2 weeks to get ready for The R Talk......

[Dawn of Hope]

Dawn I hope you are well today and continuing to battle on with faith .I have been told that God never allows you more pain than you can handle but sometimes we are tested,arent we? May I ask do you think your depression is genetic or a result of childhood trauma?Perhaps you dont want to discuss it though. I am thinking of you anyway.Thanks both for your support x

Arianne,
I'm sorry, I must have missed your thread when it bubbled to the top after this post!

Thank you for your well wishes! I carry on as before--no major changes in my sitch, just minor ones. I always have plenty to say, though, as you can see from most of my posts all over the board!

Regarding the idea that God never gives us more than we can handle--a friend of mine said that is because when we do overload, it's time to hand it over to divine management. Amy C said more or less the same thing on someone's thread on this board recently--she said that we ARE given more than we can handle, so that we will learn to rely on God to handle that, and everything else too.

You were asking about the origin of my depression. I certainly don't mind discussing it at all. I am pretty sure that for me it is primarily genetic. The only major trauma I can identify from my childhood was the death of my father when I was seven. Other than the repercussions of that sitch, I had an okay childhood--my mother was pretty strict, with very high expectations for us, but not to the point of being abusive or anything, and I always knew she loved me.

Genetically, though...it seems that I couldn't have avoided depression no matter how hard I tried. My mother had post-partum depression after my brother was born (when I was five), and the ADs available at that time didn't work well for her; as a matter of fact, I found out recently that she was treated with shock therapy (she was not happy that someone had revealed this to me). She's never been what you might call a joyful person--I often got the impression that she was faking happiness. My father I know less about, but I understand that he was clinically depressed too. My depression hit me when I was 13, and it's been a cloud over my life ever since. My brother (only sibling) ALSO had depression from the age of 13, although I don't think he was ever suicidal, and he was on ADs for a few years starting just before I went on them. So...you can see why it seems sort of inevitable: every member of my immediate family of origin has battled clinical depression. None of us are the life-of-the-party types, although we all have our moments.

So that's my analysis of my depression. Does that answer your question? Feel free to ask anything else you like. Drop a note on my thread if I don't get back to you within a few days--I tend to concentrate on the threads that are at the top of the "most recent post" pages.

Sounds like you are doing well with GAL and going dark...I know how hard it is to make a life for yourself after being wrapped around your H for so long, but you are doing nicely, it seems.

I need to get to bed now, but I hope you continue to feel more peace and joyful moments as you rediscover YOU.

Peace and blessings,
Dawn