I don't know if anyone will ever read this except for myself. But that's OK, because I'm writing mostly for myself. If others read it and are able to take something away from it, I'll be pleased as punch. (Can punch be pleased? And if so, how do you know if it is?) I'm not very tech savvy, so this blog will most likely not look as pleasing as some but maybe, if I can get out of this what I'm hoping to get out of it, I can eventually dedicate some of my focus on learning to improve it. I am a 35 year old woman who has been diagnosed with depression. Now this is not an unusual occurrence in this day and age. It seems as if everyone has some type of depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, etc. That being said, it's still a little bit different for everyone. I remember when I was about in 4th, maybe 5th grade, my mother started going to see someone for depression. I didn't understand what was going on at that point. I knew she went to go see someone who was a therapist (now that I really understood what that meant back then) that we also went to church with. A Sister Thibaut (I honestly do not think that's the proper spelling, but I so very much don't remember how to spell her name). My father was an active duty member of the U.S. Navy at the time and since we were stationed in Virginia Beach (my father was technically stationed in Norfolk but we lived in Virginia Beach), he was stationed on a ship. I don't remember the type of ship but I believe it was called the USS Shenandoah. I'm the oldest of five girls and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. I remember Sister Thibaut (for those who don't understand why I call her Sister, I was raised as a Latter-Day Saint and that is the appropriate title that you call someone by in the church. Since I really knew her more through church than anything else, I think of her that way.) would occasionally take me and the next two oldest of my sisters out once in awhile. I always just thought she was being nice. I think I realize now that while it was that in part, she was also doing it as a way of helping my mother out. It's funny what you don't think of until you're own life starts to lead you down a similar path. I have depression. Most of the time I can simply shrug and go about my life even knowing I have it, but sometimes, and these are the times that make the bigger impression, sometimes I can't. Sometimes it becomes this all consuming thing in my life that creeps into to every thought and every action or inaction, and takes it's pound of flesh. Or, I suppose, in this case, sanity. I'm not really insane, I don't think. Not in a criminal way, or something that you would see on television or read about online kind of way. I think we all have to be a little bit insane to survive in this world but untreated mental illness can literally make you feel like you are losing your mind. Even treated mental illness can sometimes still have that affect. You know why? Because there is some part of your mind that has stopped working properly. Or perhaps never worked properly at all. Just like if you have diabetes and your body doesn't produce enough insulin. Or if you have allergies and you body's immune system tends to attack things that it shouldn't because it doesn't recognize them as benign. There's a lot of bad press about mental illness and it's because it's scary. It's not the same thing as having a broken bone, which happens because of an accident and you can watch the doctor make right, you go through a period of recovery and then it's over, it's fixed. Nothing more to think about. It's not quite that simple and yet at the same time it is. It's complicatedly simple. Because everyone is different. No two people are exactly the same and as a result, no one treatment or combination of treatments will work across the board, like they do with most other things. We all have different things that make us tick, that make us who we are, and those are all interwoven with the same parts that have slowly stopped working properly. (Disclaimer, I am not a doctor nor am I a medical student. This is based off of my own observation and understanding of how it was explained to me). My personality is very different from my mother's, although anyone seeing use together would see the similarities too. My circumstances are different. I do, however, share my mother's genetic base. And now I encounter one of the problems I'm still dealing with, even after nearly a year on medication - I can't stay focused on this. I feel like I have written everything that is in me to write about this at the moment. So I will close this post and come back for another one. When I need to.