recuring depression

blackhole soul,

There is good news and bad news This is from personal experience.

The bad news is major depression often re-surfaces, sometimes for no apparent reason, sometimes because of more stressful events.

The good news, is there is help out there beyond counseling and meds. Both of those can be good, but meds especially ignore (in my opinion) the underlying problem.

Some talk-treatment makes it worse -- it is not good for a depressed person to go over their past over and over again. And it can help if you realize when you are thinking about the same things (past or present) over and over again, or thinking dis-heartening thoughts.

If you haven't already, spend some time here: Learning Path

I realized I was depressed 7 years ago, and it has been up and down since then, but much more up than down. I'm glad to hear you are generally improved.

I'm not a professional; I hope to hear from some of the pros here.

~Mermaid

Hi blackhole soul - welcome to the forum!

Please do follow Mermaid's advice to look at the Depression Learning Path. This has a lot of information about how and why depression can come back, and what will help stop it coming back.

Plenty of people who have struggle with depression for years longer than you have learned to overcome it and keep it away, so you can certainly take hope from that!

When you've read the Learning Path, perhaps you would like to share with us what factors seem most significant to you in bringing your depression back again, and we can suggest ideas to help deal with that.

Kathleen