Gender:  Female

                      Pets: 2 dogs, a horse and 2 cats

Actor - Nicolas Cage

I've suffered with bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts since I was a
teenager and about 11 years ago I was officially diagnosed. At the time I
had just taken too much on my plate and it pushed me over the edge. I
was doing alot of volunteer work, sitting on the PTA board at my oldest
daughters school, sitting on the board of a local group providing free family
activities for low income families, chairing a group that provided outings and
activities for street youth and operating the local Food Bank depot. I was
also working and raising 2 kids on my own. Yeah I know, STUPID. I just
had a hard time saying no when people asked me for help and I took on
too big of a load. Anyway I totally burnt out and fell apart. I resigned my
positions, but it was too late, the damage was done. I could feel the
depression washing over me like a wave and I couldn't stop it. I sent my
girls tostay at a friends for a few weeks and totally fell apart. I trashed my
house, destroying almost everything except my kids stuff, I became
extremely suicidal, going as far as sitting on the edge of a bridge a few times.
The first time this bible thumper came by and started telling me how god
loves me and then she handed me this pamphlet and when I opened it, it
had this picture of a guy drowning and it was all about rebirth. I thought a
thing about having to die to be reborn with a guy drowning was about the
dumbest thing you could hand a person on the edge of a bridge. It struck
me as so ridiculously funny I couldn't stop laughing. Have you ever tried to
kill yourself while you're laughing your ass off? It just doesn't work. lol
The second time the cops showed up and they  said "Could you get off the
bridge?'" and I said "no" and they said "why" and I said "because it's my
spot and I'm not moving" and the one cop said "well if your gonna jump
you should move further to the middle where the waters deeper" and I
said "thanks for the tip" and we got to talking and eventually I got down
and they gave me a lift home. After that I decided if I'm not ready to die
then I'd better get my act together because my kids needed me sane, so I
straightened out my house and brought my kids home. I kept it together
for my girls, but I was anything, but cured. I stopped doing anything. I
couldn't bear the thought of leaving the house, I never laughed or smiled.
I just went through the motions of living. I finally went to my doctors and
was put on anti depressants. About a week after I started on the meds I
was watching a movie with my girls and I laughed at something and my
oldest daughter said "you laughed mom. You actually laughed". And she
had tears coming down her face. I hadn't realized how bad it had effected
my kids until that point.The meds have been a bit of arollercoaster ride with
adjusting doses and finally adding a second med to get a good balance,
but without them I would be dead or in a nut house by now.

Depression can be a real pain in the ass. I mean besides the obvious suicidal
thoughts, self destructiveness, etc. there's the biggest problempeople with this
illness face and that's other people. Calling the illness depression is doing us an
injustice from the get go. I can't even count the number of times I've had people
say to me I was depressed once.  Hellooo...Being depressed for 2 days
because your mothers third cousin twice removed died is not the same thing
as clinical depression. Take that feeling,  magnify it 100 times and live with it
day in and day out every single day of your life and you might have a clue. It's
about wanting to die because to you something as simple as spilling a glass of
water makes you feel stupid and useless. It's about crying uncontrollably for
hours for no real reason. It's about feeling completely helpless and hopeless
and empty. Not once in a while, but all the time. Depression leaks into every
aspect of your life until you can nolonger function like a normal person. You
get physically ill at the thought of leaving your house and being in a crowd
terrifies you. You get trapped inside you're own body, too afraid to step outside
of your own world to do anything. It's completely debilitating and the worst
part is that because you're not physically disabled people don't understand. I
have a myriad of physical ailments all brought on by my depression, yet I can
tell people I suffer from Fybromialgia and they'll say oh yeah I heard that's
really painful or that I have IBS and they'll say that's terrible, but I say I have
depression and they give me that familiar so what look. Yet if it wasn't for the
depression I would be healthy. The only people who really understand
depression are those suffering from it and most of us are too fucked up to be
able to help others with this illness.

What I find hillarious is people who think it sounds cool to say they suffer from
depression. I remember one girl telling me that she has to take 200mg of Paxil
every day. I happen to take Paxil, 30mg daily and I can tell you that not only
would nobody ever be prescribed 200 mg a day of Paxil, but if they were
taking it, they would be set for a walk on role in "Dawn Of The Dead". The
thing people who aren't on meds don't seem to realize is that the dosage is
very different on different meds. For example I take 30mg a day of Paxil and
150mg twice a day of Wellbutrin, but the paxil is actually the stronger of the
two and the wellbutrin was added in an attempt to help me level off.

My doctors tell me I will likely be on meds for the rest of my life, which is
difficult for me to accept, because my mom was always on tons of meds
when I was a kid and her purse looked like a portable drug store. I always
said I'd never be like that (I don't even like to take tylenols), but atleast this
way I can function to some degree and I'm not jumping off bridges or infront
of trains. My kids deserve a better legacy than that.

Rape