Not saying let's all go off meds and try lifestyle changes, meditation, and yoga, but how many of us can say we've actually tried all that in conjunction with our meds and still haven't achieved the desired results? If you can't feel exponentially better for improving every aspect of your health in combination with medication, then there's probably a common factor contributing to your suffering. It's your prerogative and your responsibility, to yourselves and others, to get answers and get better so that the human race has a chance at survival. You know what the last symptom of depression is? Death. This should never be the outcome of a treatable condition. If you're not willing to explore every possible avenue for alleviating your symptoms and healing your illness, you can't expect anyone else to either.

I don’t know if it’s worth it to keep going. I have so many diagnoses, so little support, and constant struggles with finding the right medication. My immune system is weak, I have multiple deficiencies, and I’m dealing with so many physical health problems on top of severe OCD. It’s just too much. On top of everything, my family treats me so not okay. Every single day is a fight just to keep going—to wake up, to eat, to take care of myself even a little. I’ve lost over ten pounds in the last two weeks from how depressed I’ve been. And instead of support, all I get is blame. My family constantly throws my struggles in my face, calling me selfish, as if I’m choosing this. I am trying so hard to push past all of this. But after five long months of severe OCD, anxiety, depression, panic disorder, and everything else making life unbearable, I am exhausted. And to be called lazy? Selfish? *Worthless*? How am I supposed to keep going when the people around me refuse to see how hard I’m trying? I don’t want this anymore. None of this suffering feels worth it. What am I fighting for just to be treated this way by my own family? To be yelled at for the look on my face, when my face reflects nothing but the stress, panic, and despair I’m drowning in? Am I still supposed to smile for them? This isn’t fair. No one should have to live like this. I don’t deserve to be treated this way, I’m really trying to keep going, but I just want everything to end.

This is kind of a weird question, but I recently increased my SSRI dosage and have experienced tremendous relief. It has quieted my intrusive thoughts so much and my compulsions are no longer as all-consuming. However, I don’t want to be on this high of a dosage forever and know that medication alone shouldn’t be my only fix. I’m seeing a new psychiatrist on Wednesday and am wondering if the recent decrease in frequency of my symptoms will be a bar to my getting ocd treatment? In other words, if in this present moment I’m doing better, but up until a few days ago my compulsions were taking up pretty much every moment of my waking day, will I still be classified as having ocd? I start getting worried when I feel better that I don’t actually have ocd and just use it as a defense mechanism to avoid consequences of my actions/I’m secretly a terrible person

This is just a vent. Feels nice to just be honest about who I am and my deficiencies. Mental health advocates are always like "you deserve to live no matter what" and I'm like "bet lol" I am not a good person whose presence has any positive impact on the world. I'm not evil, just useless without having the excuse of depression or whatever (it's anxiety based but again who gives a shit). If I were to go away, I wouldn't be missed because I contribute nothing of note. If we did not live in the US where you can get by without being socially accepted as long as you have loving parents, I would either be dead or would have stepped up and might actually be a valuable member of society (like between being dead and pushing through my anxiety I would probably choose the latter lol). Interpersonally, I have no redeeming qualities. No I'm not one of those people who says that shit and then lists all the ways they're actually decent but just have low self-esteem, I'm genuinely useless. I'm unreliable when it comes to group projects and my job, usually doing the bare minimum or less than that. When it comes to my work in general, I tend to drop the ball, often waiting till the last minute to get started on it, turning it in late, or simply not turning it in at all. I make promises about the things I will do and then don't do them. I also lack initiative and just follow orders. Socially, I don't have any friends and don't make an effort to try to gain any - I tend to act distant in social interactions and don't join in when people are having group conversations. I'm a talented artist, but the only work I've ever shown others in the last few years has been shoddy, amateurish, and completely unreflective of my abilities, and I've never been complimented for it lol. How do I feel about all this? Pretty freaking bad, yet I make no effort to change. I'm afraid of most things so I avoid them, screwing up my own life and negatively affecting other people's as well. Despite all this, I have this desire to be accepted by someone else as I am. The fact that I accept myself shows that it's possible, I guess (you could argue that I don't have a choice but I definitely chose to be okay with myself after years of self-loathing). I have a shit-ton of flaws and nothing to really offset them - I mean I'm self-aware but I think self-awareness is completely useless if you don't do anything about what you've observed in yourself, and less self-aware people are able to take more risks - and I just have this fantasy of someone showing up and looking at all that I am and being like "you have contributed literally nothing to society and you have no redeeming qualities but I accept you as you are and love you, for no reason other than I just do." But based on the comics I've read this can only happen if you're childhood friends who've known each other for a long time lol. No reason someone's gonna want to be friends with some random person who leaves a poor first impression and doesn't do anything to further the relationship. The plus side of this is that I have a /lot/ of room for growth, lots of things to change that could make me a better person. The negative side is that it is still just as hard to not be avoidant af as it was yesterday