throwaway_42_2

I should add that the reason I stopped taking the bupropion was that I felt it "worked" by turning down the gain on the more critical parts of my mind, rather than allowing me to reinterpret my own critical thoughts. In other words, I felt like it improved my mood but made me a bit more dimwitted.

Truth be told, everything we experience and do causes semi-permanent changes to the structure of the brain that we don't really understand.

I'd agree with you on the psychotherapy thing. I'm currently in some pretty intense therapy and it's been really good. I would recommend it strongly to anyone who can afford someone they're willing to trust.

I can't tell from your response, though, if you had tried out SAM-e ? I called it a drug earlier, but it's currently sold as a (n admittedly pretty expensive) supplement. It's hard to find a research study that doesn't show a pronounced effect of the supplement over placebo -- in fact, it was my psychiatrist who recommended it to me (I had stopped taking the bupropion and things were getting pretty bad again).

I was/am scared of the long term effects of psychoactive medication, and so wanted the least potent thing available. Plus SSRIs have side-effects that made me less-than enthusiastic.

As someone who has taken a variety of treatments for depression (never SSRIs -- only Bupropion, St. John's Wort, and most recently S-Adenosyl methionine, or "SAM-e") I can say from my own personal experience that they most definitely do _something_, and for me it's almost always positive. In fact, the only reason I've begun to suspect the role of "chemical imbalances" (which are likely caused by the environment and my own response to it) is because of SAM-e's effectiveness.

I have absolutely no financial interest in saying so, but because of its positive effects I'd like to make a plug: SAM-e has been completely wonderful for me -- it's worth checking out the extensive literature on it, which show results that are arguably more impressive than those of the SSRI and tricyclic crowd, especially because SAM-e has virtually no negative side-effects.