Step 2a: Therapy
- CBT: Works on rewiring the brain.
Step 2b: Medication
- Treating depression by increasing “happy molecules” in the brain (usually preventing serotonin from being re-absorbed).
Step 3: Check For Alternative Diagnoses
Step 4: Ketamine Therapy
- Temporarily making you feel happier.
- Mainly: Rewiring the brain more actively than CBT.
- Few side effects, but it can become expensive.
- TMS is another alternative to consider during step 4, but it does not have any permanent benefits to consider.
Step 5: Psilocybin Therapy
- Temporarily making you feel happier or the trip can be horrifying.
- Mainly: Rewiring the brain more actively than CBT; unlike ketamine, it can make things worse.
- High risk, high reward (very little research on it as of 2023).
- Very restricted; legalized for medical purposes in only a few places.
- It can become expensive.
Note: Unemployment tends to worsen rather than relieve depressive symptoms.
Psychosis Prevention
Psychosis can be caused by many factors, including drugs when it comes to substance abuse and depression. It is characterized by a warped sense of experiencing reality. While it is uncommon to be caused by depression, living with it is very harmful to the brain and needs to be treated immediately.