Does Depression Ever Go Away?

I have suffered with depression since the age of 13, does depression ever go away? I don’t personally believe it does, not completely; more that it sits in the background waiting to strike again.

While I now suffer bipolar depressive moods, it does have some similarities to what you expect with depression. It still causes a low depressed mood and because the symptoms are so similar, sometimes people with bipolar disorder are incorrectly diagnosed as having major depression as is what happened to me for many years.

I am swayed to believe that if your depression is cause by circumstances, following the death of a loved one, loss of a job or a relationship breakup for example, then yes its possible this depression once treated correctly will pass and stay away, but if your depression is triggered by brain chemicals I believe you are stuck with it for life.

I think if you can find the root cause of your depression you are one step ahead to recognising and fighting it. There does not always appear to be a cause, yet usually there are underlying issues that have caused this mental illness to rear its ugly head.

I do believe that we can learn to accept and live with depression, that when it does strike again, we are more able to deal with it but it takes a long time to accept we have a mental illness, to realise that antidepressants and therapy are not bad for us and we are not weak by accepting help.

Personally for me depression has always been in my life and I know no difference, I have worked hard and through cognitive behavioural therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy I have learned many techniques yet still when the depression hits hard, there sometimes is no escaping it.

Let’s hear your views; Does depression ever go away?