Does depression ever get better?

I know that everyone is different when it comes to depression. I'm only eighteen, but I've struggled with it since middle school. I got put on medication around my junior year of high school. it took awhile to find the right one.

Several women struggle with it in my family. Sometimes they go through periods where it's worse than others. My mom told me it's always a struggle, but you learn to tolerate it. But I'm pretty worried; maybe hopeless is a better word.

For awhile, I tried to convince myself that happiness was a choice. But it simply isn't. It's a chemical reaction in my brain and I can't control it; It doesn't matter how open minded I am, how optimistic I am, or how willing I am to get better. Some days I really feel like I'm trapped in a hole and nothing seems to get a rise out of me. Everything feels so bleak and pointless. I know that I'm not the center of the world and I need to be responsible for myself. I just need to be strong because this is how things are going to be. but oh goodness, it's just getting so old and so tiring, always feeling alone.

Mental illness has a really bad stigma in my family. It brings a lot of bad feelings; lots of bitterness and anger and denial. The only person I can really talk to is my mother, but that's not easy for me. it's very hard for me to trust her, and she neglected me several times growing up. It's difficult to go to someone when they were never really there when you needed them, if that's a better way to put it.

I guess an example would be my junior year. My eating habits had been going downhill for a few years, but that was when it got out of hand. I was severely underweight. When I returned to school after the summer, the staff kinda freaked out. Within two days, eight people had gone to my school counselor explaining that something was very wrong with me. But I didn't recognize that I had a problem, and no one in my family did either, even though I had lost 60 pounds within a year. My counselor (and even my teachers) had to call my parents several times to get them to see that there was an obvious problem. I got sick and went to the doctor one day. He was very concerned; he told me that I was going to die if I didn't get help. He had a long talk with my dad. That was the only reason I got on medication early.

I worry that the depression will only get worse. i go through these periods where I practically give up my identity to find happiness. I start questioning my values, my beliefs, my future, my everything, and I get this strange relief from doing that. i force myself to start looking at things in a different way. But i fall back into the hole every time, and it always feels more intense. I've attempted suicide three times, but my last attempt was four years ago. I just started college this semester. it was something that i wanted so badly. No one in my family has gone to college, but i managed to figure everything out on my own. I didn't want to stress about money, so I decided to go to community college and I got it paid for by scholarship. But the past few months I have felt so terrible. it's this kind of sadness that I've never experienced before. most days I wake up and the only thing that pulls me through the day is knowing that i can go back to sleep eventually.

I think so much. I've always stayed on top of my school work, but lately I think so much that I can't focus on anything. I could just walk around the neighborhood for hours thinking about things, trying to make sense of things. And some days, at least twice a week, I wake up feeling enraged. I can't put my finger on the reason, I just feel so angry about everything. On those days I can barely talk to people. I'm afraid I'll just snap and look crazy.

Does it ever get better? If anyone is willing to share some of their experiences, I'd like to hear them. or if anyone can provide some kind of advice, that would be helpful. I feel really alone.

To me, I believe it's a lifelong struggle. Not saying you will be depressed forever or always, but that you have to take care of yourself every day. I've been depressed since at least 9th grade which was about 9 years ago. I've been worse and I've been better, but always it still lingers. I assume that's partly because of how long I've been "hanging in there" and surviving the days and years rather than being able to take action. I can say it's a daily struggle and a lot of work just to achieve minor goals, but you will achieve them with one small step at a time.

Sometimes we do need help though. Wrhether that be medication or counseling or whatever. I can say I would not be able to even attempt getting better without medication. My mother is schizophrenic/OCD (really bad) and a lot of how I feel has no "reason" such as losing someone. Before taking the medication I'm on now I was holding on by a thread waiting to be able to get insurance. I would have intense moods swings throughout the day from happy to suicidal to okay to thinking I can do anything to depressed for no reason at all. What it felt like was I'd be alright or in a good mood then I'd be walking and all of a sudden I'd start to feel this heaviness come over me and weigh me down and I knew it was coming.

I can say the times I've decided to give up were the times I ended up hitting rock bottom, and that wasn't fun at all. Don't give up, fight. Don't give depression the satisfaction of ruling your life, it's yours so take it back.

I know exactly how you feel. just wanted to say you are not alone.
please just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
there are seriously a lot of people that really don't understand clinical depression.
I can also very much relate to the enraged feeling for no apparent reason. usually my wife gets the brunt of that as she is nearest.
seems the fact that you have been able to figure out everything for your college education (so far) shows things aren't as hopeless as they often feel.