But I really just wanted to give you a ((hug)).  

There's nothing wrong with getting help, as you already know.  Go.  You'll feel better if history is any guide, and you'll stop feeling worried about what you're doing to your children.  This IS the most responsible thing you can do, you're not failing.

((HUG))) again.  I'm sorry you're having trouble.

A lot.  More hugs.

I've suffered from depression for most of my life.  I feel like it's robbed me of any joie de vivre, even when I'm not actively depressed.  I worry horribly about passing it on to my children.  

I guess I don't feel weak about needing help, but I don't want to "manage" it, I want to cure it.

is alongside yours.  But I am new to the diagnosis; for years I did not realize what it was that made my thinking so irrational.  I lost my job and my insurance and since getting the new job have not got any therapy or meds.  It's bad and I have no excuse...I just put it off every day.  

Regular exercise is good, almost eliminates the need for drugs, but of course depression and anxiety make it hard to be motivated to exercise, yay vicious circle.

I think a lot of guys are depressed but not diagnosed.  DH is depressed and angry since the pregnancy/birth craziness.  He says he won't go to the doctor because it won't help because his problems are real.  He doesn't believe he could ever feel better, and that it is because of all the people in his life screwing him over.  

I'll go with Tessajp and reiterate that there is nothing wrong with getting help at all. Depression is something that can be managed, and going for assistance in managing it does not in the least indicate weakness. I think it shows you're courageous for standing up and taking it on. I heartily recommend that you pick up the support network that you built up over the years. You owe it most of all to yourself in achieving the promies you've made over the years.

Big hugs from me, and good luck.

but I know several people who are. (((big hugs))) and I hope you find your way through.

I've been off and on meds for about 12 years.  I suspect members of my family may suffer from it as well, but we never talk about it.  Both sides of my family are strewn with alcoholics for years back, and I really think that's depression showing.  There wasn't a good way for a man in the 1920s & 1930s (or probably women for that matter, although they were allowed to be more emotional) to deal with depression, so I think they drank their feelings away.

I like counseling, but I find it so hard to go.  When I had a full-time job, I didn't see how I could explain a two-hour time-off I had to have every week, coming back looking like a wreck.  Now I'm at home and I wonder what I'm supposed to do with my child.  He's only 18 months, so it's more that he wouldn't sit still than that he'd hear somthing that would upset him, but it still weirds me out to think of taking my kid to therapy with me.

Depression is, among other things, a really inconvenient disease to have.  The one thing I do hate about therapy is telling the same stupid story over again to someone new.  I'm not sure I've ever made progress; I've just faded away from certain issues and others have taken their place.  It used to be problems with my mom; now it's with my brothers.  It does just seem like it will never end.  Erin said it so well: I'm sick of managing; I want it cured.  Maybe someday.

this latest incident is two years long, and has not been responsive to pills.   My family were occasionally abusive and still are.  This latest incident started with an abusive incident.  I really do think I need therapy. Unfortunately pills are all my insurance will cover.

has had several incidents of major Depression - the most recent one in the second year we were married.  I  think it scared him that he might lose me and our DD if he didn't figure it out - found a great research study that was looking at sleep cycles and exercise as triggers, and for him that (plus the talk therapy) has worked.  But he's definitely a "depressive" personality, and has been scared that our kids would inherit the predisposition (we have mood disorders on both sides of the family).

He feels guilty sometimes, but I see it as a real illness, and wouldn't hold him responsible for it anymore than for any physical illness.  It's hard when he's in a low mood - harder for my DD, who just gets frustrated.

Sorry you're not feeling well mpg.  Sorry about your mom too, that's an awful cancer.  How did she get that?  Did she work with asbestos?

I find the mental illness stigma in our country is alive and well, so even when we need help, part of our reluctance to get help may stem from that stigma.  In other words, if our foot wasn't working one morning, we'd rush ourselves to the hospital, but when our moods are off, we tell ourselves to snap out of it.

Don't worry what your husband thinks.  He sounds like a very kind man and I'm sure all he wants is for you to feel better.  He doesn't really need to understand how you are feeling, you know?  

I've had experience dealing with depressed friends and relatives, and I decided that even though I may think I can understand, I can't.  I've never been depressed.

Now anxiety and I are good friends.  Excessive worry about things that I can't control or aren't important, sign me up.  My husband doesn't understand either, but he can't, he's never been there.

It sounds like you know the path out, you've navigated this before.  I wouldn't worry too, too much about the short fuse with your kids right now.  Some of that could just be normal mom stuff too.  And make things as easy for yourself at home right now as you can.  Streamline a bit til you feel better. Do the minimum that has to get done, order pizza when you feel like it.

