All my life I was just busy excelling in school, getting my degree & excelling in my career along with being wife, mother & cleaning up after the financial messes my (now) EX-H made (good thing accounting was one of my majors). Along with that I was practicing my flute & playing in chamber groups. I had no time to think about mental health or mental anything.
Then I hit my early 40's & career fell apart, I didn't even realize how my bad marriage was effecting me.....but major depression hit. I thought it was JUST "burn out". But I kept getting worse, not better while on medical leave of absense from my career. Suicide attempts happened. I was diagnosed with major depression & major anxiety. It got so bad I ended up on permanent disability.
I never thought I was living with a diagnosis but I was so miserable I really didn't want to live at all with or without a diagnosis for 13 years.....NOTHING HELPED.
Top that off my mom died of cancer & the situation she created with having to have a home care person put me into a place that caused trauma to me & her but she wasn't cognative enough to even know what was happening.
I actually left my marriage after my mom died. Moved 2100 miles away to try & start life over. The amazing fact was that I did start my life over & realized in the process that most of what I went through was SITUATIONAL. I still struggled here & there with feelings of depression but I could get through it after giving it a few days to smooth out. Stayed on disability because at my age & with my massive migraines I was still dealing with it would have been hard to work a set job anyway.
Wonderful therapy helped me deal with & understand all I had actually experienced my whole life I had just ignored with my "busy" & all the things that had contributed to the diagnosed mess I had ended up being.
Life is now under control (no meds). My T helpes me deal with the tough things I still go through. The good thing about having experienced & been diagnosed is that NOW I am able to recognize when flares of depression hit.....this has been worse this year after losing my soulmate doggie (Leo) who had been a more wonderful & caring part of my life than my EX-H ever was. I can see & recognize the twinges of depression that keep hitting me. I do try hard to counter it & I do stay active with things I was doing before.....having been diagnosed & actually having gotten basically well has actually helped me recognize when I do go through NORMAL phases of depression & anxiety when other situations come up that normally cause these symptoms.