Struggling with Depression Despite Positive Changes

One of my best friends was raised by a very controlling mom, and that childhood still affects them to this day. One example is their mom was very restrictive of anything with sugar in it, so my friend gets anxious around sweets because they don't know if it will be taken from them. You're out of the environment, but it still happened. Try to pay attention to if any specific situations remind you of negative aspects of life at home. Talk to your therapist about these things, and if you dont have one yet, definitely get one. It's also totally valid to look into meds to help you transition out of situational negative mental health. I was diagnosed with situational bipolar, so I'll take medicine for that for about 4 months when I'm having a really hard time from external stressors, but dont need it otherwise for years at a time. It always helps a ton.

It's still *possible* that your former environment is still impacting you. Until you get into the routine of socializing healthily it's easy to fall back into the old habits. Keep at it! No but there's a million things to try for depression. The problem is that only one may work. The good news is that trying things is a small part of the cure. I'm happy that you're willing to ask. I'm happy that you're trying. Depression kicked my butt on the ground so many times, and it's not about curing it, it's about finding peace in small moments, and trying to do that more often. Finding reasons to try. I'm on a decent mix of medicines that bring me up to... About 85-90% of my former glory (pre-depression) but that took years of only getting up to 40, 60, 50, 20, ect. Depending on the meds. It's so disheartening that I've only gotten up to this much after trying so much- I'm not willing to try a different set of medicines because I'm scared of the depression without medications to help me. But my advice is that your brain chemicals are super important. Fix those first. Let me put it this way... I've gotten up to 85-90% of myself from pre depression ***on medicine alone*** now I'm doing the hard work of working out, and eating right, and doing the things.