I've been medicated and in group and individual therapy since I was 14, and I'm 26 now. Depression started when I was around 9 or 10. I've literally tried everything: multiple inpatient and outpatient stays, EMDR, CBT, IFS, DBT, and multiple rounds of TMS. The only thing I haven't done is actual electric shock therapy. I know someone irl who did though whose somehow even more traumatized than I am, and she's worse after, so I don't want to try that. I've tried at least 12 different medications, and I was on 5 (2 antidepressants, anti-anxiety, a mood stabilizer, and a stimulant) different ones until I was forced to quit all 5 cold turkey because I lost my insurance. It's incredibly dangerous to quit psychiatric meds cold turkey, which is probably why I'm back on SaSu. But, one of my medications was $400 without insurance- and if my illness makes me unable to work- then it's a catch-22. I was denied from my state's insurance and the general federal marketplace, which I know I could appeal, but it pisses me the fuck off that everything, everything I have been told to do to help myself for years isn't working.
Not recommending this, but the only time I have truly felt okay was on mushrooms. It's almost like I could feel it cutting through the years of piled-on desperation. I heard the words "you have a right to be alive" so clearly in my head (almost like someone else was saying it to me) for the first time in my life. I was actually able to function for a bit after that. That was a couple of years ago though, and didn't last. I'm back to feeling like I don't have the right to be alive.