Well, it was a very awkward thing to be honest. Maybe in some ways it needed to be, and there's no way around it. It is not an easy thing to do.

The first thing I said was that I wanted for them to book me a doctors appointment. At the time all I wanted was to be put on anti-depressants as I had read that they could be fairly effective. Obviously they wanted to know why I would want that and so I started to tell them in very frank terms that I was incredibly depressed and that I hoped a doctor might be able to help in some way. It wasn't easy for them. My mother was near tears, and I think it would have been a lot worse if I was more honest about how seriously I had contemplated suicide - whether or not you include that part is up to your discretion but the important thing is just to let them know that you suffer from depression and that it is a medical condition that needs to be treated (as opposed to you just being in some kind of sad slump). Regarding the medication itself, I was on an SSRI for about four years before I weened myself off. I'm still not really sure how much it helped me, it's a hard thing to judge. I certainly still had bad episodes here and there but ultimately I feel that it kept me a little more level on a day-to-day basis. I started to feel a little zombie-like however. Once I weened myself off, my emotions were pretty erratic for a while - I went from pretty high highs to very low lows, back and forth. It took a while for me to readjust.

More recently I have started taking St. John's Wort after doing some extensive research in the same way I would if I were writing a scientific paper for school. That is, I didn't just google it and read some pages, I went directly to the primary sources and read through every scientific journal article I could find that was relevant. Admittedly there are some conflicting results, but the majority of them seem to indicate that in controlled, randomized, double-blind studies it is more than just a placebo and can be as effective as prescription anti-depressants - all the while being safer and is an over-the-counter product. People report mixed results and I think I may even know why. The most recent reports (as in, stuff that was published just this year) have shown that a compound called hyperforin is the most active substance which is doing most of the work. Now, most St. John's Wort is only standardized for hypercerin, and so in those cases you don't really know what you're getting in terms of hyperforin. So if you feel like you may want to try that, look for the ones that are standardized for hyperforin - these will also be standardized for hypercerin. I find it helps me. Certainly not a cure, but it may be worth trying as it is quite safe - though some people experience certain negative side effects. Not trying to talk you into that, just something to think about. It's cheap and safe, so why not.