Don't have a lot of time. Kids will start bombarding me soon.

A little "background" info….I am a 41 yr old happily married mother of 7. I have not birthed them all…."only" 3. Husband and I adopted 3 others and we have a foster son with us that we're most likely going to pursue adoption with. Kids are 20, 17,15, 14, 13, 12, & 11. Five girls, two boys. We also have 3 dogs and 4 cats.

My husband is a stay at home dad and I work as a medical assistant/phlebotomist for an oncology/hematology office. He is much better at the stay at home thing than I ever was.

I was first "officially" diagnosed with depression in the fall of 2001. Wow…never really thought about how long it's been. Suffice to say there have been many ups & downs. None have actually put me in a psyciatric facility, however I did get close this last fall. I have, at several low points, struggled with suicidal ideation and cutting. Started on Wellbutrin, then went to Zoloft, which worked wonderfully for several years. Now I'm on Cymbalta and Amoxipine.

I used to have a blog many years ago. I haven't written consistantly in a very long time. Thought about going back to that site, but I have lost my anonimity. I want to be able to write whatever ramblings are pondering in my head without fear of judgement or recrimination from anyone that actually might know me in real life. And sometimes….I ramble just to ramble and I feel better about a situation after and might not even feel the same way once I get it out of my system.

At the present time….not just this specific moment but for several days I have felt the familiar tug of depression clawing it's way back in. Many things have troubled me and I am hoping that by getting it down on "paper" I might feel some sense of relief.

For now, they sit stewing. Kids are up and it's hard to write and concentrate. I shall leave myself with a few bullets for now to possibly write about later.

• work
• too many kids (6 +3)
• house in disarray
• lack of intimacy/closeness with J
• not feeling excited about anything in the future