Someone (I forgot who) wrote:
it's hard to be your own psychiatrist (or something to this extent)

I personally believe that it's far more effective to be your own
psychiatrist rather than to see a 'professional.'  Firstly, *most*
mainstream psychiatrists are somewhat psychotic themselves, in addition to
not being very bright.  Also, their med school curriculum consisted mainly
of memorizing different mental illenesses and the corresponding
toximolecular drugs to heal (or is it not heal?) the illness.

I had an experience with a 'professional' psychiatrist when I was 16 years
of age.  She asked me about my diet, and I told her low-fat, high carb, lots
of cereal and pasta -- to which she agreed was healthy.  Then she asked if I
was exercising, and I responded that I was using Arnold Schwarzenegger's
bodybuilding routine (which constitued, in the words of Mike Mentzer,
chronic gross overtraining; I was fatigued and actually *losing* muscle) --
to which she assured me was optimal for my health.

After this grueling extensive investigation on her part, she picked up her
magic prescription pad and wrote me a script for Prozac.  And I actually had
to pay money for this *counterproductive* consultation.

After this couse of action failed miserably, I took it upon myself to learn
my real cause of depression.  First, after reading some of Arthur Jones'
work (www.cyberpump.com -- the Classic Collection), I immediately embraced
HIT (high intenstity training).  Then, on the HIT mailing list (which is
horrible BTW), I met someone on the list who recommended paleo to me
(although I still do not accept some paleo tenets).  And finally, I
temporarily dropped out of college b/c I couldn't deal with the stress
caused by typical educational system bullshit, eg incompetent teachers,
arbitrary learning curriculum, etc, etc.

In the end, I can not credit my success with depression to one factor alone,
but many.  I changed so many things in succession (in addition to those
mentioned above) that it's difficult to say to what degree certain variables
helped.  I still have depression flare-ups ocassionally, but nothing major
for the most part.

Thanx to all for the advice,
Justin Hasselman