No more than when I have any illness and someone suggests I seek professional help. Sometimes it's unneeded and unwanted advice and other times it's a helpful, caring suggestion.
I had six serious depressions over the course of my life.
The first time I was 16. It was my mother who suggested I see a psychiatrist. I did so willingly. It helped marginally. He did intelligence, personality and talent tests which helped me decide what to study and what direction to take towards a career. He prescribed Stelazine which lowered my anxiety enought to help me focus on studies and get through my exams. Afterward, I weaned myself off. None of it did anything to get to the roots of the causes of the depression and hence a cure for the tendency.
The second time I was 21. I tried to commit suicide via an overdose of sleeping pills and pain killers, based on a coroner's report on a doctor's suicide which was reported on radio. Unfortunately, I was found and revived; partly vomited, partly my stomach was pumped. I tried to jump out a seventh-floor window of the hospital. I was sectioned into a psyche ward until I was deemed no longer a risk to myself. The various therapies were inadequate because I did not trust the therapists or their methods - I was not yet emotionally ready to admit or face the truth of my past in a public setting.
The third time was in my early thirties. I was ready. I joined Family of Origin work and CoDA and began Theravadin meditation. I stuck at this combination for around 12 years and slowly made some progress. The F.o.G. therapy was expensive - about the cost of a house. It included a psychodynamic approach to dealing with the way past experiences triggered present responses, Gestalt, CBT and a somewhat watered down and incomplete version of NVC. I did change and my relationships greatly improved - but the inner tendency to depression remained below the surface.
The fourth and fifth times I was put onto an anti-depressant, an SSRI. By that stage, I had run out of money for therapy. The last of these, I was left on the drug for longer than two years and began to develop adverse symptoms. I experienced a total loss of libido, ie inability to feel sexual desire, pleasure or arousal. I sometimes attempted to give my best to my husband to please him, but it was horrible for me. Before long he began to sense it and as a result lost interest. It had a negative effect on our relationship. The other symptom of the SSRI was loss of fear. I had no fear of excessive eating and put on weight, no fear of spending money and ended up in poverty, no fear on the roads and took risks (nearly got washed downstream trying to cross a river in flood), no fear of risks in general meaning accidents with the horses ( one time 4 broken ribs and a punctured lung - nearly died.) Finally, I twigged to the cause by stumbling across Serotonin Syndrome on the internet. I weaned myself off over another 18 months.
The sixth time, I used Vipassana and the skills taught in F.o.G. to heal myself - and it worked. Since then, I have been able to prevent myself from spiralling down into depression by stopping the negative self-talk before it gets a grip on my mind and creates negative mental habits. This has made the world of difference.
Lesson learned: therapy can help, but ultimately we must each take responsibility for our own inner processes.
It sounds like the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (Google Vincent Felitti, M.D.). Are you responsible for the long-term effects of childhood trauma?
I wish we had a better mental health system. Mental health awareness has improved, and that's great, but many people fall to the wayside because of finances, particularly the homeless. It would not bother me if someone felt I needed help. Often times we don't realize it ourselves, and it may take the advice of a friend or loved one to realize we can't do it alone. I just hope if I ever need some help, I can afford it. Our health plan only covers something like 8 visits a year. Better than nothing I suppose.
Benedict Arnold 