I think it's unhelpful to compare our degree of suffering to others' and become embittered.

At first, when I came off my antidepressant and was learning how deep the damage was that it did to me, I was pretty upset about how much normality I'd lost. Over 14 months later, much of that damage is still with me. I know others who have suffered worse from the meds they were on.

Some of them are still full of rage and are railing against the system and the people who did this to them. They are stuck.

Some others accept what has happened to them and move on. Acceptance doesn't mean that you are free of sorrow or pain. But if you stay stuck in the anger and resentment, however justified it may be, you cannot heal.

I could easily make a long list of the horrible things that have happened to me that weren't my fault, especially during the past 3 years. I choose not to focus on that, and accept it as part of life as best I can. (Try, for example, holding a marriage together when you do not feel any emotions due to depression, and have ongoing sexual dysfunction due to a drug you stopped taking over a year ago.) What I do try to focus on is the positives, and they can be found.

With every step I've taken in trying to treat my depression, and so far none of them have lifted it, I have learned important things.

I have been able to get my husband to understand something about what is happening to me, and I know he is waiting for me to get better.

I now eat a wonderful nutritious diet and take good supplements. I know that these will serve me well the rest of my life. What's more, I can use what I have learned to help others, and I know how to give my daughter the best health too.

I am much more aware of some fundamental truths. I used to be someone who blindly trusted what the doctor said and took what he prescribed for me.

Even though I am emotionally numb, I also am so much more alive than I ever was. I have had such a profound experience. How can anyone know the heights of joy if they haven't experienced the depths of despair. I have LIVED.

And it's only going to get better from here.

I know that this is my own very individual experience. But I thought I'd share it. I do still look around sometimes, see people who have never been damaged by drugs, never had depression, who have enough money that they don't have to worry about how to pay their bills. And yes I'm envious sometimes. But we're all on our different paths. Like I said, if a person hasn't gone through much suffering, they will not have made much progress on that path.

When everything seems so awful, of course it's easy to say why is this happening, I can't see what I'm getting out of it. Maybe you can't see it now. But you will when it's over, I am sure. Maybe you will need to move down your own path a little further, and experience or learn a few more things, before that becomes clear. Sometimes we can't know what lies directly ahead until it presents itself.

When the depression began, I could never have imagined the twists and turns that path would take me on. How in the world did I end up here, LOL. But it's so good. I know I have changed. I can't wait to find out about the person I have become, once I am well.

Linda.