I was depressed from age 20 to age 45. 10 years of meds and therapy, then therapy therapy therapy. Then I moved back to S. Florida after about 30 years, and I n

I was depressed from age 20 to age 45. 10 years of meds and therapy, then therapy therapy therapy. Then I moved back to S. Florida after about 30 years, and I nearly went out of my mind, persistent mania. I self-treated mania successfully with decent herb. But the experience taught me something, and I investigated and learned more. Sunlight regulates mood. Too much sunlight causes mania (which neatly explains the Florida Man phenomenon). I have cured my 25 year long depression with Sunlight and, when needed, sleep-deprivation (basically, I'd skip a night every once in while if I wasn't getting enough sun in my eyes), and I haven't felt clinical depression in over 7 years, and even through a few family tragedies during this period, my mood has not slipped once in just over 7 years. The things done to the depressed by "modern" medicine is sometimes medieval. Electro-Convulsive Therapy should be illegal. It is the same thing as the scientist with the frog, cuts off one leg, still jumps, cuts off the other leg, frog is deaf. ECT isn't a valid treatment for anything at all. ECT fries the neurological system, obliterating neuronal myelin (which may take 20 years to return, and risks psychosis when it does for the return of a now unfamiliar internal monolog, racing thoughts and hearing voices. In all cases where a patient receives ECT, all cases with no exceptions, the patient will subsequently develop a pain disorder and are no longer able to recognize sarcasm, pinpointing some of the brain-damage ECT causes. Someone close to me was forced into ECT treatments by a quack psychiatrist. It murdered her, her body was still alive, but the person she was... was gone. 20 years later, when her wonderful personality only just started to return, she could no longer sleep because of being unaccustomed to the returning rush of internal thoughts, throwing her into a persistent depression due to going weeks and months without a decent night's sleep, until she took her own life. I'd like to offer some advice to the depressed: stay away from psychiatrists, their only form of treatment is some pill that makes you feel worse. If you need prescriptions, see a Psychiatric Mental Health - Practical Nurse (PMH-NP). Psychologists also help, and they are harmless. Never ever submit to ECT, it won't help you, it just makes you more manageable to other people. If you can get off prescriptions, try getting more sunlight in your eyes every day it is possible, and if you don't get enough, skip a night's sleep, but never more than two in a row. If you experience mania, be very careful. Lithium, for all it's side-effects, rapidly brings stability, but it's effects wear off once levels drop too low. I'm not going to recommend anyone smoke pot, but it worked well enough for me as a stabilizer. But of all the antidepressants tried over 25 years, nothing worked remotely as well as religiously getting as much bright sun in my eyes as I could.