Case Summary  |  Antidepressants work for a while, then taper off

I started feeling deeply depressed and suicidal after a number of significant life changes (move, switch from homeschooling to a private school, first job), but it took me a long time to realize I was clinically depressed because the thoughts were that insidious; I wasn't actually planning to kill myself, either, I just really wanted to *be* dead, so I didn't believe I was suicidal, either. I dealt with this in varying degrees of severity until my second year of college, when I finally began to realize that something was really wrong with me--and found out from a little research that I fit many of the symptoms for chronic, low-grade depression, as well as some coming on for major depression.

I started with a counselor, who diagnosed me with depression and gave me a referral to an MD who could prescribe me some antidepressants. From working with her, we started me on Effexor, which seemed to have an almost immediate effect and worked very well for several months. I was happier and more productive, no longer bothered frequently by thoughts of suicide; it felt like I'd woken up after being asleep for two or three years. The antidepressant slowly started losing effectiveness, though, and while I don't think I ever returned to the state I was in before I started treatment, it wasn't helping much. We tried adding Wellbutrin, which had no effect, and then switched to Cymbalta; that was better for a while (although it was never as good as Effexor had been when it worked), but over the last several months Cymbalta's been losing efficacy as well. Again, we tried adding Wellbutrin, but that had little to no effect.