I love being here. It's like a really comfortable armchair. You all understand.

I probably think too much, but isolation and living in my own head tends to do that to a person.

I don't know if you feel this way, but depression (perhaps before you even recognize it as such) is a little like silently screaming at the top of your lungs. I remember being almost unable to physically talk about it....not because of any stigma, but because I really didn't know what to say. It started out as a thought that it was a sadness that didn't go away. Telling my husband pretty much got me a pat on the head and a "cheer up" (metaphorically, of course. In reality neither of us had a clue as to what I was dealing with). When things got worse, I simply didn't feel like talking about it. Most certainly I didn't have it in me to see a doctor.

I have concluded that many people with depression can't reach out and so it simply gets worse and worse.

Perhaps every house should be issued a flag to put in the window, just in case of mental slippage....I could have managed that, perhaps. A request for help. Part of an emergency kit stored next to the band-aids and asprin. A plea for someone competent to come into my house and take me to a doctor. Someone to ignore me when I (inevitably) said "no, I'll be okay. It was a mistake". Someone to fill my prescriptions and make me take them until I was able to do so myself.
Just a thought....

BTW: Eventually, I wrote to my husband (talking just seemed like too much of an effort) telling him that I didn't want to be here any more. I didn't want to die, but the pain was so great that I couldn't think of another way to escape it.

Anyway, thanks to this forum. And consider my flag idea.....(off to write to the President)