Peter

Peter first experienced depression as a teenager when he said he often felt that he didn’t fit in or enjoy life as much as other teenagers. He first realised that these feelings were a symptom of depression when he was about 16 and was feeling totally overwhelmed. Looking back he feels he had a ‘mini-breakdown’ but hadn’t really known why or what was happening. He managed to get through this time and the depressive period passed.
 
It wasn’t until he went to university that he experienced another severe depressive episode and this time he went to see the GP. His GP prescribed fluoxetine which lifted his mood and eventually he stopped taking it, although his GP recommended that if he felt the need he could take them now and again when he felt he needed to. Although he did try this strategy, ultimately he didn’t feel the benefits from taking them on an occasional basis.
 
‘It took about a day or so to actually kick in so that was not so helpful, if you’re having a bad day and you say right well I’ll take an antidepressant and then it takes a while to actually kick in so that wasn’t ideal but in the end I really just stopped taking it and I felt fine.’
 
When Peter experienced a further episode of depression he decided to speak to a family friend who is a psychiatrist about how he was feeling. The psychiatrist recommended that he switch to another antidepressant, venlafaxine, which he found lifted his mood almost immediately and he said he felt better than he had done in years.
 
‘I just felt a lot better you know I just felt less tired, a lot brighter, a lot clearer thinking I started to appreciate life a lot more, I started to appreciate people around me more, I started to appreciate how fortunate I am, became much more optimistic, just a much happier person.’
 
Peter was initially a little erratic about taking the antidepressant regularly but now realises the importance of sticking to the daily regime and keeping going with them even when you feel all right. Although Peter would like to stop taking pills, he has resigned himself to the fact that he might have to continue taking them as he has found improvements in his mood often disappear once he stops taking the medication.
 
‘I’d really love to be in a position where I wouldn’t have to take any pills but I think , my, every experience I’ve had of stopping taking pills has been negative’.
 
Peter has also developed personal strategies for managing depression, such as keeping a mood diary and monitoring his sleep. He has also found Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and counselling useful. Peter feels that it is important for health professionals to offer patients a range of different options. He also thinks it would have been helpful if the doctor had initially given him more information about the variety of different antidepressants and to have known more about them.
 
‘The thing with antidepressants is that there are so many of them I wish, what I wish someone had told me when I was starting out is there are so many of them they do different things, they might not work …] you need to be patient with them, you need to realise that it’s not going to wave a magic wand and you’re going to feel fantastic immediately it might take a week it might take, in my case you know it took years before I got on the right one.