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FrF comments on Humans are not automatically strategic - Less Wrong
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I predict with p=0.95 that you have at least one micronutrient deficiency which is greatly contributing to your depression, and that starting to take a multivitamin regularly would be enormously to your benefit. I predict with p=0.6 that you are specifically deficient in thiamine, and that a single dose of sulbutiamine (a molecule that crosses the blood-brain barrier and then breaks into two thiamine molecules) would cause a large and sudden reduction in your depression. I am basing this on my own experience with thiamine deficiency (caused by T1 diabetes), which produced in me a specific type of apathy which I recognize in your comments.
Unless you either lied about taking a multivitamin to your current doctor, or ignored their advice to take one, fire him or her and find a new one. Also, thoroughly research every drug you're currently taking. At a minimum, search for the name of each one on PubMed, skim the first few pages of titles and read some of the abstracts. Don't adjust anything without consulting a qualified doctor, but do make sure to have that consultation.
Following up on this may be the most important thing you ever do.
EDIT: One other thing - if you're on antidepressants, you should be getting blood work, of the "large checklist of tests" variety, done on a regular basis. Make sure your TSH has been tested at least once in the past two years (result will be interesting with p=0.1, but very interesting if it is).
I have been getting blood work; everything always comes out just fine. (Yes, thyroid hormone is one of the things that's been checked.) And none of the many doctors I've been dragged to have told me to take vitamins, although my psychiatrist has occasionally asked about my diet. There are multivitamins in my house, but I stopped taking them a long time ago because they're these really annoying, very large chewable tablets the size of quarters.
In terms of vitamin deficiency, I'm actually most suspicious of vitamin B12. Both my maternal grandmother and my mother have low levels and get B12 injections regularly. (My mom is currently 60.) I once asked my psychiatrist to have my B12 checked, but I don't think it actually has been.
Also, the basic effect of my antidepressants has been "Well, I am more cheerful now, but my life still sucks every bit as much as it did when I wasn't taking them." I'll quote a doctor's anecdote:
Perhaps the difference between me on antidepressants and me off antidepressants is that, while on antidepressants, I was willing to go do my homework even though I'd rather touch a hot stove than do another problem set, while when off them, no amount of social pressure from my parents and other authority figures could make me open up my textbook and get to work, because I just couldn't make myself do it no matter what happened.
Right now, I'm not necessarily depressed because I have screwed up brain chemicals. I'm depressed because I'm a 28-year-old lazy bum who doesn't think he'll ever be able to get a job he can stand and keep it for any length of time, is supported by (and lives with) his parents, doesn't have any close friends, has never been in a romantic relationship, lives in fear of having his parents decide to stop supporting him, is endlessly frustrated by his mother's (completely justified) demands that he help her with various tasks because she has MS and can barely walk, and doesn't have any particular goals in life other than "escape it".
I think I can't cope with being my mother's caretaker any more; I need to get an income and get the hell away from my parents, but I don't think I can do that, so I just stay where I am and put up with the same shit that's been making me miserable for the past eight or so years. (Before then, I was often miserable, but for different reasons.)
Hello CronoDAS,
You're story sounds somewhat similar to mine (but I'm considerably older than you). My mother had Multiple Sklerosis, too; I was her main caretaker until her death. It's strange that it didn't dawn on me how much my upbringing and my mother's illness has shaped my father's and my life - and furthermore I didn't really understand until recently how unusually withdrawn my life has been so far. Now, social isolation is a well-known danger when you're severely ill but I was (at least on a physical level) healthy and still I wasn't able to break out of the habits that I (to a certain degree) adopted because of my former circumstances and a general inclination towards shyness.
I have a very unoriginal proposition for you: Act as soon as possible and change your situation! Believe me, things don't get easier once you're ten years older than you are now. What about a "trial move"? The way you describe your parents I think you could always return if for one reason or another you can't cope with being "on your own".
I'm "in the process" (as vaguely as that may sound) to finally get my act together and make some serious, so-long-overdue-you-won't-believe-it life changes. I know some of the depressive symptoms you're describing: A general world-weariness, an enmity to my own body, avoidance of "boring" errands up to a point where it got seriously damaging, seeing no sense in dragging this carcass of mine through a pointless world etc pp. But somehow things begin to click for me a bit more. If it's "meant to be" that I'm going down, then at least I'm putting up a fight (i.e. trying to beat some amount of rationality into my skull which is thick with irrational believes and blocks)!
Take care!
The most immediate change I probably need to make is "get an income". It's a prerequisite for most other changes I'd want to make.
(My mom's MS is unusual, because she started showing symptoms late in life, only a few years ago.)
Then your mom is lucky in more than one regard! Because of medical progress it is very different to be diagnosed with MS today than it was in 1973, when my mother had her first MS episode at the age of 27.
You wrote earlier that a lot of what you don't like about your life is simply due to habits. Personally, I find the key to change is to persistently chip away at my mountain of bad habits (my main nemesis is procrastination) and to think more from day to day, to try to implement some (any!) positive difference in my life at a daily basis, and be it only to show a friendly face when you're not really feeling like it, or to do that one more household chore you try to avoid, or to confront another uncomfortable truth about yourself and verbalize it to (well-chosen!) friends and acquaintances.
I know, these strategies are so basic they almost don't qualify for Self-Help 101 but once you "really want to change" I found they work quite well.
Actually, what I said was that a lot of the activities I do (video games, blog commenting) are generally done because they're what I've gotten used to spending time doing, not that the habits themselves are necessarily causing the problem.