I recently asked my current psychologist , "Will I always have depression?" He said, "No, once you remove negative thoughts, people, and situations from your life, you will no longer have depression." Part of me hopes and wonders if this is true. I have suffered with depression for 8 years. At this point in time we have relocated to an area that is sunnier than where we were and I have stopped working. I am also taking my medications regularly and for the past year have had very few, short mood swings lasting no more than a day, no panic attacks, and no suicidal tendencies. With many health issues there would be talk of reducing or removing medications with such improvements. No such talk has occurred with my depression. If depression is mostly a situational thing as my psychologist suggests, then it should be with some work be simple to remove it from your life and no longer be in need of medication and such. To be honest the above doesn't seem right. I feel there is something missing to this idea. Part of why I feel this is because I have been considering going back to work. I don't collect SSI or any type of disability as I have been turned down multiple times and even disability lawyers won't take my case. I am not disabled enough, what ever that means. I am however disabled enough to get job counseling from vocational rehabilitation for free. I am not mad about this or feel that I am necessarily entitled to Social Security. I was just looking for help while I got my head on straight and figured out how to handle what was going on in my life. Anyhow with working with my job councilor we have settled on a job goal, and I am steadily working towards said goal. However, when considering going back to work I don't feel depressed I feel scared, so scared that I am reduced to tears and near panic. Is this a part of the depression even though I have not shown any real signs of it for the past year? Is this some form of mild, I don't know, PTSD due to chronic stress from when I was working? I am honestly afraid that my depression and panic attacks will come back if I start to work again. I've only really stopped working for a year, and even then I have been caring for my young son, volunteering, and doing small temp jobs just to get out of the house. For some reason the idea of working full time scares me, or even working a regular part time job.