EDIT: Sorry for posting this here. I'm not sure if it's depression so I opted to post it under "General". Please feel free to relocate this post if necessary.

Here I go posting again with my "issues" and feeling guilty about it and yet I know that this is what the forum is for. I'm so screwed up right now. Please forgive me.

Anyway, there are a lot of psychiatric problems on both sides of my family. A lot of us (including me) have been in psychiatric hospitals numerous times over the years (but not recently). There's a lot of depression, OCD, Anxiety and Hypochondria in my family and I've watched my disfunctional family suffer greatly over time.

Having given a bit of history here, I feel like my depression (if that's what it is) has gotten much worse over the last 4-5 months. I used to enjoy life when I was much younger - in stark contrast to how my life is now. I wake up in the mornings feeling so gloomy and just roll over and go back to sleep rather than face the day. It's the kind of thick, syrupy, gloomy feeling you might have if your whole family was murdered, your dog died, you lost your job and your kids ran away. You just feel like life is'nt worth living anymore. You just want to go to sleep and never wake up.

In addition to sleeping in very late, I just feel like a limp rag doll. It's as if all the zest for life...all the energy and motivation has been zapped out of me and I am just a hollow shell of what I used to be. Even when someone tries to strike up a conversation with me, instead of really "getting into it", I find myself just saying "yeah" or "oh, I see" a lot instead of engaging them.

A few other things and I hope noone will mind me saying this but I used to have sex regularly and now I've lost all interest in the last few months. I do it like maybe once a week now (instead of every day or every other day) but even then, I'm not really even in the mood. I find myself constantly complaining, dragging others down and being bitter and very negative. I hate the way I have become and I hate my sad, pathetic life.

I see people all around me, on TV, etc and am always very jealous of them. They have beautiful homes, lots of children (I've never had children), big farms, horses, cows, nice cars and I wonder where I "went wrong" in life. I feel like a failure and like I am too old to turn things around now - especially the way things are in this day and age. All of this makes me even more depressed.

The other "condition" I suffer from is scrupulosity. I always think that God is punishing me. For example, I could eat a can of corn and if I bumped my head on something 10 minutes later, I would see that as punishment from God for eating the corn and would never eat corn again. Usually however, it's something a little more serious than just eating corn (like sexual sins or unclean thoughts, etc). Over the years I have deprived myself of a LOT because of this condition and so my life has very few creature comforts anymore and I live my life in what amounts to a religeous "straightjacket".

People say that depression is caused by a "chemical imbalance" in the brain (ie; seratonin, dopamine, etc) but if your life just plain sucks, is it really a "chemical" thing?. I don't know. My depression (again, if that's what it is) get's to the point where I almost feel sick/ill and yet I don't have a temperature - I just feel totally gloomy and hopeless.

What's wrong with me and is this most likely depression or something else?. Anyone here relate to any of this?. A lot of people in my family have suffered from depression but I never thought it could be THIS bad )-:

- Thanks again for listening!!