forgot to say it but my mom did suceed at killing herself after many many attempts all of my childhood.

Certain depression, at this time, is highly suspected of having strong genetic origin. That any depression is genetic is still argued though. I am pretty sure the issue has not been completely decided yet.

http://depression.about.com/od/causes/a/mutantgene.htm

Im not sure how much depression ran in my family. My mother was the first one to tell me to get off my ass and do something. Take a walk, go to work, pull your head out.. And we all know the list goes on and on and on and on.. I love you all.. Thank you so much for your comments.. It helps me to understand a little more about myself..

me....my mom did that too, cause that is how she fought hers. my father let it eat him alive though and work his nerves and his anger issues till it killed him.

it sucks when your parent or parents are suicidal, my father tried stopping my mother from shooting herself and they both died.

I was not there, was at a movie. I was 20 yrs old and my mother suffered from depression for many years.

So does my sister and brother. Lexia

When my father started abusing me, when I was 7. I started cutting when I was about 8 or 9. Dont want to go into to much without triggering anyone, have been good with cutitng up till mom died, now strugling with it again. xx

I can't think of a time in my life when I didn't feel different although I'd say it wasn't until I was ten or eleven and was put on meds for depression that aspect came to mind.
I just knew I didn't know how to make friends, was angry and scared most of the time and wanted only to go way up in the mountains and live where no one could find me.
Since then it's been an off and on battle. Times when I seemed to be alright for awhile until something happened to set me off, times when I was on anti-depressents with mixed results and times when I used booze and other drugs to dull the pain.
Right now prozac seems to be helping quite a bit but maybe that is because I no longer expect an anti-depressent to make me feel good, just keep me from feeling horrible and crying all the time.

I wish you all the strength and courage that you need Elizabeth to try and get past the self abuse. Its a hard one..

I think Ive had it all my life just wasnt aware of it.

I was a very sensitive child, and odd teenager and had anxiety attacks from 8 regularly, although I remember my first one being when I was about 5-6.

I lost my innocence, at age 11 (not my virginity!! that was not until age 16). A lot of adult stuff came into my knowledge at that age. I felt very disillusioned from about 11 to 14, I did a lot of "seeking" --that's what my Dad called it. ..... And then I finally threw myself into school and sports.

I did very well during my teenage years and it was not until about 2000 that I was diagnosed with depression.
It never crossed my mind to harm myself...until I was about 30.

Interesting post! *hugs!*

As others have said, i dont remember ever feeling happy and 'normal'. I am who I am and who I am is morose, cold and cut off msot of teh time. i was destined to feel this way it would seem.

For as long as I can remember I've always felt "off kilter". I felt like the square peg in the round hole, and what really made matters worse for me was, I refused to apologize for it lol. My depression and anger came alot from the fact that I couldn't get others to understand, and I refused to be just like everyone else. That seemed to give people license to hurt me, whether physically or in other ways. Guess they thought they'd beat me into conforming. Not that I went out of my way to be disobedient, but if I couldn't do it "just like your sister, look what a good job SHE did" well, I'm not my sister, now am I? That sort of thing.

Did the drinking and drugging bit for a time until it just didn't stop the feelings like I wanted it too. I still go my own way and I'm alone alot, but the difference is now I don't care if you accept me or not. If you do, great, if not, oh well.

Thank you all for your wonderful responses. I think that most of the most awesome people I have met, have been here on DS and suffering depression or bi-polar disease..If more people would just try to understand us and believe in us, what a wonderful place this would be. I appreciate you all so much.. We are a wonderful caring bunch of peeps.

It was when I was 12...thats when it became constant...I remember being at school, sitting in class, and I just started crying and couldn't stop...then the teacher sent me to the office...how nice! But I think it was actually triggered by the death of my grandma when I was 8...just took awhile for it to be a constant thing...

I started to notice I was unhappy at 13. I've always been a bit of a selfharmer without understanding it. If I got stressed, from as far back as I can remember, I'd calm myself down by banging my head on the wall.

I first cut at 13. I didn't realise it was so odd. I knew it wasn't something to tell people. Things progressively got worse and peaked age 15. I started drinking far too much, far too often. My cutting was very bad. I realised I was depressed around 14. But at that age doing something about it with parents denying the existence of depression was tough.

I was quite happy and stable 16 - 19.

At 19 things started to slide down again. I don't really know why. Six months earlier I'd broken up with my boyfriend but after the initial messed up few weeks I know this was a positive thing.

I first cut again (after a break of 3 years) on February 13th 2007. I immediately remembered how awful things were years before and went straight to the doctors the next day.

Over the last year it's been pretty obvious I'm having to deal with something that the average person doesn't deal with. I had eight close friends at university who knew the basics about my situation. We would occasionally talk about things and I know that while everyone gets down, my strategies of coping and the degree to which I felt down was abnormal.

I hope that I can find the right, healthy ways of dealing with my depression. And I've seen the benefits of decent medication.

My depression is definitely chemical. I couldn't change things in my life. I love it the way it is. Just need this depression to sod off. Growing up I guess I did pick up some unhealthy ways of coping. These exacerbate my depression, but they do not cause it.