depression that just won't go away

I have had severe depression now for about 8 years.  I have tried all kinds of medications and my depression waxes and wanes but it is always there.  I wish that I could throw it in the river and just make it go away...float down stream and disappear.  I am tired of changing meds and I think I will just stay on the one's I am on.  I recently read a book about Abraham Lincoln's severe and chronic depression.  He wanted to die a lot and he was always so sad.  But look what he did.  I went through a lot of abuse as a child and maybe that helped make me who I am.  When I am hypomanic, I am full of energy and I can do so much but the down side is I have a temper and I am very impulsive.  I am rarely hypomanic anymore and I guess my meds have helped with that.  I do miss the good parts of being hypomanic. smile

I do not know why my depression continues but I am sick of trying to figure it out.  It just is and I am not going to feel guilty about it anymore.  I do have the capacity for compassion and empathy and that is a gift and I am glad for it.  We all have our issues and we can accept them and learn from them or not.  I am now going to try and listen to my depression see where that takes me.  I am not going to fight with it because that has not helped me at all.  I think it must have a message for me and I am going to be still enough to learn what it is...........It has been my experience that  the stigma for mental illness is huge...it is a shame and unnecessary but for now it is.  I think that for those of us that suffer from a mental illness, it is our duty to speak up and take these illnesses out of the darkness.  My son is gay and gay people now speak up and I think that it has helped a lot........some people will always choose to remain in the dark no matter what but it is my belief that most people, given education, are willing to learn. 

But if I am ashamed, them I cannot teach anyone, anything.  We all need to come out, so to speak because we have  an illness and that is nothing to be ashamed of.........Pamela