I haven't been in therapy long-term, and I know you wanted this topic to be depression-specific, but after reading your post, I feel compelled to put this forth:


Have you ever been evaluated for ADHD?


Some things that make me wonder:



I know depression can cause this too, but my biggest source of failing at all those little responsibilities of life was my executive dysfunction (ADHD) rather than my mood. Particularly, initiation impairment.

ADHD and Autism/Asperger's seem totally different if you look at the diagnostic criteria, but the problems faced by people with those conditions are weirdly similar, at least for the relatively "high functioning" forms of autism.


If you want to push the autism angle, the DSM-5's "autism spectrum disorder" diagnosis should still account for Asperger's. (It's not the that APA decided that Asperger's wasn't a real problem, but rather they decided it wasn't really all that different from HFA.) However, I've found that it's harder to get an autism diagnosis than an ADHD diagnosis, and it typically gets you access to less treatment than ADHD.

Abilify is a dopamine agonist, so even though it's not normally used to treat ADHD, it theoretically could. However, many folks have problems with dopaminergic drugs only working temporarily, especially at low doses.


For whatever reason, ADHD is diagnosed more often in people who were adopted. (That applies more in certain situations than others; not sure if it's relevant to your history.) Plus, ADHD often goes unrecognized in females, especially in the past.


(And one of your past topics about financial problems.)


I don't know, I could be way off base, but it might be worth at least taking one of those screening questionnaires if you haven't already. I have ADHD and depression, and I have found that when my depression is well-treated but my ADHD is not, I'm still horribly sad (enough to get "moderately depressed" on the Beck Depression Inventory), just because untreated ADHD really sucks.