Seb, sweetie, you've been given some very good advice. Take a look at it and decide what you can do. Psychology and psychiatry are definitely worth looking at. If you need anti-depressants to help, then take them. There are two things at work here: your AS, and the depression caused by living with it. You're struggling to get your AS under control, but you can do something about the depression. Please seek some help.
Anti-depressants can help a great deal with situational depression - that's what it tends to be with us. They can also help with pain levels. The AS brings on the pain and fatigue, stress and worry feed the pain and fatigue, which feeds the AS. The stress and worry are probably also affecting your sleep patterns, and all of it put together on top of living with longterm pain cause the depression. It's called the Cycle of Pain. If you can break this cycle at any point, it eases every other part of it. Therapy and anti-depressants will help with the depression, which will ease the stress, which will stop feeding the AS. Getting the pain dealt with will ease the depression as well as your stress levels and sleep patterns which will ease the fatigue which will .... You get the idea. It all rolls on top of each other. You might have to break the cycle 35,000 times a day, but once you learn how to do it, it becomes easier.
You need to get the depression treated. That is something you can do something about while you are trying to get the AS effectively treated. You would be surprised how much will ease once the depression is being treated.
I went to theatre school. I didn't know I had AS and I attributed all my aches and pains to dance classes, long hours, usual pulled muscles, sleeping on floors when I had nowhere to live. I couldn't have done my programme in any other way because of the way theatre school courses are designed. Luckily, theatre school courses (mine anyway) had a large component that dealt with relaxation exercises and massage. That was my saving grace, that and the constant dance and movement classes, and the breathing exercises in my voice and singing training.
You, however, are in the enviable position of determining the speed of your degree; how many courses you will take in any given semester. You don't have to do what others your age are doing. Who says you do? Determine the course of your life, Seb, in the way that you want and need to determine it. You have that power. You're an adult with challenges. Be creative about how you live your life, find innovative ways through that work for you, because you are the only person that matters when it comes to determining the course of your life.
But first, get into treatment for depression and don't stop looking until you find a doctor/therapist you trust and can work with.
Love and warm hugs,
