So, I know it’s a little long, but here’s the whole story of my battle with depression and how I finally found something safe and effective to treat it. I know this is a difficult time of year for a lot of people, and if you’re one of the millions out there dealing with any form of depression I really hope this helps you take the first steps towards beating it.
It’s still hard for me to make anyone understand the devastating effects of depression if they’ve never experienced it themselves. It’s like this deep pit you can’t climb out of, this sucking feeling inside your chest that feels like it will swallow you whole… metaphors never seem to be enough to get the point across. Even with the growing acceptance of depression as a legitimate mental illness, some people still think that it’s all in your head. Like you can just WILL yourself to stop being sad all the time.
For me, depression was more than just a mood problem. I had trouble concentrating on anything, I had trouble sleeping, and I either ate way too much or nothing at all. It affected my grades, my job, and my relationships. By the time I got to college it was so severe that I wound up in an emergency room.
I finally started getting treatment for depression, and it worked alright. For a while at least. I got my life back on track, patched up a lot of friendships, and started dating my future husband. But under the surface, I knew there was still something wrong. When we found out we were having our first child, I knew about the risks of post partum depression, but I thought since I’d already been through such a serious depressed episode I’d be able to handle it.
You can imagine how well that went.
Another hospitalization, a huge strain on my marriage, and two weeks away from my baby boy later, I promised myself that I would never let something like this happen again. So when I found out that number two was on the way, I knew I couldn’t sit idly by and let depression sneak up on me again.
Counseling alone wasn’t enough, so my therapist put me in touch with a psychiatrist. I went into the office expecting to have to argue him down on the dosage of an anti-depressant to cut down on the risk to my unborn child, but he surprised me. He told me he’d recently read about a fish oil study that showed mood stabilizing effects for women and adolescents with mild to moderate depression. Since I wasn’t at a crisis point, and we didn’t want to take any unneccesary risks with the baby, we decided to try it out.
Long story short, it worked. Within two weeks, I was already feeling better and the feeling lasted all the way through to the birth and beyond. No baby blues, no depression. What really made me happy, though, was knowing that there were no harmful side effects for me or the baby. In fact, the other benefits of fish oils are well documented. DHA supplements are believed to help with eye and brain development for infants and developing fetuses, and DHA and EPA have proven benefits for heart health.
Now, I wasn’t told which fish oil supplement to use, I was just given a daily dosage of EPA to meet. I went with nature made fish oil because I knew that quality mattered (it was also the one they stocked at my grocery store). All joking aside, it was really important for me to choose a high quality fish oil product, since I didn’t want to risk fishy burps or high mercury content. What I didn’t know at the time was that even sites like amazon carry fish oil pills, so I could have skipped the trip to the store alltogether.
Click here to see for yourself.
I know this won’t work for everyone, but in all my discussions with other folks who have depression we shared one concern: how can I fix this with the least harmful side effects? Anti-depressants can be really effective for some people, but they carry certain risks that are pretty unpleasant for people who get struck with them. Using fish oil for depression, the only thing I’ve ever run into is side benefits. I’m no doctor, and I certainly can’t give anyone medical advice. I can only speak from my experience and my own research.
