Erica ...
There is a movement here (and I would assume in the States) to be open about mental illness to create understanding. I wish my sister would be open about it. She hides it and then accuses people of prejudice against people with mental illness. She could be such a wondrous advocate for people living with this. She's intelligent, well educated, talented, a marvelous artist, and has been, until the last year or so, an awesome mother. What she has accomplished in her life is that much more impressive, more awesome, when you consider how incredibly depressed she's been her whole life ... with no support from the medical community. She presents as completely normal, completely able to cope, so the doctors never recognized how very far gone she truly was.
Depression seems to run in our family. I've been in therapy on and off since I was 14 years old because I was always just so damned sad for no reason. Been at the razor's edge of suicide more than once. Somehow dragged myself back from the precipice. My aunt, my cousin, my sister. It's only since starting on the biologic meds that the black curtain that has shrouded my emotions has lifted. TNF-a proliferates in the brains of people with depression.
Anyway, this has been on my mind a lot lately. Thank you for talking so openly about it. It's been hidden in my family for too many decades.
Warm hugs,
