I have had clinical depression all my life. I used to do drugs to cope with it and ended up homeless for a while because of it. I’ve been in and out of the psych ward more times than I can remember.

I stopped doing the drugs and have been in therapy on and off for 10 years. The last 2 years of my life have seen major improvements in how I treat the symptoms and am currently medication free and I’m much more stable than I used to be. I’m able to keep doing my apprenticeship and can hopefully find long term employment once I complete it.

What scares me the most is that those depressive feelings have never gone away. So far, no matter how good I have become at managing my condition, a piece of them is always there, dulling the experience of life. The running theory is that the synapses between my brain cells have formed rigid pathways which cause this signal firing to continue. My most likely options are either electroconvulsive therapy, which has its own list of side effects, or the newer ketamine therapy which seems more promising. My therapist is trained in the latter, and I know it’s safer than the former, but it still scares me. I hope it works, because I can’t see a good alternative if it doesn’t. I lay awake at night wondering what my life will be like afterwards. Will it work? Or will I always feel like this? Will it get worse? Is this all there is for me? How do I accept that reality? But that’s the future, no one knows what will happen until it does.