I’ve been trying to find an MDD treatment that actually helps, but so far everything feels either useless or hard to stick with. One medication made me feel numb and exhausted, while another caused side effects before I noticed any improvement. Therapy has helped me understand some patterns, but getting myself to appointments and doing the work between them is difficult when I’m already barely functioning.
The frustrating part is not knowing whether I should give each treatment more time or admit it isn’t working. I had one week where I could get up earlier and do a few normal things, then slid right back down. It made me hopeful and discouraged at the same time.
How did you know when a treatment was worth continuing versus when it was time to try something else?
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@Kimberly_Taylor, that one better week can be so confusing. I’ve had that happen too, where I started wondering if I’d finally turned a corner, then lost the momentum and felt even worse. I try not to treat one good stretch as proof that something is working, or one bad stretch as proof that it isn’t.
For me, it helped to track just a few things, like sleep, energy, side effects, and whether basic tasks felt a little less impossible. Then I could bring something concrete to my prescriber instead of trying to remember everything through the fog. I wouldn’t stop or change medication without checking with them, but side effects that make functioning harder are worth bringing up right away.
With therapy, I’ve needed to make the goal smaller than “do the work.” Sometimes getting to the appointment and mentioning that I couldn’t do the homework is enough for that week. A treatment doesn’t have to feel amazing to be worth continuing, but there should usually be some sign of benefit or a reasonable plan for dealing with the problems it causes.
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The tracking idea makes a lot of sense, especially noting when basic tasks feel less impossible. I tend to remember the worst day and forget the small changes, so having a few simple things written down could give a much fairer picture.
I like what you said about telling the therapist when the homework didn’t happen. That seems more useful than avoiding the appointment out of shame. Sometimes being honest about what I couldn’t do is probably the most relevant thing to work on that week.