In October 2005 I lost my business, declared bankruptcy, and my common law husband walked out on me. I spent 3 weeks in bed, not leaving the house. Fortunately I had lots of dry and canned food in the house, and I would nibble. I kept water by the bed and only wanted to get up to have bath once a week because I felt so yucky without bathing.
At the time I had two little dogs, a bichon and a poodle-terrier mix. The bichon was Joe Cool. He'd go eat and drink and come back upstairs and just plop down on the floor beside the bed when he felt like it. The other dog stuck to me like glue. She knew something was very wrong and she wouldn't leave my side. She was by my side 24/7, sleeping on the bed with me. She would not even leave me to eat or drink, unless I went down to the kitchen and watched her eat and drink. I knew I had to take care of my dogs and every day I got up to feed them and give them water, and put them out. I think that having someone to care for can really help. And dogs are very easy to care for. I was lucky that I was 52 and my kids were grown up and married.
I always say that my dogs saved my life. Who knows what might have happened if I hadn't had them to care for. I wasn't suicidal, just extremely depressed, but in the past I've been anorexic when very depressed and have gone down to 90 pounds.
After 3 weeks I dragged my sorry butt to the doctor and got some AD.