I posted this as a response to someone asking for 'depression success stories' in another sub, but I just thought I'd post it here as well in case it just lifts anyone who might be feeling down or a bit hopeless..

TW for mentions of self harm, suicidal thoughts/ideation 

I first had symptoms of depression around age 10, though my mum says I was always 'a depressed child'. I was then formally diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety at age 13 by my GP and put on antidepressants. My first suicidal thoughts came into being when I was about 14/15, I don't recall exactly when, but I was definitely still at high school because I would daydream a LOT about jumping off the roof of the school building.
I was then diagnosed with bipolar 2 and psychosis at age 19 and put on antipsychotics and benzodiazapines as well as antidepressants. I was working in a cinema which I hated, I frequently self harmed by cutting- the one episode that stands out to me even now is when I found a glass bottle while cleaning a screen one day, so I took it and put it in my locker. Later on my shift, I went to get the bottle and I went down the back stairs and hid under them. I smashed the bottle and used it to hurt myself. That was a bad time.

I used to take my car out after shifts and instead of going home I'd just drive for hours and hours, going nowhere, just driving. I couldn't bear going home because I felt so unhappy. I'd drive really really fast, stupidly fast, because for that few minutes I felt something other than the blank, black depression. 
One night I drove out to a motorway bridge not far from my house and stood watching the traffic. I wished I had the courage to jump but I didn't. Someone called the police and they came out in two vans; after talking to me and my girlfriend via phonecall, they followed me in my car to her house, and that was that.

I got a new job and a couple of years later a new diagnosis - they said I'd been misdiagnosed and I actually had borderline personality disorder instead. I continued to sink into deeper and deeper depression, i hated myself, I hated my life, I hated everything. I felt sad, angry, numb. In 2013 I eventually lost my job because I was having to take so much time off sick, because I just couldn't cope with being in the office, I couldn't concentrate.
That was the lowest point of my life by a long way. Every single day I'd wake up wishing I hadn't. I was self harming every day. I cried until I had no tears left - and that's not just a saying, I literally ran out - I'd just sit there wanting to cry and let all the sadness out, but no tears were left. I despised myself - every thought was negative, cruel, dark, suicidal. My husband got so desperate, so .. beaten down by my belief that I was better off dead, that he said to me one day "I love you, but if you really need to do it, then I'm not going to stop you". And we both cried together. I lived in darkness for years.
And all through this time I was on medication, and at various points I was seeing mental health professionals. The CPN I had when they told me I had BPD said that people with BPD were manipulative attention seekers who were incurable and so she didn't want to work with me any more. That did a lot to bolster my confidence.

My recovery began when I was discharged from her care. 6 months later I was in such a state I went to my GP and he immediately referred me back to services. However, because I'd moved house I was now under a different 'hub' and so a different team. I was put with the Complex Care and Treatment Team after an assessment and an appointment with a psychiatrist. That psychiatrist, I believe, was the one who saved my life. He changed my medications to venlafaxine and quetiapine which I am on to this day. I did a course of counselling and was given a care coordinator. Once my meds were stable, I did a course of CBT. I was assigned a new care coordinator and we worked together on some really important things. I then did a group called Life Skills which was developed for people with BPD or emotional regulation problems. Once that 6 month course was finished, the facilitator offered me a place on the Personality Disorders Structured Clinical Management program, which is a 100-week intensive intervention program for people with BPD. He was my new care coordinator and he was the person who gave me the skills and the motivation to change my life. The program was amazing, the skills I learnt are invaluable. I did the life skills course again, and I also did a 4 month Compassion Focused Therapy course and another round of CBT.
Alongside all this, I did a lot of personal soul searching, homework, and skill practice. Anyone who tells you that recovery from a mental illness is easy is lying. It takes a hell of a lot of hard work but my god it is worth it.

I am now 33 and although I will most likely be taking the venlafaxine and quetiapine for life, because I've tried to come off them and I've not done well, I'm now 1year out of services with no issues, and although I do have suicidal thoughts (part of the territory with BPD) I can use my skills and my generally good mood to cope with them.
I am 6 years clean from self harm and have a huge arsenal of skills and techniques that I've built up over my time in the various therapy programs I did, which help me every day.

In the darkest times, when I'd been depressed for years and I laid in bed begging for death, I would have laughed in your face if you'd have told me that I'd be where I am now. I genuinely thought I was never ever going to get better. I'd read stories of people who'd been depressed and got better and were all "just hold on, it gets better!" and I'd scoff "yeah whatever" and turn the page. 

But I am testament to it. It DOES GET BETTER.
You have to TRY. Its not a passive thing. And thats where I went wrong. I thought it would get better on its own. But I had to work. I had to work REALLY HARD. 
But I'd do the work again a hundred times over, because being able to say "I'm on the right side of recovery" whenever I'm talking about my journey, feels so damn good.

By the way - I am still unemployed, it will be 8 years on the 21st Feb 2021. I am on long term sick/disabled claiming ESA &amp; PIP for both mental and physical illnesses. However I have now started to try volunteering - I am doing 4hr/month with Lancashire Mind (a mental health charity) and I've just signed up with Lancashire Recovery College, which is a wonderful place that provides free courses on all things mental health. My title is "Volunteer Recovery Journey Enabler"! I am also setting up a peer support group that combines art &amp; mental wellbeing. None of these take very long to do at any one time but are enough to start me back on the long road to employment.


You are worth trying for. You are worth working hard for.
Never, ever, ever, give up.
It really does get better.