What is my risk of getting depressed again?!


Question: What is my risk of getting depressed again?
I was never diagnosed but it is pretty obvious I had depression from the whole almost killing myself thing. Wikipedia says that 80% of people with one depressive episode will have at least one other in their lifetime, but I want someone to estimate for my specific situation.

It wasn't mild, I remember standing in front of the knives thinking about how good it would feel to stab myself in the stomach, feel the pain and then die, but my parents came home or I was too cowardly or something (I have forgotten the exact situation that caused me not to do it). I wanted to die properly (some people take some pills and don't really want to die but with me I wanted to use an as close as 100% success rate method as I could find - It may sound selfish but I really didn't want to have to deal with the mess of a failed attempt). I have Asperger's syndrome and am female (I've heard those make depression more likely). The age of onset was very young, probably about late 11 as I wanted to die by 12. Depression doesn't run in my family (as far as I can tell from the current state of my parents) but my sister smokes weed and was possibly depressed once, I have really bad anxiety and so does the whole of my mothers side of the family. I have really bad insomnia. Even as a young child I was "volatile" and my mood seems to fluctuate a lot (not bipolar standard though because I have never been manic and the fluctuations are very quick), my friends say I have mood swings. I was being bullied quite badly during the time of the episode. I am 14 now so it happened about 2 years ago.

A big chunk of information but I am trying to get the best idea possible. I want to know because if it is likely to be a recurrent thing I will tell my parents before I seriously hurt myself.

Answers:

I'm sorry to hear that your going through so much on your own. Unfortunately those people who do suffer from depression at one point in their lives do have an increased chance of getting it again (it's actually quite a high risk). Because of this i would suggest that you have a chat with your school counselor or even doctor about preventative steps you can take to make sure depression doesn't happen to you again.

Now with your insomnia- research suggests that some people with aspergers have difficulty producing the hormone melatonin. Melatonin effectively calms you and tells your body to go to sleep. Luckily your doctor can prescribe this for you and I have seen it be VERY effective with aspergers people before. Improvement in sleep also improves your moods day-to-day and is positive in fighting depression.

So have a chat with your parents and your doctor about getting some melatonin and finding someone you feel comfortable with to talk to about the bullying and depression.



Drink some water when things like this happens and take a nice hot shower and sleep comfortably under the blankets.




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