I am new to this support group.  I have always suffered from bouts of depression, which are usually triggered by lonliness.  I'm very depressed right now but it's been brought on by several things.  First I am a single mom with one son.  It's time for me to ship him off to college and it's KILLING me.  I'm so happy for him and proud, but this means I will now be all alone.  It's been a long time since I lived alone.  I was younger then, my mom was still alive, and I had the hope of finding a good man and having a large family, and I still felt very lonely at times.  I've been dreading this for so long, because my son and I are so tight and have done so much together.  At the same time, my best friend, who lives next door, decided she wanted to move too.  So she quickly bought a house across town and is moving in 3 weeks.  So I felt a double whammy with that.  Also adding to my mood, my son brought home bedbugs.  I had to throw out all of our mattresses, boxsprings, and had to wash everything made of fabric.  Then I had to spend tons of money to have the house treated.  It has totally overwhelmed me physically, mentally, and financially.  And still, I am always looking for bugs in my bed.  Lastly, because I had cancer 5 years ago, I decided to have reconstruction surgery last Friday.  I was really excited about it.  The surgery happened, and I was on pain meds for 3 days.  By the 3rd day, I could feel myself falling into a terrible depression.  I don't like laying on the couch watching tv, hour after hour, but I couldn't do much more.  That in itself was about to send me over the edge.  But this really felt chemical.  I got to the point where I couldn't stand being in my house.  The walls closed in on me, and as the depression grew, the house even looked different to me.  It looks lonely, dark, different, and because I've had to throw out so much because of the bugs, it doesn't feel warm and cozy to me anymore.  When I'm here, I feel so anxious, and sad, and even though my son doesn't leave for school for 2 more weeks, I already miss him because he's rarely home.  The depression got so bad by Tuesday, that I got on a train and went 3 hours away to stay with my sister.  She doesn't understand depression at all and doesn't really know what to do with me.  Her answer was always, you need to get involved, volunteer, go to church, etc.  I tried to tell her those are great ideas, but at this moment, I am paralyzed and can't even eat, shower, let alone go out.  I told her all I wanted her to do was let me be there, and know feel her family in the house.  That at least made me feel a little less lonely.  My doctor increased my anti-depressants.  She said that surgery can trigger depression especially if you were stressed before.  My serotonin levels were low and she needed to get them back up.  I started the extra dose, but cried 24/7 and reached out to every friend I have.  They were all very supportive and invited me to spend the night with them if I didn't want to be home.  I did, and it helped a little.  Yesterday I felt like my normal self, and even got my son to go on a day trip with me to his new school in the mountains.  It felt good, but then today, the depression is back.  I'm trying really hard to stay busy, but it's hard because I have no desire to do anything. It helps me to talk about it, but just wondering when others are depressed, do things look different to you?  If you try to think of a place you'd feel better, you can't.  There is no one that you could be around that would make you feel better, nothing you could possibly eat, just nothing feels right?  It's hard to explain depression to others who haven't experienced it.  I can honestly say this has been one of the worst weeks of my life.  I truly scared myself by my thoughts and feelings.  Am I crazy?  I need to know these feelings are not weird.