I'm talking about Depression. I know now when I look back at my life that I could have been helped in middle school. I showed the signs, I threatened suicide, I chased a girl with a knife....it was all there and no one saw it. My life could have been so different. So many mistakes didn't have to be made if anyone had noticed. Are you ever upset or angry no one saw it before you did?

This post has been edited by nursepower: Aug 9 2008, 03:56 PM

Hi Nursepower,

Yes, big time.

In fact I know my father knew and knew from the time it started. And he did nothing. Why? He had it too you see and has never faced it yet. It resulted from a fatal car accident where my father and us 3 children survived but all of us had it from that day. Took me most of my life to establish and face that whereas my father could and should have helped us deal with it before it became the monster it has. He even remarried withing 2 years to a psychologist and still nothing. All 4 of us still suffer from it and have nothing to do with each other as well. That started in 1961.

Angry? That's a mild word for what I feel about the lack of help, the disregard the whole family had for what happened to us. Still, today, my father refuses to even speak about it.

Anger? Rage is too mild. But yes, I certainly know what you mean.

Best

Friendly

I often wonder how my life would have been different if my parents cared enough to try and figure me out, yes. Just know that you have a brotherhood/sisterhood of people who weren't blessed with emotional (or other) support. We'll be okay. Embrace today, my friend.

Hi Nurse,



I have thought about what my life would have been like without depression.

But I think what is important is looking towards the future.

Dante~

No. Saddened that people chose to do nothing after the fact.

I'm not angry at anyone else for missing the signs of the past. I'm only angry with myself for ignoring them as long as I did.

Hi nursepower, sure, I wish that they would have seen my mental illness for what it was way back then. They didn't even diagnose me with ADHD until I was in my late thirties even though my brother has it! I wish they would have figured that out long ago and saved me the grief. As far as my bipolar went, the symptoms of it mimic the symptoms of alcoholism so they just thought I was a drunk, not mentally ill, for years upon years upon years. My whole life could have been different, way better with meds and therapy, but my folks just didn't see what was going on with me. They always focused on my older brother cause of his antics with being ADHD. I was the good, quiet one. My ADHD was internal only, I wasn't hyperactive, but my brain/mind was. It was so bad, racing all the time, that I didn't talk until I was over two and a half years old. They, (parents & doctors,) could have saved me years of self destruction and pain if only they would have seen the problems as they really were. Hope this helps a little. darkshadow.

What a wonderful statement. I feel so much like that

I know how you feel. I had depression very bad starting at about age 9. From age 9-25 my life was a depressive hell. Now I am 27 and it is still a constant struggle. My depression is coming back and my marriage may be falling apart and the battle against suicidal thoughts has once again begun.

I try not to be mad or bitter at my parents about it--they never got me the help I needed. They should have gotten me help but they were not educated enough, they did not know better. It took me a long time to forgive them for their ignorance, for a long time I viewed them as accomplices to my depression, through their inaction.

Back then it was just my mom raising me and my brother, but even the counselors at school should have had a clue....I'm not angry at one person in particular and maybe angry is the wrong word, just wishing I hadn't lost so much time. Even when I was diagnosed it was me who saw the commercial on TV and I said to my mom. "Hey that's me" and she got me an appointment that day and what do you know....I was BP.

im upset that my parents didnt have me tested further. they knew something was wrong with me, hell, i knew something was wrong with me and i was a kid. i was a child of FAS, and i remember seeing the doctor almost every month, i never took any medication, my parents were Seventh Day Adventists, and i started drinking when i was 16, and when i quit drinking 5 years ago thats when i started having some real problems and its taken me this long and alot of heartache to find out things that i could have known all along.

Yes... I look back and see myself as a child getting ever more isolated and desperate and nihilistic, and so full of repressed anger towards myself and others. And my parents and teachers telling me that all would be well, because I was academically successful, somehow ignoring the fact that I was missing out on so much social education and that every day was screwing me up a little more. I was so patently not waving but drowning. I had lots of trips to the doctor for non-specific things - and I think my mum did ask them, privately, if they could offer psychological help, but nothing was forthcoming. But I do know that my mum was very scared of my ending up in therapy or on medication for fear that the stigma would somehow follow me through life, so I don't know exactly how or what she asked.

On the other hand, there are lots of people on this board who seem to be receiving medication and therapeutic interventions at a much younger age, and it doesn't necessarily make the problem go away. I do wish that I could go back, take back the knowledge of the help that I needed and try to rewrite my life without this awful condition in it, but it still might not have made the difference. Looking back, I can see the earliest signs of the problem from age 5 or 6, and I've been wondering recently whether my family circumstances primed me for this even earlier than that. So I don't know if intervention even at the age of 6 would have been effective.

I still feel angry and upset that my Mum is and always has been in complete denial that there could be something "wrong" with her daughter.

When I was 14/15 I was rushed into hospital a couple of times with parylising panic attacks and the nurses/ docs recognised there was something wrog and arranged psychiatric appointments for me which my Mum ignored and said that I was "normal"... She's always been more bothered about maintaining an image amongst the family than me actually being OK.

I am pretty sure if I had seen somebody back then then things could have been a lot better for me now. So yes, I'm pretty annoyed about that! :)

Yep, in full agreement. I went from a straight A student to failing grades within three months of 7th grade due to bullying. I was pulling out my eyelashes and eyebrows. I was faking illness to get out of school to avoid the hell. One morning, after missing the bus for school and angering my mother who had to take me, I even mentioned that I was going to get a knife out of the kitchen to stab myself, and she just got angrier, didn't even ask me why. This was when I was 11. Then when I was 18 I mentioned that I had felt suicidal recently, and my mother just cried and asked me if I knew how that made her feel. No attempt to get my help of any kind. All I got was anger and ignorance.

Then when I told my parents about 20 years later that I had been diagnosed with low-level depression, they were just confused. They just wondered why this didn't come up when I was eight and the teachers wanted me to skip a grade and put me through a battery of psychological tests to make sure I was ready. No mention of anything that happened in middle school. No mention of my two occasions to fatally hurt myself. At least this time it was only ignorance, no anger.

I'm not sure, I used to be angry because my parents told me once they perhaps should get me some help but never did, and then when I took the initiative to go to my GP and was dx'd they repeated that there were many times during the years when they had thought they should seek help from me. I was only angry because i spent so many years thinking that perhaps I was born wrong or an alien or something because noone seemed to understand or be like me. It may have helped just them saying that they were worried about me and talking to me instead of thinking it over and letting me remain in pain. But I now realise that was a key element of my family, there were a lot of emotions flying around and it was best to just get through each day and remain close by not talking about these things. Plus I know now that I didn't help the situation as I wouldn't talk to them and it is difficult to know what is normal teenage behaviour and what isn't. I'm not angry now, I know my parents love me and they have since supported my 100% which I am so thankful for. I think neither of us knew any better at the time, and I can understand how we got to the point we did.