</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
To those of you who have full lives, marriage, family, interests... how do you do it?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
ECHOES, what helps me keep on the path is my kids. I have a lot of responsibilities as a parent, and I can't just shirk them. I put my kids before myself. Even at the worst of my depression, the kid responsibilities helped drag me through life. They gave a structure I had to stick to, for their sake. Due to depression, I did drop a lot of other things, like socializing and friendships, helping at my kids' schools, cleaning the house, gardening and keeping up our yard, and even talking much to people, both at and outside of work. I did the minimum to get by. I think we do as much as we are able to at the moment. As my depression improved, I had more energy and desire to do other stuff--take on new projects at work and at home, talk more to people (sounds trivial, but I had really become a hermit of few words), and the biggy: deal with my failing marriage. My house and garden are still a mess, but I feel at least I'm placing energy in solving a huge problem (the marriage).