^ Well firstly the big thing that precipitated everything was the suicide of my best friend. He was blood to me, and just a month before I had been in hospital recovering from an attempt of my own. Seeing how everyone was affected by his death (myself included), the plans for the future we had together, knowing that he was never going to do all the things I had known he was going to do... it fucked me up really bad.
I decided that I didn't want to die anymore. And I didn't want to keep up the self-destructive behavior that was stopping me from getting better. So I cut out all drug use (excepting nicotine and caffeine) for a start; I knew I had to clear out my mind. Once I was clean and out of mild to moderate opioid WD, I started seeing my psychologist regularly. Stopped taking antipsychotics though and seeing the psychiatrists because they weren't helping at all.
After a few sessions with the psychologist where we talked about my grief and how I wanted to become functional again, we decided that I was ready to challenge my depression and anxiety head on. I felt driven like I hadn't ever before, and so slowly I started to put myself in social situations that would normally have caused me panic attacks. I started talking to random strangers, playing music live in front of an audience, applied to lots of jobs and started learning how to take care of myself and eat properly.
Also as part of the counselling, I started learning ways to deal with stress in a healthy way rather then drowning it out with drugs. I started channeling my frustration into improving my intelligence; studying chemistry and pharmacology in my free time, really talking to my girlfriend about issues, and if I really get stressed then I might use some codeine to relax for a night and then think about the problem and how I will face it.
I also thought a lot about what direction I wanted to take my life in, and after trying out something finally decided on what should have been clear years ago. I'm working full time in the industry I want to get into, and next year am going to university so that I will become a professional. Having a job has helped so much, with the depression and anxiety and problematic drug use. Not to mention being in love with such an amazing, supportive woman who I truly care about and who truly cares about me.
So that's it basically; I have been on a few different types of meds before (SSRIs, benzodiazepines and antipsychotics). I got little help from them, though I believe they can really help some people and I have seen this myself. Instead I got better by facing one of the worst tragedies of my life and deciding that I could either just keep spiraling downwards or I could turn myself into who I actually wanted to be.
