Welcome Jeff... I'm so glad you found this site. The nice thing is that we are here 24/7 and willing to listen, support, encourage, and offer suggestions if you get stuck. I've been working through anxiety/social anxiety issues on the sister site, Panic Center. Also found help on the Alcohol Help Center and am back here working on the depression. All the sites have been so helpful... each in a related, but unique way. The one constant is that if you do the homework and participate in the forums... you will begin to feel better. It is no magic or instantaneous cure.... but if you are willing to do the work... you will get better. I look forward to your participation here.
This program can augment the care you are already receiving. Let your doctors know about the program and they may be able to give you some tips on working through it.
Hi. I'm Jeff. I am a 40-year-old disabled Navy veteran and dad of two wonderful children (10-y.o.son and 6-y.o. daughter). Their mother, my second wife, and I separated four years ago and divorced two years ago. I've been in a committed relationship for about a year and a half with a woman who was my best friend way back in 7th-9th grades.
I have suffered from MDD and dysthymia since I was a teenager, and I began suffering from anxiety/panic/social anxiety for five or six years. Prior to the onset of anxiety, etc,. my depressive episodes were not connected to the "outside world." They occurred without regard for how my life was objectively going. My then-psychiatrist and I considered my depression to be purely organic, in part because nearly every living relative of my maternal grandmother has suffered from MDD to some degree, though none as severely as mine. I haven't found psychotherapy to be helpful for most of my life, up to my beginning to suffer from anxiety disorders, and I didn't find a therapist until I began receiving my medical care in 2008, so I am relatively new to non-drug therapy for my mental illness. I've just started seeing a new psychologist - I've literally had only two sessions with him - so I feel like I am starting all over again. Because of the caseload at my VA Medical Center, I see him for an hour every four weeks and my psychiatrist for 30 minutes every four to six weeks. I feel as though I need more frequent, intensive treatment than that, and I am hoping that this site can serve as a resource to augment my sessions with my psychologist and fill the voids in between.
