Why do you think you have depression?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Why do you think you have depression?
9
Sat, 09-18-2004 - 1:16am
I am a newbie but lurked here for awhile. I suffer from depression. I uesd to have panic attacks but they subsided and I know have depression. I suffered for 5 years. The day I turned 30, the depression hit. (Is 30 the majic #?) I read alot of your post and see myself. There are days I don't want to go on living, yet I do. I work a very stressful job, I raise 2 kids, make that 3 I have a husband (LOL) But I feel like I have a black gloomy cloud over me. On top of the depression I am a negative thinker so I dwell on things also. I feel irritable and just don't have any fun anymore. I don't know if anyone else gets this also but I feel deperonsalization alot, not out of body of anything like that, just not feeling grounded, KIWM? A therapist told me that my mother raised me depressed. Thats' I have depression now. Funny,. I didn't feel deppressed until I turned 30.


Wjat about you. when or where did the depressions start? What meds are you on? I am trying to fing the rright one for me. Look forward to chatting with you.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-22-2003
Sat, 09-18-2004 - 8:33am

Hi and welcome!


I dont know if 30 is a magic number or not, I just think as we get older we start to look at ourselves more deeply.

*hugs             

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-20-2004
Sat, 09-18-2004 - 12:04pm
Hi. I don't think my mother raised me depressed. But, I was always a moody child. I don't know if I can put a finger on just one reason for my depression and anxiety disorder. I think it's a combination of many little things over the years that just got bigger and bigger. My doctor said that it's not necessarily genetic, but it you have people in your family that suffer with depression, you are more "suseptable" (sp). About 10 yrs. ago I took on a LOT, divorce, single parenthood, full-time college student, a huge move 2000 miles away from family, death of a boyfriend, then another huge move. I didn't face any of it or deal with it. I just kept moving on. I had to, I had a child to support and take care of. I had to be strong. About a year ago I just couldn't be strong anymore and my depression took over. I faught the horrible up's and down's for years, but had nothing left inside to fight with.

I thank GOD I had a break down a few weeks ago. I went to the doctor, was diagnosed and put on meds. I finally came out of my denial. I was put on Zoloft and Xanex.

My family is so happy that I finally got help. My parents are wonderful people. My bf doesn't understand, he thinks I just need to relax and stop thinking so much. My dad has even offered to talk with him about it and tell him that this is a REAL illness. My bf is a wonderfuly supportive man and I think he's just in denial. He supports me in everything, but just doesn't like the fact that I'm on medication for this. Maybe it's just fear. I don't know.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-09-2004
Sat, 09-18-2004 - 3:00pm
I first remember depression when I was about 13 to 15. I was raised in a depressive/oppressive/abusive home with both parents being depressed but no one ever saying that much. That put a lot of the blame on us kids.

As to my personality - I am a twin (female) to a brother. We were described as - they would point at my brother and he would laugh. They'd point at me and I would cry. True my brother was the clown in the family, I was the emotional, moody one. I think I would have thought of myself differently had they described the possitive traits rather and not compare us to other people in front of us. Clowns like to be acknowledged as people with feelings too. Even where abuse doesn't exist, I still believe that what children are told about themselves plays a part in molding how they see themselves in the bigger picture and how they think others see them. Children really need to be taught right from young to start thinking for themselves at their own level rather than being told who and what they are from an adult's perspective. 2 cents.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Sat, 09-18-2004 - 9:57pm
I was 39 when I was hit with depression and 40 when I was diagnosed. Mine happened when my father died very suddenly and the same weekend we had a major problem because of my daughter's boyfriend. Months later when I was still crying constantly I was drug to the hospital. They called it reactive depression at the time and it was suppose to go away with a few pills. Well it's almost 10 years later and now my doctor calls it severe treatment resistant depression and I'm on 5 different meds and have had ECT twice.

There is no set formula for depression. It's a very inexact disease. What works for one---may not for another. Both my sisters have mild depression. They both take 10 mgs of Celexa a day and feel fine. They can't understand why I take so many different ones and still struggle. Actually I don't understand either! Debbie
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-01-2004
Sat, 09-18-2004 - 11:48pm
Mine began at 40 when my father died and I had an unplanned pregnancy in the same year, nothing has been the same for me after this, mine is situational because of all the stuff that swirls around me all the time, there is never time to breathe until another situation comes along that has to be dealt with.

I am exhausted from these last ten years, it would take a novel to tell you what I have been through with my mother and her problems, my MIL health problems for two years until she passed away, my oldest son's alcohol & drug problem has been unbearable to me, because it is like seeing your child commit suicide in slow motion, it is killing me inside.

I was for most of my life a happy, satisfied person that thought I was very blessed and thought that if you showed love and care for people that they would return that love back to you and the hardest truth I have had to face is that is not true, but in a strange way

I have learned so much from my depression, the most important of those lessons is about faith, I mean real faith, foxhole faith, not the faith I thought I had just because I believed in God, but the kind of faith that is there when you can't see for the darkness all around you, my home was not my safe place anymore, it was a war zone, I knew for real what "living by faith and not by sight" meant.

I'm working hard and praying hard, and all of you on this board is a blessing from God to me. Thank you.

