I was depressed through most of my years at MIT, and didn't really come out of it till the end when I realized a friend of mine was also gay and that it was alright to be gay. Suddenly everything was okay, in fact, super!

When my father died I didn't go into the natural mourning period, with denial first and long-term grief afterwards. My mother was a mess, a dangerously thin ghost of a woman past who would silently creep around the house with tears in her eyes. I accepted that he had died and felt that at 10, I was suffocating by my mother's grief. That was an incredible twelve months of my life. It was not a happy one, but I grew up about ten years that one. I was basically my own mother and father, because my own could barely care for herself. I cooked all my meals, I went to extremely rigorous ballet training every single day, every single week and read like the devil. I read every book Dickens had ever written, including "Sketches by Boz" and other obscure ones. I read Brontė and Austen. It was madness, but it changed the way I would write forever. I wonder if that was the right thing to do sometimes. It took my mind off things, but it might have been healthier to grieve first. Well, as Gwen says in book two: "You must let night fall. Then you might see the bright moon hesitant between dark branches". After that year the strangest thing happened. I went into awful depression, the hardest thing I had ever gone through. It lasted six months, and I honestly don't remember much of it...perhaps my unconscious has made its best effort to wipe memory of it out of my mind. I know I was on a lot of medication. It was sad.

about 7 years and i dont know why

Through most of my life I had a low-level depression which finally broke about 10 months ago. This was after some really intensive therapy and challenging a lot of assumptions I had built up through the years.

Its a really odd (yet nice!) feeling have a sense of contentment most of the time after such a long period of feeling unease with my life.

There were two occasions where my depression dragged out for a very long time.

As a teenager I was madly and passionately in love with a boi who was my best friend in the whole world. We shared everything. He was beautiful...tall...sexy...talented...and fabulous. He adored me. He held my hand, kissed me, hugged me...took me out every weekend......called me on the phone all the time....He was my lifeline and confidant. I finally professed my undying love to him only to have him say, "I love you, Mandy but I'm afraid if we pursue a physical relationship...it will ruin our friendship."
It killed me. I longed for him...I moped and became extremely depressed and suicidal all the while pretending I was happy to just be his friend. I lost massive amounts of weight believing I was ugly and that's why he didn't love me. I dated other bois I didn't really like to try and make him jealous. We still did everything together, I would spend the night at his house and we would cuddle and fall asleep together. All the time, me wishing he'd love me. Really love me.
Then he came out to me.
He told me he had his first encounter with a man when he was in 8th grade. A teacher at our middle school. After that he had numerous older male lovers, all of whom he would go to see and make love to after dropping me off at my house on Friday and Saturday nights. I was a great cover. His parents thought he was with me.
I tried to kill myself. I didn't succeed. My mother tried to help by taking me to a mental health specialist who told me I needed to mourn the loss of this boi as if he had died. I was depressed for a very long time after this. It shaped my self image. I carried a torch for him for years. Even after I was married.

My father got ill with cancer a few years ago and over the course of that time he got sicker and sicker and died. During that time, we were estranged because he did not accept the fact that I had chosen to love and live with a woman. I hated him for that. I hated him for judging me and not ever calling me and I felt abandoned and wished over and over that he would just die! I wore black and listened to evil angry music and my heart shriveled inside my chest. I withdrew from people and began to be a hermit. I shunned people and gatherings and took up with a very dark man online who encouraged my hatred..nurtured it...understood it. With his help, I became a mean, dark misanthropist. I cherished only certain individuals I felt worthy of my love and cast aside everyone else.
But last year.............I got better!! I started letting people in again.....I found balance...I cast aside my wall of hatred and began to embrace happiness again. I still wear a lot of black...but only because it's slimming!

(((HUG)))

Maybe half an hour. No reason that I can think of.

Going on about 6 years that I remember. If I knew why, I'd fix it, now wouldn't I? Chemical imbalance, I think.

I suspect the last 2 months. I've been trying to get my home and computer together in time for school, and haven't been out of the house except for essential errands and one hike.
There was a stretch between 88 and 93 that was pretty low for the most part, suicidal at times.

Just as you were dealing with dad the seeds of a turn around were sprouting too.
You were practically the devil in my book, yet I risked accepting and understanding you through it too. I think both the contrast and the ability to learn self-acceptance through your darkest musings cleared the way to live and love freely.

about 9-10 months after my mom died.

thanks... it's all better these days

???

