Who does depression hurt?

That's a line from a commercial for the anti-depressant Cymbalta. My answer? You stupid people who came up with that stupid commercial because I am about to punch all of you in the face. I'm sorry but that ad bothers me a lot. It features a sepia-toned video montage of sad-looking people, including a dog gazing up at its owner like "please stop crying and play fetch with me" [whimper]. Don't depressed people have enough to worry without thinking about the psychological state of their pets?

About a year ago, I started taking anti-depressants myself (not Cymbalta - I think I would have refused Cymbalta purely because of that dog). Depression runs in my family, but I had no idea what it really was till that year. Suddenly, I would have a few days a month where I would cry uncontrollably for no reason. And not just a few tears: full-out, snot-pouring-out-of-the-nose, hours-long bouts of sobbing. At first, I would just say to myself, "Huh, that was weird. It was probably just a bad day and will never happen again."

Denial only works for so long, in my case, about 2 months. The crying became more frequent, almost every day. That was the point I said to myself, "Huh, maybe something is wrong." I went to my school's counseling services and had medical professionals portentously tell me that I was depressed. I was so desperate for them to fix me that I agreed to go to weekly therapy.

Therapy is pretty much my definition of hell: sitting in a room being forced to talk about your feelings while someone stares at you. I absolutely hated it, but telling my therapist I wasn't going to come back would have led to talking about my feelings about therapy and I just wasn't up for that. Also, it did eventually start making me feel better though I don't know how.

So I spent months doing all the things they tell you to do when you're depressed: therapy, exercising, eating healthy, getting out of bed every morning. And I felt like a huge loser because it required so much effort just to do ordinary things. I knew nothing was really wrong it my life. And I also knew it was a medical condition and I shouldn't feel pathetic. I knew all these things rationally but it didn't help because I didn't feel them.

I still cried all the time. I think I cried in every restaurant/bar bathroom in Philadelphia. I cried in yoga class, on jogs along the river, in lab while I was pipetting, and I would wait till my boyfriend fell asleep at night so I could cry in bed. When I wasn't crying, I would have dizzy spells or feel exhausted. At times, I would try to reassure myself by saying, "Baby girl, it'll be okay. I'm not going to let anything happen bad to you." I don't know why I called myself baby girl, maybe my depressed self is Jay-Z or something. That's how I knew things were really bad.

Getting over the depression was kind of like trying to lose weight. You just have to work on it every day and you may lose a pound a week, but you don't see the dramatic results anytime soon. I started to get better very slowly. My best friend gks took care of me. We worked together and saw each other every day. I would come in and say "gks, I cried all morning." He would say "oh, that sucks" and it would make me feel better. He made it seem like it was just one of those things that happen and would pass. When my boyfriend broke up with me, he took me to New Deck for chicken fingers and whiskey. He always seemed to like me. Loving people when they're kind of being bitchy assholes isn't so hard because love is blind and whatnot, but actually liking them is an amazing feat.

Even though I was getting better slowly, I realized that I needed more help, so I finally went on anti-depressants. It was an act of desperation at the time, but it was the right decision. Everything just became a little bit easier. I was a little less sad, a little less worried about what people thought of me, and a little less inclined to cry. I don't regret waiting so long to go on medication because learning to deal through therapy was something I needed to do. However, Prozac helped me get the most out of therapy and finally start feeling better. It's been a year, and I'm doing really well. The depression is something I'll deal with for the rest of my life, but at least I know how to deal with it now.

So depression hurts.....but meds, therapy, and especially gks can help.

Dogs looking at you with big, sad eyes = not helpful.