There’s an interesting discussion on the message boards of my “Relapse: The Waiting Place” post and “What Makes People Relapse?” post about whether or not a person can fully recover from depression. Is depression like cancer … in that we hope for remission, not a cure?
Reader Eddygh writes this:

As someone who suffers from depression and works in the field of Mental Health, it not “if” a person will relapse, but “when.” I am predisposed to depression and when something like a death of a close person in my life I will fall back into it. I tried the “bootstrap” method and it just made things worse. I have faith but God gave depression to keep me humble.

Beyond Blue’s regular poster Margaret says:

To me, the issue of a “cure” for the black dog is as close to asinine as anything can come! Even those members of the human race who don’t–lucky them!–suffer from depression as an illness or constant companion experience mood swings from day to day. Sometimes these are what I call reactive, as when a loved one passes away, others are merely one of the many rooms in that mansion we know as life. We can’t pinpoint a logical life experience which has made us blue or, conversely, happy. We simply are. Cite hormones or neurotransmitters misfiring or endorphins if you like, but we awaken with a certain feeling for whatever reason.
I long ago gave up on finding a “magic pill” that would allow me to consciously choose a given state of mind in the same way that I reluctantly abandoned the dream of having the “prize Patrol” show up at my door. It would be nice, but what are the chances? Perhaps the day will dawn when I’m proven wrong, if it does, I will be celebrating with the rest of you, but as I have made a conscious decision to live in the here and now, I won’t be holding my breath.

Being the proverbial “cockeyed optimist” is akin to setting myself for a long fall into the very depths of the abyss to battle the snakes which make it their home, and I choose not to take that risk.
On the other hand, it gets to be extremely tiresome to be told that I can choose not to be depressed, and tells me that the speaker has never been close enough to the black dog to even see its teeth let alone be bitten by them.
Yes, we have choices, but there are limits to them. What I CAN choose is to continue to work at it instead of just hanging my head and wishing for my own plane to go into a nosedive. One of the ways in which I attempt to do that is by reading Beyond Blue to remind myself that this path might be lonely, yet I AM NOT ALONE.
Other proactive steps such as journaling, remaining committed to therapy, and taking the meds which do give me SOME relief on some days are also a part of my arsenal for survival. And I bless Therese and others who have shared their own techniques on her blog for giving me further ammunition.
I haven’t yet come to understand why it is that knowing others share my misery is comforting knowledge, nor do I think it really matters why, but all of you who bother to respond and share should know that there are many like myself who have used your methods and benefited from your willingness to discuss one of those ‘not for polite company’ topics.

Thank you! I pray that each of us will find the courage and stamina to not give up since that is the one thing which guarantees the light at the end of the tunnel WILL be a speeding freight train intent on mowing us down! “Hang in there” seems a trite phrase, but it’s what we all must do nonetheless. Together we can celebrate our days (even hours) of near ‘normal’ moods and our combined prayers for one another may eventually bear fruit in the form of a “cure” There was a time when that seemed a pipe dream for polio and other physical ailments too! (That’s my ‘cockeyed’ persona breaking through and demanding equal time!) So not only must we each ‘hang in’, we must each commit to the struggle! Giving up is not an option!