My depression.

I'm feeling desperate again. Things are not as bad as they could be. But the depression does not go away.

Even the warm sun is cheering me up, but I still can't get my mental state right.

What frustrates me the most is my sluggish thinking, it's hard to concentrate, it seems like my brain is frozen.

I struggle with the idea of not taking antidepressants, but can I do it alone?

Would you like to hear my life story?

My childhood was not fun, I would say that I would not wish it on others. In 1986, I was 4 years old when the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster occurred. I was still very young, but I understood what had happened, something terrible. Even then, I had experience with having anxiety.

I will not say anything about my parents, except that I suffered. There were enough childhood traumas. My mother loved me, but my father made her suffer. Therefore, I received the most suffering from my mother in my entire life. The bullying ended after my first and last resistance to physical abuse. I became strong enough, around the age of 13, to defend myself against beatings.

I am 43 years old now, but I cannot explain my mother's behavior. We have a good relationship now. I don't resent her because of it, it's over. What was is past.

At least my mother had time to think about her mistakes later. Especially when I had to go to prison for 6 years, but more about that in the next part of the story.

We did not communicate with my father. He was never close to me. He is an alcoholic.

But later my brain was broken. At the age of 17, I had a "bad trip". That's what I regret the most in my life.

Later on, psychologists assured me that the panic attacks would have manifested themselves at a later stage even without the negative experience of the use of a narcotic substance.

Since then, I have periodically visited doctors, but it did not help. Much later, antidepressants helped me.

But before that, I had another tragedy.

And it happened on my birthday in 2007, when I turned 26.

I was working instead of another who didn't want to come to work. It wasn't my job to transport goods. I worked as a manager for providing building projects with materials. And when the driver quit, I got behind the wheel and tried to do my best to make it work.

Around 5 p.m., I was turning onto the highway and a car hit me at a very high speed. The force of the collision caused both cars to explode. My passengers and I were able to get out of the burning car. But one person was killed in the other car.

Investigations continued for a long time because none of the drivers wanted to admit their guilt. Four years later, I was blessed with a beautiful baby boy, Matthew. And I went to my last court hearing in 2011, when Matthew was one year old, five years after the car accident.

I was sentenced to 6 years in prison. I lost the opportunity to be happy with my son. I was deprived of being together with him. My son didn't know me as a father. My son considered his grandfather to be his father.

In prison, I spent two more years trying to prove my innocence. I did my best to be a son, I did not give up. And when I was already desperate, I received a commutation of my sentence, I was credited with one day in prison for two years.

For three and a half years I lived in prison and dreamed of returning to my family to my son.

But my wife went to another man. I couldn't be with my son again. This destroyed the ground under my feet. And then I got really depressed. I hadn't drunk alcohol for 13 years, I stopped long before the accident. And after the divorce, I started using.

Thanks to my parents and a psychotherapist, I was able to start all over again.

I have a very warm relationship with my son now, in my opinion.

I got married again. But we did not have a wedding. The war broke out. A terrible war.

And now I am depressed again. I read and watch a lot of useful information about depression and chemical metabolism in our brains. I figured it out pretty well, but I still can't find the key. I feel like I'm close to figuring out how to beat it, but it might just be a mirage.

When I reveal this secret, I will let you know more.