We Can Make a Difference for Each Other

      First, a very warm hello and sincere thanks for taking the time to read this. I just came across this site and I took the time to read several postings. I feel for each and everyone of you. I have lived with the agony, loneliness, dispair, and darkness that comes with depression for as long as I can remember (I am soon to be 45). The writings on this site have moved me very much. Much of it sounded like me talking. It was all very familiar thoughts and feelings.

      For the longest time, I didn't know that I was ill. I just thought the world was an ugly place and the way I felt was "just the way it was" in an ugly world. How I survived, I'll never know. In fact, there was a moment or two not all that long ago that I didn't survive.

      I have come to find that one of the most essential keys to "our" survival is is getting the compassion, understanding, and support of other people. I am talking about people other than professionals.....psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, etc., though they are very important to us. But I think we can get more inspiration, comfort, and reassurance from ordinary, every day people who do not have a financial interest associated with our situation. Care and concern that come soley from the heart can breathe life in to us.

      The problem is, as I am sure you all know, is that it is next to impossible to find people that can relate to what we feel in even the slightest way. But, with a website like this one, we are given instant access to thousands of every day people that do understand and will listen and will care. And I do consider each of us very ordinary people who happen to have an extremely challenging condition to deal with. In fact, I would consider us all to be extra-ordinary people because of what we have been able to endure. Being able to open up about our situations knowing it will be taken with sincerity and compassion is an incredible help to us. It's a necessisty.

       I want to say that I am inspired that so many people who have to live through what often  seems to be impossible situation after impossible situation still have the will power and the courage to find ways to help themselves, which is what we are doing by "putting ourselves out there" on this website. It has made my day a better one....not a perfect one, and tomorrow might be a unbearable. But today got better. And for that I thank all of you.