Nice writing, Poppet. I'm glad you;re feeling some better and are prepared to give yourself some leeway. That's good.

To answer your question: it took me quite a while to realize what was wrong with me. In fact I didnt start to realise what was wrong until i was starting thinking about suicide... so it probably took me 3 months or so to understand what was wrong. In those three months i was becoming increasingly depressed but i think now that i may have been suffering from mild depression for maybe a year or more before that. i do still have depression, but i sometimes deny to myself that i have it...