Confused?

Hi All, I'm fairly new here. Have posted a couple of times, but am in great denile of being at my diagnosis of depression. I was told by my T, today, that I keep chaos in my life to keep from thinking about things that I need to deal with. I don't feel depressed, I feel stressed! My stress comes from having 4 children of my own, ranging in age from 4 - 16, and each as different as the next. A husband that is a truck driver and only comes home for a few days every week or so, sometimes it's been months. We, also, have the normal stress of bills, which in my mind, no matter how much money you have, bills are still stressful! I just lost my mother, rather quickly at the beginning of the month and yes, that does depress me. I admit full heartedly that losing my mother is the hardest thing I've ever gone through and it's going to take a lot longer to get through the grieving process, but I'm not obsessing over her death. It hasn't really sunk in, yet. The worst times are when I pick up the phone to call her, only to realize I can't. That's when it really hits you.

But back to my therapy appointment. My T is telling me that I am depressed and using chaos to keep me from being depressed. So which is worse, stress or depression???

There's no way to avoid my stress, selling children is illegal in most states, lol! My mother dying, that's life. It hurts like hell, but I'll survive. I've survived being at the bedside of 2 brothers and my father when they passed away and I was there for her. I have no regrets. I left my home and kids and lived with her for the last few weeks of her life. I went through hell, no sleep for days there at the end and I'm sure it took it's toll on me, but it's been a few weeks, I've had time to catch up on some rest, but this diagnosis of depression is really bothering me. Can't a person be stressed without being diagnosed with depression and fed mulitiple different drugs to see what works (been there, done that). I think it has more to do with the prescriptions than anything. They'd rather you take something everyday, for depression, than just give you a mild nerve pill for stress!

This is the depression forum, so please, all those out there diagnosed with depression, true depression, either shed some of your wisdom on me to accept the depression dx or should I stick to my guns about the stress.

Quick note on my stressfull children 16/f - Honor Student, 14/m - thug, 10/m - Aspurger's Syndrom (form of Autism), 4/f - been in her terrible 2's for the past 2 years! THEN I mentor 2 young men. I rent them a room, help them get the home training that they didn't get while spending most of their lives in state custody, due to abusive or neglectful parents. One is 19, the other is 20. I've had the 18 yr old since he was 15 and he IS my child. I may not have given birth to him, but by all rights and privleges, he's my son. He has DID (disassociative identity disorder) and I'm okay with that, seeing as I worked for a few years with an organization that dealt with adult survivor's of child abuse. Dealing with him is stressful, but I feel I'd be more stressed if he were out on the street. He's fallen off track, but working hard to get his life back together. Neither one is on drugs, which is amazing, seeing what they've been though and I believe they have potential and all they need is positive reinforcement to get them started in life. So, yes, this could be the "added" stress I bring on myself, but could any of you turn your backs on your own children if they needed you? It would be different if he had a drug problem, but his is psychological and he is in no way responsible for the hell his mother let him go through.

I could kick them both to the curb, put my 14 yr old in boot camp, send my 4 yr old off with her father on the road and institutionalize my 10 yr old with Autism! But if I did all of that, I'd have no reason to live!

Pam

Wow!!!!
Three cheers for you! Hey, so let's just say you did have depression... so you have come up with a copeing tech. for it. Stress is the way you cope. Okay, stress stinks so you cope with stress by stressing over the important stuff and using it as an tool. So in a way you have like a good coping idea for a bad coping idea, but it all works out in the end. Hey, if you have no issue getting out of bed in the morning I think you are a step ahead of me. Sure you might wake up with a startle on morning when suddenly lfe straightens itself out, but in your case that could be a while. As for the death of your mother, I am sorry. She must have been some one you could talk to and vent, in which case, welcome back to the forum and feel free to vent here. It helps.

