I know how you feel, through the end of high school into college I slowly slipped into a major depression, and CF was definitely the issue I was focusing on. It's good that you're getting medication for it -- it took me years and getting to the point of actually being suicidal before I finally got help -- but are you also getting therapy? I know some psychiatrists can be more focused on meds fixing things than on helping you work through the issues... I saw both a psychiatrist and a psychologist for while (still see the psychologist occasionally) b/c though meds were helpful, my bigger problem was working through my CF fears, anger, bitterness etc. etc. and learning how to cope. If you can find a therapist who is familiar with CF or medical issues I think that's the best -- some people mentioned if your CF clinic has a social worker, if so I definitely reccommend looking into that! We have a lot to deal with at a young age that most people, even our friends and family, can't understand or handle, and it's understandable that sometimes we need HELP!
Something that also helped me, like others have said, is trying to focus on the positive. I know you might not be able to hear that right now -- if people tried to tell me that when I was really depressed I'd probably be like "Shut up you idiot, you don't know what you're talking about" -- but whenever you're ready for it, try to look at all the good things instead of just the bad. It's a gradual process, and you pretty much have to train yourself to change your view, but eventually it works. I'll tell you how I worked on it, other people might have different ideas... I started by trying to pay attention to any good thing that happened during my day, no matter how trivial or stupid, and trying to appreciate it. I'm telling you, really stupid things -- like, I'm late for class and hit all the green lights, or I want to buy something and happen to have enough change for it -- ANYTHING that's good. Then of course you can also think about the bigger good things in life... like, I'm SO thankful for the health I DO have, b/c it could be so much worse and I really am so fortunate (my doctors didn't even think I'd live to see 18 at one point!)... and appreciating that I have enough money to live comfortably and afford my medicines, even if it's a struggle sometimes... and apprecaiting that we even HAVE all the medicines and treatments that we do! When you work on looking for the good, you may eventually find that there are so many more postives than negatives in life, despite the fact that the negatives are really bad sometimes. That's part of what keeps me going.
Also, this worked for me but may not work for everyone... this is the thing that had the most powerful effect on me when I first started seeing my therapist. Whenever I moped to my friends that I was going to die young and wouldn't be able to live my life and have a family etc, they always responded "No don't think that way, you'll be fine, blah blah blah," which never really helped. When I said that to my therapist, her response was, "OK, let's say you're right. You are not going to live a full life. Maybe you'll only even live a few years. Now what are you going to do?" It tapped right into my stubborn fighting spirit, b/c I realized that even if I KNEW I was going to die soon (which of course I don't!) I wouldn't just curl up and die, I'd grab what I could out of life while I had the chance! So that's what I try to do.
Of course it took a lot of work adjusting my attitude away from depression, and I still have my bad times -- I think we all do -- but in general now I try to focus on 1) How many good things there really are in my day to day life, and 2) Grabbing what I can out of life and fulfilling as many goals as possible in the time I have. And when I look at it that way, life is DEFINITELY worth living!!!
PLEASE feel free to email me at KerEliana@aol.com (just put something about CF.com or something in the subject line, b/c I get a lot of junk mail and tend to delete the unfamiliar).
-Eliana
25 w/ cf
