Yes, I believe in clinical depression.

No, I don't know what causes it.

Yes, I have personal experience with it.

5subslr5: LMAO!

Can't you see the obvious, he was born again that way!

That is a great question! I have suffered with classical depression as long as I can remember, what Did I do to deserve this punishment, oh enlighted one. My six year old son suffers with it as well, should I tell him that he hates himself because he is a loser and has been such a sinner that god now hates him to? That is what you are saying isn't it? I should tell him to pray harder and tithe more to feel better. Now please tell me what possible sin my son, who has never hurt anybody and lives to help others could have possibly commited to deserve such a punishment at the age of six!

I can not figure it out.
I had a time in my life when I was depressed, but I was just felling
sorry for my self, which is my opinion of the subject. But now I have
this thing called a wife. She's a beautiful Brazilian woman with
really bad bouts of PMS. Or maybe I'm an insensitive hard nose
bastard. Sure at times she has reasons to be depressed, I can understand
that, but all the time ? I feel like some people just want attention.
But with the shape of the economy and people having financial
issues, family issues, more stress = more depression.
I no longer feel it is some one wanting attention but feel like
over time with things compounding on an individual, the brain does
release certain chemicals which do cause the average person to lose it.
I've had my share of challenges this year, 3 jobs since January, bill's
out the wazzo, people calling wanting money, fighting with the wife,
a grandma in the hospital dying, two weeks later, dad is in the hospital
with a blood clot in his lung. He almost died! A pot head brother that wants something for
nothing and brings more stress to the family. Worthless cousins from out of
state rushing in and stealing from Grandma, And me here with Several fully
loaded AR's just waiting for all hell to break lose.
Wooo!
There now I'm better. No more depression.
Anyway. I handle it, the wife could not. She has break downs all the time about
shit. I don't seem to have these break down issues. But I do very much
pray about it and rely on God to get me through it. And he does.
I'm tired of being her cheerleader.
Dear Abby what do I do ?

Oh and the God thing does help, check it out sometime. It seems most people
do when they are in despair. But as soon as your all better, off you go. No more God for you.

I used to not give any real credit to depression as a disease/condition whatever you want to call it, but a woman I know went for treatment and the change in her was amazing. I don't know what causes it, but if treatment can make as dramatic a change in someone's life as it did hers I guess that's a pretty good thing.

Wow, I am a bit surprised by the amount of empathy out there on this, I have been treated on and off for this, but mostly I just deal with it day to day, having a family has helped a lot, knowing that there is somebody who depends on me has almost completely removed any suicidal ideas I used to have, but that is just me, not everybody who suffers depression reacts this way. For those who have had "temporary" depression you will have a bit of understanding for it, but for those of us who are permanently stuck with it thier is no signifigant event or series of events that cause it, we just feel that way, for no reason at all. I do not always feel bad, some days are worse than other. It can be debilitating but most who suffer from it function fine in the world. I would like to thank all of you who have responded positively to this thread, and I would love to invite those of you who would like to tell me what an evil person I must be or else I would feel good because I found jesus, into the personal hell I live with, to let you feel this way for just a couple of weeks, then maybe you would understand what misery is, what despair is rally like. I my son has been in counciling for about a year now, and it is helping, when I was a child, the medical field did not believe in juvenial depression, so until recently there was no treatment for kids, and that is probably why there were so many teenage suicides, maybe the number will go down now that there is treatment for the little guys. Yes this is a disease, this is not a case of Mary Jane dumped me in third grade andI can't get over it, it is not a weakness in me, and it is not a punishmnet from god.
/vent end

TheRicker, you have no idea what depression is, you have no clue what you are saying. I can read the bible as well as anybody, My son can even quote the bible, he even goes to a Christian school. You are fortunate to be a normal person who can rationalize fears and feelings of inadequacy, my son can't, how can you expect a six year old to believe that Jesus or Mohammed or whoever loves him when he feels like he is not worthy of his own love? I am a christian, and my son is being raised to be a christian if he so chooses, but that does not change the fact that the both of us suffer irrational feelings, that means that we feel bad even when we KNOW we should feel good, that we feel worthless even though we know that there is no reason for it. You obviously do not understand this, and in your ignorance have engaged in a conversation in which you have shown yourself to be an uncaring and merciless person who has neither empathy or compassion for those who suffer things you do not understand. Is that what you call christian behavior, or are those feelings that reserve for the "chosen few"? Yes we are all born into sin and we are born deserving death, and we will have death, but I guess that my sons prayers are just to insincere, and he is not righteous enough to be blessed with the bounty of our lord, after all he is already six and has never done any missionary work or sacrificed any of his limbs to prove that he is a good christian. You are what we call where I am from a bible thumper, you tell everybody who will listen about the wonderful things that the lord has done for you because you asked for forgiveness, and tell those you consider less pious than yourself that if they really believed all of thier problems solved, well it doesn't work that way. What about Job was he punished because he was a non-believer? If you had ever had to listen to a five year old boy saying his prayers at night and begging god to like him, and asking Jesus for help to be a good boy and not be such wretched person, and know in your heart that he had meant every word of it, maybe you would know how it feels, maybe then you would know what it is like to have your guts pulled out every night. The boy does believe in god and has taken Jesus as his savior, but that hasn't stopped the pain he feels, nor does it mine. I apologize for being so hostile about all of this but to see someone accusing the most sincere and wonderful person in my life of suffering for his sins is enough to make me a bit hostile, just like the parent of any child with a bad disease, would when people go making uneducated statements about that disease, and how it is the sufferers own fault.