Yes you can certainly have the roller coaster ride you are describing. I have delt with it just like that for years. I have learned one thing about depression once I realized I had it, even though it wasn't every day, was that there are "triggers" out there that set the ball in motion. We may not know the ball is rolling down hill yet until it gets to the bottom. But I can certainly say there was a force there pushing the ball over the top. Just what that "forece/trigger" was, isn't always clear, but if you go back and look at when and what changes took place we can see how it starts to roll. Our minds are very complex and in my case I figured out how I could stop the ball from going to far down the hill. When I begin to feel that ball slowly rolling, I stop and look at myself and "why" I am having the feelings I am. What can I do about myself and not worry about others. This is a key in depression. We can not change others, only ourselves.

i know what the trigger is but sometimes i cant help it. i mean thinking about it. it has to do with a person and sometimes i just wake up feeling tht way and then my mind atomatically goes to tht person and then im all depressed and feel crappy for the whole day and sometimes longer than tht.

It sounds as if this person you are thinking about "is" the trigger. I had been married for 26 years and he walked out. Took ALL the money from the bank including our savings, took the vehicles, motorcycles, and anything else he wanted. This was in Nov. and winter was approaching. He had all the electric and water and any utility cut off since they were in his name. I lived 4 miles from the nearest phone. I then had no heat, food, electric and he had stopped paying the mortgage so I was going to be evicted. He had the house in his name and put up for sale. Real ass hole. He had broken my wrist during a fight in August and I didn't have a lot of use in it yet. I had to get surgery on it and a Titanium plate with screws installed since it was broke in 5 places. But after being married to this man for 26 years I went into a deep depression and just couldn't believe what was happening to me. I thought about him for a long long time. I had to start a life all over after all those years with absolutely nothing!!!!! I attempted suicide the January after he had left. Put in a phycs. place for a couple of weeks. Then just put back to where I was since I had no place to go and no friends or family. I called a person I had bought my two dogs from and asked him to come pick them up since I couldn't feed them. They were and are my life. My dogs are the only thing that kept me going. I still have two of them now since I had to put one down this past Feb. The person I had called also took me in since he was now a single man with a large house. After a while we have had a relationship but I'm NOT really happy. I have been here now two years this past March. I at least have a roof over my head and a place for me and my dogs. I feel grateful to him and "obligated" but I don't like being controlled by anyone but I'm stuck with no choices. I still think about my ex and am now legally divorced. The person I live with now is a big fat slob!!!!! I hate cleaning up after a person like that and it get's on my nerves!!!!! I also fight depression since I know I can slip back into where I was too. It's a daily fight but I am trying to keep positive that maybe my life will change and It won't be a "forever" thing here. He has asked me to marry him and I have said NO. I have told him that I don't want to get married since I still feel burnt from the last marriage. I know how the thought of other are still in our minds. As time is passing it has gotten easier for me to except the changes I have had to make. But, I still have the thoughts that come back. I will be 56 in July and NOT getting younger. It feels like I'm stuck in a relationship not by choice but by necessity. It's other people like you here on this site that help me too. When I read some of the other peoples depression problems I don't feel as bad. I have met one lady here that we have exchanged e-mail addresses and she and I write to each other every day. She has been a great friend. We exchange jokes and stuff all the time. She lives on the west coast and I lie on the east coast. But I feel like we have known each other a long time. I live in a very small town on the water. We don't even have a store here. The nearest store is 3 miles away and just a little country store for milk and bread, gas and cigs. The major shopping stores are about 22 miles from here. There is a nice popular swimming beach two blocks away and many people come to town to use the beach and have vacation homes here. In the winter it becomes a goast town. There are people that live here year round like us. There is a couple of church's , a firehouse, post office, and in summer a resturant that is open near the beach. But I don't know a single person here. No friends. So I still feel alone here. I have planted a garden and do the house work, cut the grass etc. So I try to keep myself busy in ways to NOT think. I don't know if anything I have said helps you, but I'm here if you need to talk. I will give you my e-mail address so you can write and we can exchange laughs. jcmetcalfe@yahoo.com

