Abolutely agree that medication alone is not the answer and exercise is wonderfully beneficial. 🙂

Stephan, I’m so sorry you had a bad experience with Sertaline. I’m just weaning off Citalopram now (a similar drug) and I remember the doc telling me that the first two weeks would be tough… he certainly wasn’t wrong! That’s the closest I ever came to actually going through with suicide. It took about a month to really start feeling the benefits. For me, the breakthrough moment was taking a shower and actually, REALLY feeling better afterwards. You know how everyone (or maybe just my friends 🙂 ) say “Oooh, well if you do “such-and-such”, you’ll feel so much better afterwards!” Well, one of those things was always “Get up and have a shower” So, I’d get up and have a shower, but still feel depressed afterwards – I would intellectually acknowledge that cleaner and mobile was an improvement in my situation though, so I thought that this was the “feel better” they were talking about. And I gotta admit, much of the time, I felt “Well, if THAT’S your “feel better”, I’ll save the energy and wallow instead, thanks” But about a month in, I got up and had a shower and felt a lift. A proper mood lift! I was absolutely blown away… all like, “OoooOOOoooh! THIS is what they’ve been banging on about! Yes, it DOES feel better… when I’m not depressed!” 😉