She was diagnosed with depression about a year after I met her. I've been with her through a lot and I know that she goes through these waves of up and down, but she's starting to worry me now. I've never seen her go this far down.
She was off of her antidepressants for a little while, and once she finally got more she refused to take them. She didn't tell anyone--she told me that she got her prescription refilled and from that I assumed she was taking them. It wasn't until today that I finally coaxed it out of her that she hadn't been taking them.
This isn't the first time she's refused to take her medication. I clearly remember a down-wave she went through in middle school; at one point during it, she threw her entire prescription bottle down the sink. I know that she hates taking her antidepressants because she hates the idea that she has to be dependent on drugs to begin to think and behave like an average person, and I've reminded her more than once that they're there to help--that she's in a hole right now, and while she could claw and climb her way out herself, she could just dig herself deeper in the process, and the antidepressants are a ladder.
This is the farthest down I've ever seen her. She's not herself anymore, and I can see it in every aspect of her. I don't see her in person--I moved across the country a few years ago--and I can still tell that something's seriously wrong. Her voice sounds different, she's slower to answer my texts, and all the enthusiasm and light seems to be drained from her. I'm getting worried about her, but I have no idea how to help her. I've managed to coax her into taking her antidepressant today and I've sent her a massively long text that basically said that while all those hope cliches are bullshit, there's some truth in them, and that she will come out of this and I will be there with her all the way through, but I feel like what I say and do doesn't make any difference any more. I really don't know how to help her, even though I desperately want to.