From the ages 13 through 'til 23 I reckon.
There were three very messy suicide attempts - which only stopped after my uncle killed himself and it crucified my Mum.
Reason (?)- being gay in a straight world. And I guess being coloured in a white world.
Just generally low self-esteem about a lot of issues really. Sometimes I wonder if I'm still depressed but I am so used to it I hardly notice.
I do know that there is something better for me with regards to my personality and the way I engage in life. I know I'm missing something right now.

The longest period (of steady depression) was Sept '01 to December '01. Four months. I was depressed becuase everything in my life seemed to be going wrong at the same time. My relationship with each of my parents was breaking down at a rapid rate. I'd just started university but had no real desire to be here. I'd had a string of bad luck with partners (probably more my fault than theirs) and I couldn't find a way of coping with it all. So I ended up doing stupid stuff in an effort to get people's attention which only served to make the problems worse.
Not the happiest of times.

It's better for me too, well somewhat anyway.

I haven't ever been seriouslt depressed, I don't think.

It seems that way. I'm a different gurl now. I was pretty hard on you there for a time. After Patrick died and the thing about Bill's supposed suicide. I hope I've made up for it. I hope you know I find you a treasure in this world of dirt.
There are so many gems here at SC. It boggles my mind.

Not more than a few hours, and only after something sad happened

I never have been depressed, really. I pretty much take things in stride.

Do you mean clinical depression or just feeling sad?

The worst lasted about a month. It sounds stupid now but it was my first real breakup with a boyfriend. We had been dating for 2 years and when I found out he was cheating on me I was devistated. I was so miserable I couldn't eat or do much of anything, I was crying all the time. I lost 15 pounds in 3 weeks. It pretty much sucked.

At times, everyone I meet is an angel. If they aren't, I've only myself to blame for the universe I chose to spend time in. Yes, you sure did make up for it, though you haven't maintained that initial glow more than I, after the novelty of liberation gave way to more concerns.

It's hard.

Months and months and months after my dad died.

Oh man... I can't decide between the couple of years after I had (viewer's discretion is advised!) an abortion at the age of 13 after being raped by my stepfather, or the two years following the suicide of my boyfriend when I was 19. Maybe I can lump it all together, and say that adolescence was my longest period of depression, though there were sunny spots and moments of happiness here and there.

I told Cay about my telepathic experience, and she has me beat already. moved a phone 4 feet. She had a 25 year head start on me, but i still have to explain things like why there is no reason to hate another.

good grief. must've taken quite a lot to keep your head up and come out positive.

a few years, not sure why exactly

((hugs))

Ages 13 - 20.
There were several factors.

If we're talking seriously depressed as in wanting to kill myself, hurt myself, cut myself, bleed, hurt others, hit others, cut others, make others bleed?

That would be 3 days, right before each of my periods for the last year. Fun stuff........I've been researching it and I don't think it's PMS, sounds more like PMDD.

Not that anyone seems to worried. They're all more concerned about my so-called physical symptoms. Well, I'm worried about those too, but going stark-raving mad for three days every cycle frightens me more.

If we're talking longer term but much less serious?

About 3 months when I was very ill aged 15. I had something wrong with my head that made me feel ill and appear severely dyslexic. Needless to say, that distressed me. I started to take an extra portion of my medication and hide it in my room. I'd decided that if I didn't start to get better soon, I was going to take them all........

Thankfully, I recovered (mostly).

PMDD sucks I suspect I have it also

It's a miserable thing But I've only just heard about it. I'm not convinced it's an actual stand-alone medical condition though - I've only seen US literature on it. It seems to just be a more severe form of PMS.

I've just read that PMS can be experienced during any part of the menstrual cycle. That could explain a lot. For example the fact that I am at home and not at school right now.........

5 years and still counting. Why, because of life in general

About a year and change, on two separate occasions. Once because of a combination of poverty and birth-control pills, and the other time because of a downward spiral of self-destructive behavior.

Wow, that seriously SUCKS, babe! I wish there was someway to help.

ASB suggested disposing of my uterus

I would dispose of mine if I wasnt planning to use it It is just there to make us miserable, I am convinced!!!

Someone's big plan.......

Years and years. Throughout most of my teenage and student life. But somehow back then I could cope with the fact that I was a crap person, and no one liked me and I didn't deserve to live. It made sense to me. Then three years ago it started getting worse. For months and months it got worse, until I was driving home one night from work and found myself wanting to swerve the car off the road into a tree, into the central reservation, into anything. When I got home I sat down and realised what had been happening to me, what had been building up all this time. I'd been having suicide fantasies constantly, been losing weight, been ignoring letters on my doorstep, been living in a pigsty of a house, been burying myself in my job to the detriment of my social life. I phoned up my sister, asked her to meet me in a pub where no one would know us, and told her all about my sorry, pitiful excuse for a life. We both cried. Two days later, I was sitting in my GP's office and he was signing me off work for two months. It was the start of a long road to recovery.

