I’m Vladimir. I’m 23 years old, from Moscow and I work as a product designer. I want to tell you how a mistake of psychiatrists can aggravate your situation.

When I was 19, I experienced an unbearable major depressive episode that developed from a social and emotional situation in my life. The main symptoms were that I felt nothing from the world except negative emotions.

At the beginning of my journey, doctors made mistakes in my treatment, prescribing me SSRIs without defining the essence of the problem. During this time I was given a cocktail of prescription drugs that were available in Russia, for example: alprazolam, sertraline, paxil, fluoxetine, brintellix, tritico, venlafaxine. I also tried TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, a treatment technique that uses a magnetic field to influence brain activity), dopamine inhibitors and more.

I was diagnosed with ‘treatment resistant depression’ and almost no medications have helped me. Most importantly they have not solved the problem of anhedonia (the inability to experience pleasure). Depression is horrible but not like anhedonia for me, it's really the factor that plunges me into agony every day.

The withdrawal syndrome I had was not so terrible, because the antidepressants did not work so well. But there was an issue when I abruptly stopped the drugs, I always felt bad. But I am a mentally strong person who understands that it is temporary.

I told doctors I just wanted to feel pleasure, but they gave me drugs that made it worse.

At one point, I started studying neurobiology, biology, psychotherapy and psychiatry. I gained knowledge of an experienced doctor who knows the best European practices. In my country, no one can help better than me.

Now after antidepressants, my pleasure has gotten worse, I can't find any remedies in the world that can change my conditions, including experimental ones. At least before medication something worked. As it turns out, through experience, antidepressants have largely reduced my depression, but at the cost of long term side effects. It feels only a matter of time before a relapse.

Misunderstanding the problem and using antidepressants stole my chance for a quick remission and now I don't know what to do. I have many years ahead of me, but I feel terrible every day despite practicing DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a talking therapy designed to help manage intense emotions) and CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy, a talking therapy that helps challenge and modify unhelpful beliefs related to trauma). I suppressive suicidal thoughts, but I've experienced them before.

Now it looks like a matter of time for me, but through my experience I will try to improve the treatments available to millions of people in my country. Know that if you ever come to our country and use popular products, they may have been improved by a depressed person like me

When choosing a treatment try and understand the cause of your symptoms, and whether it develops from inside due to life experiences, so as not to make it worse with antidepressants. Thank you, I hope you are doing well!