Depression is surprising. For one thing, I guess it's pretty hard to know if you have it because sometimes it comes on very slowly, and the symptoms can be little tiny ones that kind of knit themselves together into a smothering blanket.
I was just talking with my husband about depression and antidepressants. I am not sure about this, but it seems to me that, of the women I have fairly intimate conversations with, at least 70% are on antidepressants.
Now in the tradition of analyzing test methods, I'd have to say that there are several eyebrow-quirking aspects of this percentage. Like... I wonder if they were depressed before they started talking with me, or did I bring it on? OK, OK, I'm only kidding. I'm sorry. I'll quit.
BTW I am not on antidepressants. I have my own powerful elixer that brews naturally. Take some obsession, throw it in with a little workalcoholism, some simmering rage, a really offbeat sense of humor, and a really wonderful husband, and stir. Add to that my own personal technique for really, seriously NOT pretending to "be nice" but working to speak up if I'm mad, and ... Hmmn, there was something else. Ah. And if the balance turns and depression hits, I have been known to take about 8 paperback books with me and take to my bed. Now that I'm in my mid-forties, I strangely enough just started eating chocolate, too. Oh. And did I mention that I took my child out of the bitch-ridden local public schools, with their constant rehashing of hackneyed high-school situations and put him into a school with a bunch of Europeans? GREEN Europeans? I have yet to meet an unpleasant mommy at our school. How cool is that?
But what do I know? Let's see what the experts say
How to tell if you're depressed
Depression in children and youth
What can help with depression?
How to tell if you're depressed
Suicide
Please don't commit suicide. Please? TALK to someone. Just tell them. It's not guilt, it's not "bad," it's a medical imbalance in your brain if you're thinking about it. So please mention suicidal thoughts. They are a symptom.
Faith-based suicide stuff
If you have read this website, you know that I'm emphatically not faith-based. But you know that? That's just me. I'm incapable. On the other hand, some of my good friends are, shall we say, "faith based" and here's some stuff from that side of the table.