Thanks Kristal. Actually, I didn't keep my head up or stay positive, at the time. But eventually I grew, thank heaven. And I think I did receive a hand up from a higher power.

I planned to kill myself in High School. Once, I was so determined to do it that I was shaking violently with the fear of the unknown I expected to face in a few minutes. I had a scalpel blade pressed in place to my throat, ready to give a hard, fast digging jerk with my arm and then wait to die, and my heart was pounding dark blotches in my eyes as I stared into my own eyes in the bathroom mirror and began the countdown from 3. Somewhere a tiny voice in the back of my head was screaming in panic. I knew if I began to cut, I would have to finish it, because I refused to be locked up and live with the scar on my throat, so I needed to slash deep and hard, all at once. Time slowed down. I had just spoken the number 2 through clenched teeth, sweat of focus rolling down my face, when the sound of a ringing phone shattered the quiet. It was a payphone, ringing in the deserted area. I was mystified, and it interrupted my focus. Partly cursing myself for stopping, and partly in awe of something strange happening, I went toward the phone in a fog, picked up the receiver, and said, Hello?

A moment of silence followed, then a voice said something about Congratulations, this is your lucky day! You have been chosen to receive the Celestial Heart Medallion, (or something weird like that) and JUST FOR PICKING UP THE PHONE, you will also recieve a lucky silver dollar, blessed by somebody or other(?), ABSOLUTELY FREE! Call blah blah blah now and blah blah blah....

I spoke in confusion to the voice, and it rambled on. It was a recorded message. It all seemed very strange. I couldn't believe what had just happened. As I hung up the phone, I knew the moment of my decision was over, and I would never get it back. Part of me was infinitely relieved, and part of me was bitter and angry. But I knew that was my last chance to commit suicide cleanly and with a relatively small karmic load, and that having missed it, I would have to go ahead and live life the best I could, because any suicide attempt thereafter would come at terrible cost.

I wondered later if I had perhaps halucinated, because that pay phone was set up not to receive incoming calls.

Most of the time I'm talking to God like that every minute through mediums like radio and adjacent conversations. It's called the Logos, Hindu's call it the Spanda Karikas. I was once considering suicide when living in an antique dairy barn wood sculpting studio. I got a call from a man that had stopped by one afternoon a couple months prior because he felt something was wrong that day.
As far as phones go, I've called disc jockeys a second before they started playing the winning song, and mysteriously reached them on their private cell phones when the other lines were busy (I don't abuse my powers anymore). My universe pretty much is a halucination. Just a week or two ago I successfully added telekinetics to it because I was beginning to take it as seriously mundane again. Listen to your radio carefully. If you want God's company in conversation you can certainly have it. That's the next level. The one above that is one in which all the people you meet already know you as well as God, and even incomplete sentences are excess. I admire your words here. You seemed the sort of person that might have already attained these understandings, that there is nothing but god at work here.
and now, thanks to you, I see that (hmm, more complexity) "'That' cat there.." and "Cat's 'that' eat" are two completey different usages, but even my 1932 dictionary also assigns it usage as a relative, in place of who or which. I'd ask my English teacher when school starts tomorrow, but I know that's no guarantee. A year ago I did the grammer on a paper for a woman who became a teacher the following season. Alas, she was not even aware of uses for the comma we had been taught just upon entering college.
Good luck, however you prosper.

1998/2001. Don't know why...chemical imbalance,no boyfriend, school sucked,end of my teen years.

All my life. I have a disease, Bipolar. Life sucks, don't it?

mandy- I kind of feel like I can relate. I've been in numerous mental institutions. I've been depressed for years. I fell like killing myself now, for no apparent reason. Just reading your stories makes me cry. I'm bisexual, and came out to my parents, but thank god they are learning to accept it. I was just wondering, how do you bounce back. If I go off my meds I go into psycosis. Will it ever get better? Any advice?

All I can say is this....
Love yourself, despite yourself. We are our own worst enemies and we must learn to be our own closest, most caring of lovers.
Push the negative voices away and keep moving forward and always always remember this:
~The Past Does Not equal The Future!!!!~
Just because yesterday blew chunks and chunks and left all your blood vessels on the surface...doesn't mean that tomorrow the same thing will stand true. Tomorrow the sun may come out and warm your face and someone might hold your hand and tickle your toes and kiss your nose...and you do not want to miss that.
Let worry go. It serves no purpose.