you know your story actually kinda has helped me. it made me kinda look at my situation but not just mine either. my mom was in a bad relationship 2. shes in the process of divorcing my father. i mean, my father is not a bad man. not at all. he can be one of the smartest peopl you will ever meet. he knows sometimes the randomest facts lol but when he starts drinking, especially hard liquor, hes......its not the same person. ever. he doesnt do anything to me or my sister. hes nice to us. but my mother....he vents everything out on her. like its her fault for his problems and crap. and then she yells at him bout him being drunk and shit and i dont think he likes hearing the truth very much. hes choked my mom before and chased her around in the house with a hatchet or axe before too. while laughing..... alcohol is not his friend at all. and on top of this hes been cheating on my mom for years.... she even found out one time by finding another womens shirt in his van, but she acted like nothing was wrong. i think she really did love him. they didnt really always acted like a married couple and u couldnt really tell if the feelings were still there. but my mom.....ugh. shes like superwoman to me. she can be bitchy sometimes, like all moms lol but she does everything for me and my sister. she even brings us breakfast in bed sometimes and me and my sister have never asked her to do so. i asked her y she does it and she said its cause she loves us. im even tearing now lol i dont wanna see her hurting at all just as much as she doesnt wanna see me or my sister be hurting. theyve been married 18 years soon to be 19. it took her this long to finally snap outta it. oh yeh did i mention; my father was in the army at the time when he met my mother. he was stationed in germany and my mother is german. well i may just have a half sister. we're not sure cause the lady didnt wanna take a test to see if the baby was his. she might have just said tht to get him to help raise it and pay for it but my mom found a pic. of him holding the baby one time so yeh.....and she was warned about him by her friend who dated him before 2 lol go figure....they only dated for 2 months before they got married. srry for rambling so much @________@ i just dont really come across many ppl tht i can tell this 2. i only have 2 real friends tht i have told every single thing tht has happened. both are guys. go figure lol one is my boyfriend and the other is my ex/bffffffffffffffffffffff[X]infinity lol ANYWAYS!!! MY depression has to do with my very recent ex. its almsot been to months since we broke up. well im the one whos extrememly hurt, yet im the one who broke up with him......i cant understand y im hurting so much. ive conteplated tht maybe i love him without even knowing it. cause i havent cried this much over someoone other than shannon. so theres something diff. that i feel for him than i have for others.

Well, it sounds as if you are quite normal!!!!!!Ya know, the first guy I "fell in love with" I still remember to this day. He is also the first one that ever tore out my heart!!!!! I was 13 when we first started "kinda dating". He was a friend of my sister's boyfriend at the time. He and I as well as a couple other friends and my sister and her boyfriend would got to the movies and go bowling and different stuff like "normal teenagers" would do. Then one day he kissed me, and we actually started dating then. We dated up into the High School years and he became a senior and gave me his ring!!! I thought I was in Heaven. He wanted to have sex and I was scared too!!!! We fooled around and "almost" did it a few times but I just wouldn't go "all the way". Well, one day I went to school and met him outside of homeroom as always and he gave me this letter!!!! Asking for his ring back and he had found a new girl friend!!!!! I was devastated!!! Cried and cried for weeks. I thought the world had come to an end. I begged him to take me back like a fool!! But he said know. I went to where he worked one day on the weekend and found him and her "naked in a pool". I was told then ,that she was "experienced" in things and that's what he liked!!!! Every once in a while to this day he crosses my mind and I would love to get dressed up in a real sexy dress and walk in front of him as to say "This is what you could have had"!!!!! Eat your heart out!!!! I still may do it one day. I think I know where he works and I haven't seen him in 35 years. As for parents, I was mostly till age 13 raised by my Grandparents since my mother I saw once in a while was off with a new man every other month or so. She (my mother) drank a 1/2 gallon of Vodka a day as long as I can remember. When I was around her she beat me often and I have know idea who my father really is. Mother had many different men in and out of her life!!!! She also was a drug addict along the way. I don't think there was a drug out there she didn't use at least once. I guess that's why I turned into one myself. At age 52 I started using cocaine, and then crack. It was my way of escape. I don't use it now like I was since I have court cases coming up for dirty urine (violation of probation). I also used it for a pain relief. My back is bad and I have had surgery on it as well as the nerve damage I deal with from the surgery. So, there isn't a hallo (sp) over my head. I have 2 sons and 6 grandchildren I haven't seen in 3 years due to being arrested for crack and having to go to jail. I wasn't there long but my kids turned on me without any questions to me or trying to understand why. Their wives are behind it 100%. They want nothing to do with me since apparently am not a fit Grandmother!!!!! Well, it just wants to make me go use again to hide the hurt they are causing me!!!!! But here I sit. So you see I have been in this world a while and have experienced a lot. More then I needed to and I guess I am as "normal" as they come. Believe it or not, I am studying Art now, I already have a BS in Zoology and Botany from the University of Oklahoma, worked as a quality control chemist for 9 years then went out on disability due to my back. I also taught Hunter Saftey for 18 years, and I am a classified Marksman. I have 2 bucks mounted on the wall that were trophy bucks. One is a 12 pointer that weighed 230 ponds. The other is a 10 pointer that also weighed 180 pounds, and I have about 25 sets of antlers that I saved that aren't mounted. I love to hunt and fish. Not only deer but I like to bird hunt as well, and have been wild bore hog hunting in New York. I only kill what I eat!!! I don't hunt mountain lions or elephants. But I do like to eat. I made these awesome "goose burgers" this past winter. Seasoned the ground goose (canadian goose and snow geese) with beef fat and steak seasonings, all put through the meat grinder together. When cooked on a grill, they tasted like a good steak!!!! killer!!!! Well, I got to go for now, I have laundry to do.