Lynette

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 09-19-2004 - 12:16am
Hashell, I think my story has some similarities to yours. I am also a twin (with a sister), and my sister and I also reacted differently to our parents. I'd say my depression may have started around age 13 or 14 as well...I don't think my parents necessarily "raised" me depressed, but I really believe that my dad's treatment of me (verbally abusive) triggered a sadness that has yet to go away. There were many other events and situations that contributed, though, I'm sure...and I think there is a biological component to my depression as well.

To answer the original post, I agree that what works for one person may not work for another...your doctor is the best one to decide which, if any, medications you should try. I take two antidepressants and a mood stabilizer, and I'm still struggling...but I guess I'm doing somewhat better than I have been in the past.

Nice to "meet" you,

Rose


Edited 9/19/2004 12:18 am ET ET by rosa444

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 09-19-2004 - 12:35am
Thanks guys, nice to meet you!
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Sun, 09-19-2004 - 10:58pm
My depression started when I was 8. That year, my mother's cancer, which had been in remission, came back. Around the same time, the kids in school started picking on me, possibly because they sensed I was depressed and it frightened them. Three years later, my mother died and I became *severely* depressed. My surviving relatives weren't very supportive--they were either caught up in their own grief or had the attitude, "It happened, it's done, get over it." It wasn't until someone else realized I was in trouble and forced my father to wake up and smell the coffee that I got help. If she hadn't made my father get help, I probably wouldn't be here right now. I was in therapy for several years; it helped, but the depression remained, and then I developed anxiety disorder, too. I didn't use meds until recently, except for a brief time with Klonopin; I'm on Effexor, which has helped me a lot. I was skeptical/afraid of medication, but in my case, it seems to be necessary. I wish it weren't, but that's the way it is.

I think it was family circumstances/history, too. My grandmother and father also suffered the loss of a parent in addition to financial hardships, and they too suffered/suffer from depression. My great-grandfather probably did too.

As for finding the right medication, it's variable. Effexor is the 2nd antidepressant I've tried. Before that, I was briefly on Paxil, but it caused me so many problems I had to come off it. I wasn't on it long, so it wasn't too difficult. As for the Klonopin, which I took when the anxiety was far worse than the depression, it calmed me down, but it made me so mellow I didn't care about much of anything.

Good luck finding what's right for you.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-29-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 11:12pm
My parents divorced when I was 3. My mother was always upbeat and positive and patient even though she was working two jobs and still struggling. I could not have asked for a better mom. My dad, however, whom I only saw every other weekend, was a depressed person who never seemed happy no matter what. He is an alcoholic who started molesting me when I was around 6. I was happy with mom and confused with dad. I was always very shy and introverted, but basically happy. I remember feeling "sad" off and on when I was around 10 and it just progressed each year. By 13, I was suicidal, although, I managed to keep up a pretty good front with the adults. I was a straight A student, but by 15 partying every weekend and stealing my step-dad's liquor (which I despised him of drinking... go figure teenage logic) I made the wrong kind of friends, just to have friends. I didnt know how to make 'good' friends.

I grew up and grew out of a lot of the negative stuff and during my senior year in high school was pretty much back on track and college bound. I had a long term bf (who is now my dh of 10 years and I had it in my head that I would go to college, get married, have kids and live happily ever after.

It didnt work that way and it took me till about the age of 25 to figure that out. By then, I had been married for 4 years to someone whom I cared a great deal about, but was not in love with. We already had a baby on the way and I was not going to back out of the marriage. We continued on and my post partum was rough for a while, along with some medical issues. I started on antidepressants about a year after he was born. When he was 2, I got pg with our 2nd child, a girl, who was still born. That and financial woes sent me over the edge. Every thing that had once been 'mild depression' was now full blown and in the last 5 years has continued to be.

I have been on about 5 different anti-depressants and the Effexor that I am on right now seems to be helping. I also take Xanax for anxiety.

HITTING 30: What I found, was that even though the depression was only slightly worse, my patience has decreased, my anxiety/anger management has gotten worse. Now, I cant say that it was hitting 30 or just getting really tired of the same ole financial stressors that had the biggest effect on me.

I love my children deeply ( I did go on to have another girl who is 3 now) but I am glad that my child bearing days are over. I dont think it would be healthy for me (or my family) to go through another pg and having a sleepless infant in the house. I love to be with others, but I really have to work hard to take care of myself so that I can be a good mom/wife/teacher.

I think what depresses me about being in my 30's is that I am not where I thought I would be. I always felt that if I did the 'right' things and went to college and got a degree and did things in the 'right' order, things would work out and I would live happily ever after and just roll through life dealing with things that came along in a carefree manner. Instead, I am a college grad who cant pay her bills, is about to have a car repo-ed and is so far behind, I may never see the light of day. Instead of being the patient mom I wanted to be (like mine) I am short tempered, exhausted, and just going through the motions. I hate to even put it to words, but I have traits of my father that I hate. Obviously, I dont sexually abuse them, but he was always short-tempered and too tired to mess with us in a positive way.

I didnt mean to go on and on!! I think some of us have inborn depression that is just increased by the trials of life that we have to go through.

Joy