Anyway, I hope you can feel better soon.  And get to spending some of that nice insurance coverage on whatever you need to feel better  : )  You deserve it.

If you had hypothyroid and had to be on thyroid medication for the rest of your life, or if you were genetically predisposed to high blood pressure, and, despite exericising and maintaining weight and eating right, couldn't keep your BP down, I don't think you'd feel "ashamed and weak" for having to take medication. Why do we view depression like some sort of character flaw or moral failing? It's a chemical imbalance that may require medicine to correct.

There are different kinds and degrees of depression and people respond to different kinds of treatment.
We have a mild depressive streak in my family and it affects us all in different ways, and we all find something different helps us.

I had PPD after my son was born and it was like something foreign had taken over my normally happy, high-energy, brain. In a couple months, the hormones leveled off and so did my emotions. I went to therapy in the meantime, and that worked wonders. Now I am able to avoid depression by taking a lower-stress job, exercising regularly, and knowing and managing my stressors (my family, for one, financial strain, for another).

My sister is a high achiever, one of the last people you'd ever think of as "depressed," but she was having severe insomnia and irritability. She's been on Zoloft for several years and feels like it changed her life.

My mother is more prone to situational depression (kind of like me) and she'd probably benefit from therapy and anti-anxiety meds for short-term use during stressful periods. But she continues to see depression as a moral failing, drugs as unambiguously dangerous, and doesn't get the help she needs, which annoys the hell out of the rest of us who bear the brunt of her emotional outbursts.

I'd like to add that my best friend's husband had depression so badly at one point he couldn't get out of bed. HIS brother attempted suicide a couple years back. My BIL has depression and anxiety that requires medication (you can tell when he goes off the meds-- it's not pretty. Fortunately, his wife makes him take them, and he listens to her). So while women may get depression more often, the men in my life are represented as well.

If you need medication and therapy, for goodness sakes, get it. Don't put it off and don't feel ashamed.

a book , I buy multiple copies of and give to my friends at the drop of a hat.

It really hit home for me when I read both as a child of someone with depression and as a mother.

on the depression boat. My parents dropped me off at the psychiatrist's office at the age of 12. I was very heavily medicated until the age of 25. Coming off the meds and getting in the right therapy for me (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) made all the difference. I still have bouts of depression but they usually don’t last as long or feel as hopeless. Of course, I remain open to the possibility that at some point I may need medication if I fall into the abyss again.

The message I felt my parents were sending me as a child was that my depressed mood was an embarrassment to them and should be dealt with in the utmost secrecy (they NEVER even asked me about the medications I was taking).

Point being, if you suffer from depression and are aware that your children may be catching on to a difference in your behavior it may be an opportunity to share a few things with them. Feeling sad is so often frowned upon that we feel obligated to hide our sadness, especially from children.

I’m not suggesting that you need to engage in an extensive explanation but  openly acknowledging the fact that you don’t feel like yourself and that you will try to do something about it may be a comfort to your children. It may also make them feel more secure and confident that if they experience sadness or even depression, they need not feel ashamed or as though they have failed in any way.

Someone said that we suffer because we deny our pain. Feeling pain is part of the human experience but I think we can decrease the extent of our suffering by accepting the fact that pain is part of the human experience. It just is. It is not something for which to be ashamed.

I think there is great courage in acceptance of ourselves as unable to be perfect all the time.

I know how much it can hurt and I wish you the best in making it out on the other side.

killed himself in July. He was in treatment on meds...saw no way out. My mother also bi polar and my sister My husband was unable to get help and in the end I believe what killed him was his inability to separate from his mother. My therapist believes that too.

I had absolutely no mothering.I basically raised myself. My earliest memories of my mother was of her crying in the corner. Fast forward...It was the very same thing with my husband..In the 5 weeks before his suicide, I used to listen to him cry until I thought I would go out of mind.

I also decided that my daughter would have a different experience. And she has..In the early years I protected her as much as I could from her Dads depression. As she got older I talked to her. But in the end...she grew up too quickly and felt
that she was often the adult. That came out 3 weeks ago when I dragged her to therapy.But shes an unbelievable girl..almost woman..And I can be proud
of how I found a way to be a loving mother to her despite my circumstances.

If you want to chat off line post here and we can connect

I definitely felt the love. I went to yoga today for the first time in almost a week and am feeling a little better (despite two hours this afternoon at Chuck E Cheese). This has been an unhappy month with my husband gone a lot.

I'm about 75 percent sure I'm going to get some outside help. Just discussing the possibility of doing so has been really helpful.