Theresa! OMG..you write so eloquently...yes..I idenify with you...I held it together..career...looks and all and when I left my job and told everyone it was anxiety and depression (even before Bipolar Diagnosis)...they all wanted to THINK it was something else.

Or someone elses caused it....or I would get better and suck it up and go back to work.
I was making 100k...so this was a big quit....and they think I'M NORMAL? LOL.

So, I do understand how you feel. I think all you can do is stop talking (not altogehter talking to them)..but don't even bother talking about depression...find those people that do understand (those few) and stick with them. It is so frustrating..it is...

Its so sad...that the people closest to us....the people we NEED to understand just don't.

My mother told me 2 weeks ago...not to talk to her again until I was properly medicated and that she didn't need my abuse. She gets I have mental illness..but she doesn't get IT really...because when I talk to her alone...about my problems...she brushes them off like everyone else...she only uses the mental illness AGAINST me when it is to her benefit (she doesn't want to come to my house for Christmas Eve). And she doesn't want to because she has never been to my house....I'm 52 years old...I've had the house 20 years...

She always complained I never had anything here...now I am .....she won't come...you don't do that to people you love...she has mental illness too..only she doesn't understand that SHE DOES.

So...there are like 3 people that love me...mental illness and all...know I have it badly...ask how I am...2 are x co-workers and when I worked with them..they would keep me afloat by telling me how great I was...etc...and I WAS at work...in the work I did...but falling apart at the seams all the time.

So FIND THOSE PEOPLE.