Tired of Fighting This

I know now that I have been fighting depression my entire life.  I even remember getting like this when I was a child.  I know that it comes and goes and I have to literally fight back the sadness and anxiety that I start feeling, sometimes for no good reason.  If something bad happens or I face some kind of setback, I have to fight really hard to not let it overtake me. 

But I'm so tired of this fight.  I don't want to be on antidepressants for the rest of my life and I cannot afford therapy right now.  Money problems in one of the things causing me anxiety.  I've been on antidepressants in the past and I don't like how they make me feel after a while. 

Is there anything else I can do?  I excierise and take vitiamins and try to stay busy.  I feel like I can't talk to people in my life about this because no one would understand.  Plus, I've gotten really good at pretending like I'm fine and putting on a "happy face."  I'm sure people would be surprised or wouldn't believe me if they knew how I really felt.

Does anyone know of any free services around Cincinnati/Northern Kentucy area????  I just feel like I need to do something because I know I am missing out on life.

Any kind of chronic condition gets really old, really fast.

Myself I do not really suffer from depression, but due to having several chronic health issues (diabetes, chronic pain, etc) I do feel it once in a while nipping at me heals, but I do understand how much of a pain it can be to constantly have to deal with something, take medication every day and so forth. Life would be so much easier if I didn't have to take meds 4 times a day, poke my fingers 4 times a day, give myself 5 shots of insulin every day, and go see several different doctors every month.

I hear people all the time, regardless of what they are taking a medication for, say they don't like how it makes them feel, but one thing I have to wonder whenever I hear this is how are they feeling when they don't take their meds and how do they like that feeling.

Granted, sometimes certain medications can be overwhelming and in many ways make a person feel worse taking them than they do without them. This does not mean they do not need some kind of medication, it just means that they are either on the wrong medication, the wrong dose or both, assuming they have allowed enough time to become used to the med and for the side effects to disappear if they are going to.

The good news though is for most chronic conditions there are many different medications available to help manage it. The hard part is finding the right med or meds in the right doses to do the job without leaving you feeling like total crap all the time. It is always possible that a person may never find the right medication treatment that is all positive but it is very unlikely that with time that they won't find a treatment plan where the positives far outweigh the negatives.