How long did getting mental health help take?

This may be long...and still won't really answer your question.

I've had three bouts of depression - well, more like two-and-a-half. One of them was sort of skirting the edges of depression without ever truly succumbing. And I sort of followed three different paths dealing with each one.

For the first one, I decided to sort of tackle it myself. I did have a doctor do a complete physical to rule out any obvious physical issues (there were none), and I saw a therapist twice to sort of work on some basic "coping skills" to try out during the worst periods. But other than that, I just handled it myself. And that took months. From my vantage point now, I can sort of see that things started getting bad in October of that year, I got proactive about doing something in late November, and didn't really start pulling out of it until February. But a lot of that had to do with moving to a new city and sort of starting a whole new life for myself. (Which, ironically, was NOT a plan to deal with the depression - it just sort of happened.)

The second bout, I decided to treat it as a medical issue. I saw my doctor, took the quickie "are you clinically depressed" quiz (and yes I was), and was put on an anti-depressant. That took about two or three weeks to really kick in, but I very vividly remember exactly how it felt when it did. (Imagine standing in a downpour for three months, and then suddenly having the sun shine on you for thirty seconds. It felt like that.) That was the start of my bounce out of that depression, which took another month or two to really emerge from.

This last bout was the sort-of-edges-of-depression. And basically I just monitored how things were going, using my coping skills, and promising myself I'd go see the doctor if I fell below a certain level, or ended up below another level for a lengthy period of time. And that just never happened. It wasn't an instantaneous fix - I was in that "sort of kind of" zone off and on for three or four months - but my coping skills were apparently good enough to keep me from things getting too bad.

But here's the thing. My issue was clinical depression, which as it-sucks-rocks as it is, is fairly straightforward when it comes to diagnosis and treatment. In my second bout, I saw the doctor, got the prescription that day, and was starting to head out of the woods a few weeks later. In contrast, you've got a couple of preliminary diagnoses that aren't so easily dealt with. Thus the lengthier tests and so forth. So I'm not sure our two situations are completely analogous.

That said, you SHOULD be getting some help in moving forward. Definitely contact your doctor, or whoever did the test, and see if the results are available yet. While talking to him, see if you can be referred to some places or reading material so you can do what I did - work on some coping skills until you can get the full diagnosis and get started on treatment.

Lex

 

Not really much to tell. I had been looking to break into a new field for several months. I had taken trips out to other cities and states, talked with a lot of people, made some contacts. But still nothing in the way of a job. Finally, in January, I was offered my first job in that field. It was in another state, the hours were awful, and the pay was about as low as possible. (Let's just say getting a second job was going to be a foregone conclusion.) But I knew I was going to have to start somewhere, so I took the job.

Suddenly I had to start focusing on things. Finishing my current jobs. Arranging to get a car (I didn't own one at the time). Planning the trip out there. Drawing up a new budget to try to make my minimal funds last while I looked for a second job. Figuring out housing. And it seems having to do that helped my depression a fair amount. My brain suddenly had new tasks to perform, and that meant my brain had something else to focus on for awhile.

To an outsider, it probably seems like "oh, he was depressed about not having a job in that field, but once he got one, the depression was gone". But no, it wasn't really like that. Sure, not having that job didn't help matters. But I remember what led me to really realize that something was wrong. I tried to visualize having a job in that field - hell, I fantasized about having what you might call a "perfect job". And it didn't help at all. During the worst part of the depression, I'd think "What's the use? I still wouldn't be happy. Nothing can make me happy now." And even after I got the job, moved to the new state, and settled in, the depression wasn't completely gone. It was definitely better, but there were some residual feelings that it took a couple of months to really shake.

Back to you.

I'd go ahead and take another look at going on anti-depressants. Your idea of staying off them while they completed their diagnosis was a sound one, I think. But if it's going to keep taking longer to start treatment, there's really no reason to keep avoiding them. It may in fact be a "band aid", but right now, you're bleeding a lot - a band aid wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea, right?

My anti-depressant worked out well. It did take a few weeks to kick in, and I got the side effects before I got any actual benefit, but that's pretty common. Anti-depressants are meant to sort of put your brain back into order, and that's not something you want to have done quickly and suddenly. They sort of have to nudge things back into place, slowly and carefully. It's easy to think "this isn't working", but I stuck with it, and gave it a chance to kick in.

My side effects were pretty minor. I'd occasionally get a ringing in my right ear for about 15-30 minutes soon after taking the pill. And I'd often get a bit of a "vague" feeling, sort of like being on cold medication. But I never felt "zombified", or anything like that. They weren't "happy pills". Before I was on them, I literally COULDN'T think positive thoughts. Afterwards, I was at last able to. I could stop thinking of those majorly negative things, and focus on other stuff. And that's precisely what they're supposed to do.

Lex

 

All true enough. But until you have a diagnosis, you simply have a list of symptoms. And until everybody's confident on the root cause of the symptoms, you're stuck treating the symptoms.

Of course, if a diagnosis is just a few days away (or in fact already overdue), then definitely just wait for the diagnosis and the accompanying course of treatment. Given that, you may just look into those "coping skills" that I mentioned. You'll probably have to try a fair number, and whatever works today might not work tomorrow (and vice versa). But it's good to have as many arrows in your quiver as possible to help get you along.

Lex