I was diagnosed with clinical depression in 1997 when I gave birth to a baby boy who only weighed 1/2 a pound. He lived for a few hours and died before I had a chance to see him. He was taken to Newfoundland to be buried with his paternal grandparents. I haven't been to the gravesite since then, and this summer I am traveling back to Newfoundland for a family reunion, and I am torn as to whether I should go visit him or not. I don't even know where his gravesite is, so I would need to contact my ex-husbands family to show me where to go. As the weeks go by and it's getting closer to the date of our trip, I find that I am reliving what happened, and imagining what will happen if I go to the cemetary. I can't imagine going with someone because I know I'm going to totally lose it!

My recovery from depression has been a cycle of ups and downs. Most recently (this past summer) I really thought I had conquered depression once and for all. I met a beautiful soul, who I thought was my "soul mate", and we had a wonderful summer together. Life was just amazing. Well since he left, it seems like everything is falling apart, a little bit at a time. I lost a friend under suspicious circumstances, (she was missing for 3 weeks before her body was found in a snowbank behind a strip mall), my job started to fall apart, and now my daughter is showing signs of severe depression. The other day she told me she doesn't want to live anymore. "What's the point of living if every day is like this?' is what my 13 year old said. Now I completely feel inadequate, if my own daugher can barely get through a day without feeling so down. I have thought about going to the hospital and checking myself in to avoid everything that's going on in my life. It gets so overwhelming, and I don't know what to do. The only thing keeping me going at this moment are my kids. If they were not in my life I don't think I would be here right now. It's sad to say, but sometimes that's how I feel. I was on anti-depressant medication for over 10 years, and last summer I finally decided to wean myself off because I felt that I didn't need it anymore. The great thing was that I started to experience my feelings to the fullest again. I felt so happy, alive, excited, passionate, all of those things that I used to be before my little guy died. But when my "friend" walked out on our "relationship", I fell hard. I really don't want to go back on the meds, because I find that it just makes me feel numb. I'm not sad, but I also don't feel "happy", I just exist, I am able to function, but I feel like a zombie. I don't want to go back to that again, plus it is so hard to get off of the meds, the shocks you get in your brain are so debilitating.

Well that's it for my first blog, it actually felt good to rant! Heading back to bed to catch up on some lost sleep.