Thanks for the support! My mother was very important to me and I do admit to hiding in my bed for more than a few days, but that's normal when you're grieving, I'm pretty sure. With everything going on in my life, depression is a luxury I don't have time for. I know depression. I've been about as low as you can get, wanting so badly to die, but knowing that's a permenant solution to a temporary problem. But I prayed for death! I didn't want to live with the pain (and NO, it wasn't over a man, lol). I just don't feel depressed!! I'm the life of any funeral!! As a matter of fact, I do most all the funeral music for anyone in my family (Aunts, cousins, etc.) and make sure it's not too depressing. It's creepy when your relatives come up and give me their request for their funerals! But they know I just don't choose the classics, but try to use songs with meaning to the person or family. I feel that being under stress brings me a since of needing to do something and in turn, makes me feel better about myself.

Like with the mentoring. It may not work out, but at least I can say I tried and when these boys/men finally do mature, they will realize that I did what I could to help them become the men they can be. I'm not a real religious woman, but I do believe in God and Karma. Even if I fail, I can at least say I tried.

I just feel like every adult that has stress, gets the depression dx, just like most children that misbehave are labled ADD or ADHD. It took 4 years to finally figure out my 10 yr old was not ADD but had a form of Autism! We went through drug after drug, before they finally sent him to a neurologist.

I'm moving to Canada, I heard they have better health care, lol! Can anyone sneak me and all 7 of my kids across the boarder? LOL!

Thanks Hamlet!! For not making feel "crazy"! I now get to see T once a week!! I'm feel you're really a mess when they make you come every week! OH, and they also provided me with a Psychologist for my meds and a "case worker"! I've know people that could really use these services! I feel the case worker is being wasted on me. But that's the lovely system we have here in the US! (watch out Canada, here I come!)

Pam

Hi Pam, I am TOTALLY new here, have no clue what I am doing, I'm an American living in Paris going through my first experience of what I think is depression. (I *think* so, because I've never had it before so what do I know? !) A good friend in Florida gave me the address of this web site, so here I am. YOU sound like a rock, doing all those things with kids, being so out there, why do you think you're depressed? what's making you think that? Really, I'm just wondering because the state of depression is something I'm trying to understand, am I really depressed ? Is is my age (I'm 51 but feel 30 lol.) my divorce ? the fact that I am alone? Just throwing this out there, kind of an empty bottle into the sea. In any case hope you are doing well and that you are coping. (tho it seems to me you are doing beautifully...)

Hello and Welcome! And thanks for the compliment.

I don't pretend to know what goes through these doctor's minds. They (the doctors) started trying to diagnose me with post partum depression 14 yrs ago. I explained to the doctor, I didn't think I was depressed, but tired. I told him he must have his diagnosis confused because I felt like I was suffering from post MORTUM depression, because my new son had colic and never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time and my (then) husband was useless! I could have been depressed, but I didn't have time for it. Then I went to through a very nasty 15 month divorce, where I had P.I.'s sitting outside my house/work/etc. Talk about feeling paranoid!!

But basically, other than one tough period in my life, I've never considered myself as being depressed. During the time of my depression, I didn't care about anything at all. I prayed constantly for death. My emotional pain was worse than anything I'd every felt before and I just wanted to die. It would have been easier on me if I had, but there's no way I'd ever take my own life, couldn't leave that type of legacy for my kids. But if God could just have let a bus hit me or something, I would have been fine with that See, I even have humor when I think of wanting to die!

I think my therapist thinks I "should" be depressed. When I started seeing her, my mother was just diagnosed with terminal cancer (beginning of this year). But I'm not the type of person that mourns for a person before they're dead! 72 hours before my mother passed, I was teaching her a little Yoga stretching for her back. So even though the doctor's said "terminal" I never felt that way until she went into a coma, the day before she died. NOW, I feel depressed. I don't want to go anywhere, I don't really feel like talking to my friends. For one reason, I don't want to discuss my mother or my feelings with them because then I'd start crying and that's just not me! And I'm not sure my friends know would know how to handle me in that state. I'm the "strong" one! I'm the one they call. And I don't really see that there'd be anything they'd be able to do.

