My Support Forums - View Single Post - Anyone with a depressed parent? I'd love to know I'm not alone.

AuburnSunshine · Dec 17, 2009, 10:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lonegael

My guess is that you had to grow up really fast, and had to watch your step, clean up after everyone and make sure for yourself that your clothes and food and books were ready for school every evening.

Whoaaaa ~

Yep, were you living with me? I never saw my mother much during the day all of grade school, junior high and high school. She was in bed when I left for school (always got up and off by myself) and in bed when I came home. I fixed my own dinner, took my bath and put myself to bed every night. I always assumed she slept all day because she watched TV all night.

She never attended school conferences, plays...anything. Looking back on it, it was so "par for the course" for me that I never realized there was anything wrong until she and my father killed themselves. As I sank into my depression after that stunner, I began to understand her avoidant and depressive behavior.

It's been 10 years since their deaths but only recently have I begun to acknowledge that my lingering and deepening depression, although triggered by a horrendous life situation, is genetic. I've never understood why I feel "broken" and why I can't shake the depression and move forward.

But if I give into that feeling...that this one little gene was lying dormant within me for so many years...

...that despite my mother and my childhood and a few other traumatic events/situations I was happily married with two children, a professional career and lots of friends...

...until one day a nuclear bomb was dropped on that poor little helpless gene...

...if I think that way then there really is no going back, no becoming whole after breaking.

Because, like Humpty Dumpty and his wish for all the king's men...blah, blah, blah...I'll still be nothing but splattered yolk.

Well, that was a fun post. And a ho, ho, ho to all of you as well!

Melanie