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Hi Deborah,
Thanks for sharing your story. It really touched me.
I soon realized that I, too, had been depressed from as long as I can remember. As with you, it affected my entire life. It turned me into a recluse and affected my educational pursuits, career choices and contributed to a couple of bad marriages. I am lucky enough, now, to be married to a great guy and have three children, all grown, from my first marriage. I regret not having done more with my life. I recently took early retirement from a clerical and mundane job I had held for many years. I do have a degree, which is worthless, in sociology, so I wound up working in clerical positions throughout my lifetime. My husband, who is a few years younger than me has a fullfilling career and may never retire. I have almost no friends or social life, other than visiting with my kids and grandkids. I do have a couple of dogs that I adore and an elderly mother living in a nearby retirement facility. She's still feisty and as difficult as ever, and my being the only one to take care of her adds to my depression.
Like you I, too, wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't had these emotional handicaps from early on. I try, when I make a conscious effort, to focus on what I do have and not what could have been. But it is and always has been a struggle.
You are so young and could do so much with your life if you could get over the past. I think you're on the right track.
The best of luck to you.
Dear Deborah and other responders -
First, Deborah - I am so happy for you that you have found some releif from your life long depression. According to your bio on this site you are closer to 50 yrs. than 40 and diagnoised at 27. So I'm assuming some years with some relief. That's good.
To the others on this fourm (?) I hope you too encounter relief from your depression.
I am wondering if there is a place here for me. I am a 64 yr. old female who has had depression since I was an infant. It is clinical and also from the effects of my grief filled childhood. I was diagnosed at age 40 with depression so profound I was told I would "normally" be institutionalized. And the Psychologist wonderd "how I had done it." Functioned thru life, I guess. I told her as a child I think I just kept "adapting." I was put on medication for the first time. A couple years later I saw a Psychiatrist at a different clinic. He diagnosed me with Atypical(does not respond to treatment) Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder (I have completed 700 hrs. of DBT skills training.) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Since that time I have tried so many medications I have lost count, including MAO inhibitors. Also ECT in 2001. Nothing has helped except the DBT skills that help manage some of the Borderline symptoms. I am considered "untreatable"(as for depression) and I concur with that. After over 40 years of working on depression with no relief I don't see that anything else makes any sense. I have accepted my situation and learned to exsist with it. I am no longer interested in existing per say and am working on willing myself to die. I am physically healthy so this will take some time. I believe it is possible. This is not the same as suicide so please remain calm.
prefer to remin anonymous
prefer to remain anonymous
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