I am not an expert. I am just a fractured gurl picking up the pieces when they fall off and staggering along trying to hold on to me. It's really easy for me to say "save yourself" when I am where I am today because of the love of another. I realise I am very lucky to have love. Love saved my life. Don't you want to keep moving forward and find the love that will save yours? Don't say it won't come. Don't any of you say that. Because You never know.

We don't always have to feel good. It's nice. It's easy. and it teaches us nothing.
Embrace frustration and pain and thank it. When you do...it'll back off. I promise!

Oh, try to make heaven on earth for yourself and others by laughing more...sharing...having more fun...making the special people feel precious and important and not denying yourself the things that bring you joy.

AND PLAY YOUR MUSIC REALLLLLLLY LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you're like me and things are either victorious or a losing battle, and you don't recall what it's like to be happy except when you are happy, then I have suggestions. Learn to recognize your pitfalls and cycles, and prepare for them with discipline. Do all the things first that will be hard to do when you are feeling dismal. Recognize the source of your depression. I had a depressing afternoon on campus waiting for the first meeting of my photo class. I started thinking about how I couldn't afford film, needed more time for work and other classes that had heavier loads than I expected, and felt quite a release when I went home instead of doing an entertainment I'd always wanted to do. Sometimes we are unhappy about things we don't want to face. As far as preparedness, if for instance you get too depressed to leave the house for groceries and find yourself living off old cans of peas before you run out of food entirely, then buy cheerful foods that won't be eaten till all the fresh produce runs out, that way your diet won't contribute to your being too depressed to leave the house. Taking care of yourself is a discipline that requires exertion. You need to maintain an awareness about what it takes to 'cheerfully' be productive, for instance it is much better to take off the sweater on a day that turns out to be hot, than be too lazy to take it off and endure the heat all day.
Have the discipline to do your specific compromise of being on track, you might need to take a bath to regroup your energy, but if you have the energy to things you'd prefer, don't waste your time on more than a shower. It make take passion and a fresh mind to overcome self-defeating limbo. Don't take the limbo for granted. Look back to what you do besides working when your're in your up phase, and make sure to integrate some of that, like a hike or talking to friends. Sometimes I have to break a wall, like when I get stuck forever in vampire hours. Unless you have a good night social scene, exposure to sunlight and fresh fruit works wonders. It's the opposite of cigarettes, don't savor the melancholy of the past, move constantly into fresh energy.
Sometimes you have to let go of things that simply aren't practical at the time; when you do, consider it a victory, not a loss, that you are focusing on the best use of your time. Don't fall into ruts that feel just like something to do, without invigorating purpose. Use being glum as your reminder cue to be happy. Laugh at the fact that you are being unhappy about nothing, and burst out in a goofy spell. Don't over self-analyse; if your not figuring out anything, move on. Theres no point in being depressed about being depressed. You may have to immerse yourself in successful productivity by starting with rewarding easy to finish projects until you're on a roll. It usually comes down to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, like being cheerful so you can hear birds chirp. Think about whethar what you are doing now will make you feel better or worse in a few hours. You might feel better overall if you wash the windows instead of play a video game. x is probably wreaking havoc on your seratonin cycling too. I've tried tons of meds. In the long run, they were all worse than nothing at all.
What do you mean by psychosis? I channeleed something about getting used to staring at the ceiling. Is that what you mean?

SHARP
The pain is so sharp
You can breath it
Pure madness and evil grace
Laugh to the heavens
As your feet begin to burn
Higher conciousness
Somewhere else entirely
The mind is attached
The blood is within
And the pain is sharp, satisfying
Never slow
Never stop
One and only
My eyes are opened

I wrote that in the depths of depression. I'm learning to turn my pain into something beautiful.

good gurl!!!!

15 years

Since 8 months ago, got kicked out and lost my boyfriend at the same time. Therefore realising that my dad didn't want me with him , I couldn't be with my boyfriend (my first serious one, lost our virginities to eachother) and I would have to lose all the friends that I had worked so hard to get and move back to a place that I hate, and I now I have to stay on for another year at college due to timetable problems that wouldn't have happened if I were still in Devon. Basically it ruined my life. Every single aspect of it, and I am not happy here.

   For eleven months.
   After the girl I loved stopped talking with me. We never had anything more than talks, but when she stopped talking with me I was close to suicide...

I've been depressed for years as I've had plenty of bad things happen to me.