Are you ashamed of your depression?

Little Turtle,
I'm with you. I'm not ashamed. Mental illness led me down such an unfortunate path. I have a right to enjoy the rest of my life and that means forgiving myself. Though there will be always some that never will understand. I'm lucky though. My family says they do. Many of the people who post here do. Thanks for the thread Humpty Dumpty!

I did not expect this thread to generate this much attention. I hope that those that do suffer with depression and are ashamed of it can read this thread & know they are not alone. I am not going to tell you not to be ashamed of it because that is about as effective as saying don't be depressed. I will say though that you don't have to be ashamed of it. Regardless of what anyone else says depression is a disease you suffer from, just like cancer is a disease you suffer from. Hugs to everyone who wants one.

No. I am not proud of it, but there is no shame in it.

Regardless of why you are depressed, it is not your fault, thus nothing to be ashamed of. I think there is still so much stigma that it is extra hard for depressed people not to be ashamed of it.

I see so much shame in MH issues but not in other diseases that can be caused by bad habits. Not that there should be shame in any medical issue but it is odd how much shame gets loaded on MH problems.

I still feel ashamed. Crying and showing emotions are signs of weakness in my family. Even my dad says that I am "mentally fragile". I am 50 years old, but his words still hurts. My family jokes about it and my hospitalizations and med issues like it's no big deal. But it makes me feel damaged and flawed.

i feel guilt more than shame, or is that the same thing? there is really no reason for shame because we are mentally ill, like being sick, you can't help it, like having the flu, we just have to learn to live with it, like taking medicine. we also need to learn coping skills too. i would think that shame would be not doing anything about it, we have to admit our illness to ourselves too.

I feel like I don't have a real reason for it, that I'm not strong enough and I should be able to manage it myself

the biggest problem we have....we just don't know what is causing all this mental illness...
and when we don't know something we can make up all kinds of reasons and theories...
before we knew about seizures people made up all kinds of stories...we have a hard time saying WE JUST DONT KNOW