Dear Stepan Pavlas:

In April 2020, you shared that you visited a psychologist but talk therapy didn’t make you feel better, so next, you visited a psychiatrist who prescribed you with an SSRI anti-depressant (Escitalopram) to take every day, and a benzodiazepine (an anti-anxiety medication) to take “only if I am feeling horrible (like suicidal)“.

In May 2020, you shared that you were “starting to feel a lot better“, or that “it is a lot easier to have (or to work toward) a positive mindset than it has been in the past“. You wrote that you were not sure if the improvement was due to the medications that you started taking the month before, or that it was due to you telling yourself that “blaming and shaming myself won’t help“, soothing your mind and starting “a routine of stretch and positive self-talk for an hour in the morning“.

In July 2020, you shared: “Depression is gone… Maybe it isn’t 100% gone but I can surely say that I feel ten times better. The medication worked, but what helped me a lot was cognitive psychology. And also, the support from my friends and family“.

Today, March 12, 2022, you shared that you will soon be 18, that in the last few months, you’ve been taking a “new medication pill” and you had “a new therapist session“, progress has been made in your understanding of how you function. But the “biggest concern is that instead of being depressed all the time, there are sudden strikes of suicidal thoughts“.

You closed your update post with: “I do wonder what else should I mention“-

First, welcome back to your thread! In regard to what you should mention, I am interested in you sharing the following:

1) What is the new medication you are taking, and what are all the medications that you currently take every day?

2) What is the situation with your liver, one that you mentioned earlier, were you ever diagnosed with a liver disease?

3) How tired and exhausted are you every day and what is your daily schedule (still attending school… 12th grade?)

4) What did you recently learn in regard to how you function, and did you learn it in the cognitive therapy that you mentioned?

5) Can you put into words two examples of the “sudden strikes of suicidal thoughts“?

anita