Hey dog... I've had ulcerative colitis my whole life, but in the past few years my GI doc thinks it may really be Crohn's, misdiagnosed. At this point it is inconclusive, so I'm still calling it "colitis". The two are similar. I went through my whole teenage years with diahrea, weight loss, "accidents", cramps, etc. They didn't have Immodium tables back then.

The good news is it is well under control now. Two factors contribute to this... one is some medicine I take... much easier on the system than the steriods I had to take when I was in bad shape. These are maintenance meds with no real side effects.

The other thing is through all of my teenage years with so much trouble, the first time I was able to wean off the steroids and remain symptom-free was when I went to college. When I came home from vacation I got sick again. Long story short, I learned that I had to stay away from the influence of my parents in order to remain healthy.

So yes, these "auto-immune" illnesses ARE linked to stress and can be effected by depression.

In the past few years I have developed rheumatoid arthritis, another auto-immune illness (it might be a symptom of Crohn's, if I have that, but right now they think it is separate but connected, being an autoimmune illness as well).

I definitely feel the pain in my joints fluctuate with the state of my depression. So yes there is a connection there as well. And of course the pain makes me depressed, so they feed off each other.

But there is hope. Once they figure out a proper diagnosis, there is help available. I think you should be able to get this completely under control with treatment. Taking care of your depression will also help.

I no longer ever have to worry about "accidents" because at times when I do have a flair-up, I have sufficient warning before it becomes uncontrollable. Actually I can usually get it taken care of before it gets "out of control" if I call my doctor right away.

So with treatment I think you will find a GREAT DEAL of relief from the suffering and worry you have been going through. Shame on the docs for not looking into this more thoroughly when you first reported problems. Same thing happened to me when I was young, but it was very severe... I couldn't eat, couldn't get out of the bathroom, pediatricians said there was nothing wrong, Dad thought I was faking... Finally found a new doctor, at that point I was 17 years old and weighed only 56 pounds, he put me immediately in the hospital (should have been done long ago) and repeated the tests the pediatricians gave me and discovered my colitis.

Good luck with this, take it slow and talk with the doctor... don't get overly worried because I think that you will find treatment will give you a new, freer life.