"i too am very treatment-resistant to all the conventional antidepressants.  before i moved to another state, i had a psych doctor who was a good listener.  when i told him that the only time i recall not being depressed was when i had tramadol, he said &quot;well, let&#039;s try that&quot;. for two years i used it, and felt good: motivated, engaged, curious about things.  if i did stop it cold turkey, i&#039;d have a few days of lethargy before settling back to my blah baseline.

the main side effect is that if i took too much, my short term memory got really bad, and i&#039;d just get sort of dumb.

"