[Skybird]

Kiwi,
just if you do not know me: I have been psychologist myself , but quit; I taught meditation (Zen/Chan, Kum Nye, Gestalt) until last December, and also have had a depressive episode myself in the early 90s. A member of my family also suffers from depressions at times.

Drop me a PM if you want. Paradigms are changing fast in psychology, but in the old triadic classification of psychiatry they used to make a different defintion for classifying depression (different from today's DSM and ICD). They only talked of exogenic and endogenic depression back then. Today it is more complex a classification, but not necessarily a better one.

Exogenic means "beeing caused externally", from outside your body, mind, life, psychological sphere, it could be a strong reaction to stressing events taking place (loosing a job, getting divorced, a death of a close person etc.), or too many of such experience it too little time. Here therapeutical analysis of your living conditions is the tool of choice, and if used by a good expert it works very well. The perspective is good, but that does not mean that therapy necessarily is a breeze, it can (and must be) very confronting. But you have good chances to recover completely. You need to find the stressing variables, that can be in your job, partnership, family life, or can root deep inside the existential-spüiritual level of life (if you have nor religious basis and feel lost in life, for example). At the same time you need to resist the temptation to hide behind endlessly talking about it.

Having taught meditation myself I also would warn you to jump around in new religions and cults right now. Spare that until you have cleaned your situation, and then want to find a tool to prevent yourself from falling into a deep hole again once the next stressing events enter your life. religion is of no use for you as long as you don't feel an existential craving for it. It should not be a habit only, then it is useless, because religion is not abou7t soemthing that is beeing done for you, or that is done to you, but about things you need to do yourself. If you do not feel that spiritual hunger, you serve your life better in concentrating on not dojng bad and evil things, and trying to do good deeds, that is a thosuand times of higher value for yourself, then. As long as you suffer from exogenic depression or any other kind of neurosis you easily could abuse religions just to hide from your problems. Sects and cults and Asian schools are filled and crowded by such people, really. I have visited many of these, and after some time always considerd myself to visit the yearly assembly of Germany's premium neurotics. I have never accepted clients for meditation that had not already experienced the climax of problems for which they were in therapeutical treatment. You may find peace for the moment and think you have tamed the monster under your bed, but instead the place under your bed just gets increasingly crowded. First solving any problems, then prevent new problems to appear, it only works this way, not the other way around. If you already live in a striong faith, there is nothing wrong in continuing with that as long as it does not bring you pain and misery, but it defiently would be the wrong time to search for a new one now. Spare that for the time after the crisis.

Endogenic depression, in the old classification scheme, was more serious, and has a tendency to stay, or come back time and again. It could become chronic. You need a specialist whom you really trust on a human level, and if he tells you to accept medications, you better accept that, then. Because edogenic depression means that the reaction you are suffering from is not "re-action" caused from outside events, but that you have some kind of predisposition for depressions. you need to check your family history here. Endogenic depression is by far no hopeless case (one person in my family is suffering from this, but with a good - and expensive - medication is able to live her life without greater fear and troubles and even enjoy life that way), but it needs to be taken very seriously, because if not treated it really can shorten your life and bring great suffering and pain for yourself, and people around you. It has a tendency to become chronic, and/or repetitive. treatment usually is both supportive therapy and medication for easing symptoms. From the style you wrote your thread I must tell you that I DO NOT think you are like that.

I also want to say that it does not really mean anything that a doctor labelled you this or that way. "You are depressive". Okay, what does this change for you? Nothing. you still feel the same way as before, and this feeling is your direct experience and your reality, no-one else's. Don't get fixed on the term, it is not important. Accept that you feel like you do, and that you make certain experiences in certain situations, and that you have vulnerabilities that maybe were not there before. That way you learn about yourself. And this is the first step for successful treatment - getting into contact with yourself. something goes wrong in your life, on one or more levels, and it causes you pain, you pay a price that is too high for you, that's why you are suffering. If you want to find out what it is that causes you pain, you need to know who you are. Most people need an objective communication partner for that who is able to look beyond the glamourous mask we all try to present to the others. He needs to be clever enough to look through the games you play, and not to buy your cheats and follies. that way he is of help for you to learn who you REALLY are. My impression is that most people waste their lifes behaving like someone they think they are. They are playing roles, wearing masks. Bad therapiosts replace the mask with another mask showing a different face. I advise you to learn wo liove without masks.

but I also want to warn you. It is the masks that identify us as emmbers of this or that community. If you refuse to wear masks, then you live in greater and authentic correspondence with your true self. but it also means that you probaly willlive a more or less lonesome life from that moment on. That is the price you have to pay, the existential dilemma. yoiu cannot be yourself and be the others at the same time. You need to choose. And no matter what your choice is, there will be consequences.

Last I say is: searching a good therapist, teacher, whatever, is part fo the solution in process. I left psychology and never regretted it. there are many in that field that have good intentions, but whose abilities are not en par with that. then there are some people who only think about their career and status, and don't know anything that could be of value for you at all, they enjoy their income and serve your tricks and pills only. But there are also some persons who are precious, and of value. These are rare, you need to search long, maybe. If you think you met one, test and judge his competence with your head. But the question if to trust that person or not you need to answer with your heart alone.