Yes, your TBI is magnifying your depression.

Despite many life challenges, I absolutely didn't suffer from depression before my MVA. Afterwards...

Yes, now I wrestle with depression. That makes me a real inconvenience for lazy clinicians who just want to attribute PCS to people having "anxious personalities." I think the causes for my post injury depression are twofold.

Firstly, I believe the accident changed my brain chemistry. As I always say to doctors, who don't get it, "I don't have PCS because I'm depressed. I'm depressed because I have PCS."

Secondly, I believe that it is a rational response to my current situation. I've lost my career, I've got chronic pain from spinal cord injuries, my relationships are strained, etc..., etc... If I was happy, then I really would be INSANE. Sadness, in response to genuine conditions, is not a pathology.

That said, it's a problem when it impairs, significantly, ones ability to participate in one's recovery and/or function in daily life.

I believe that the fact that I had no premorbid history of depression has allowed me to manage without medication. I can't imagine what it must be like for those of you trying to cope with this, on top of a preexisting condition. You are brave souls.

I second markneil's assertion that this is nothing to be ashamed of. I don't feel embarrassed because the mva herniated my discs, so why in heck should I feel weak or guilty about the depression it caused?

This stigma, and the meaningless distinction between "physical" and "mental," has got to go. The brain is an organ. Depression is a sign of organ malfunction. We don't tell people that their kidney disease is a product of their imagination and anxiety, we give them dialysis - and sympathy.

This falling back on blaming depression FOR pcs, instead of ON pcs, is a manifestation of doctors' inability to admit, even to themselves, that, at present, they cannot properly understand, let alone, effectively treat, TBI. It says a lot more about them, than it does about us.