While my mother was sick, my husband was home for quite a while, helping with the kids and him missing 5 weeks of work has really hurt us. Again, a reason to be depressed, but to me, I know I can't pay what I don't have. I've explained to the kids that we may have to start cutting corners, like we've had the home phone turned off, I've told them, if necessary, the internet will go next and cable would be next. If worse came to worse, we have 2 vehicles, free and clear and even though we need both of them, one of them could go.

So, even though this is a low point in my life, I don't feel depressed! As I said, when I think of my mother, yes, I get depressed and I do cry, but I read the pamplet and it's completely normal, lol! I have days that I just want to stay in the bed, talk to no one, watch nothing on TV, just lay in the dark,(but with all these kids, that's impossible , but I don't feel depressed about my daily life.

As for the kids, I'm not crazy I have 4 birth children. Didn't start having them until I was 27, which is why I have a 4 year old @ 42 !! I took on my 18 yr old son when he was 15. He lived next door as a foster child. He'd grown up in the "system". When he was with his family he was either neglected or abused in everyway you can imagine! I was not interested in becoming a foster parent, I wanted this child. I pertitioned the courts and got him I knew he had problems, because I'd worked on another internet forum for adult suvivor's of child abuse and recognized he had more than one personality. So, I figured a higher power brought him to me. He was misdiagnosed and was going to fall through the cracks of the system and they were going to release another mence to society! We've had some very hard times with him, but I couldn't love him anymore if I'd given birth to him, but do practice "tough love" with him, trying to give him family structure.

The 2 new kids aren't from the state. The 20 year old had no way to get his GED and I've gotten him into an Adult Basic Education classes, working on getting his GED. The biggest problem with him is his weight. He was the type of child that ate to deal with his pain and he's extremely over weight. Our other number one goal with him is to check into gastric bypass.

The girl, 18, lost her mother a few years ago. Her father loves her, but you can tell she's gone through some important years of her life without a mother. Since coming here, she's gone to the GED classes, passed her pre test and has taken the first half of her offical GED test and takes the 2nd half on the 10th. She has her driver's permit, but hasn't had the money to pay for the road test. I hope to get that done ASAP.

NORMALLY, my husband and I could handle these cost, but right now.... I've explained to the 2 new ones that our finances have never been this bad. They said they've lived in lots worse, so I don't feel so bad. We have food, shelter and transportation. That's more than a lot of people have, so no right for me to be depressed over that.

Helping these kids is the one good thing in my life! I feel pride when they accomplish a goal. They're not used as house slaves, think about it, they're teenagers!! LOL

As for you... I can see how you might be depressed. I am in no way a therapist and I don't know how long you've been in France, but I do know how hard it is to adapt to being in a different country (Full Blown Army Brat). I know how it feels to leave old friends behind, ones you have deep ties with and now trying to make/find new relationships in another country. You mentioned divorce. I know all about those, lol, sorry to say, but they can be pretty depressing, no matter how bad the marriage may have been. Not only do you get to deal with the division of property, it seems you also have to divide the friends that may have even been aquired before the marriage Then there's the part of finding a whole new routine that doesn't include the spouse. No matter how bad the routine may have been, it was something your mind was used to. So, I can see many reasons you "could" be depressed. Our feelings can't be controlled. They are what they are. They are automatic responses that we have no control over. If we could, there would be no anti depressants/valium, etc.

Just take things one moment at a time. Don't worry about tomorrow or even what's going to happen within the next hour. Live in the moment! But if you feel like crying, CRY! If you feel you've been wronged, whether you have been or not, you will probably feel anger. You can't stop it, it's going to be there. You can suppress it, but it's still there. I feel the best way to get through an emotional hardship is not to hold it in, let it grow and fester, but let the emotions out in a constructive manner. If he ex/boss, etc. pisses you off, go to the gym, image their face on a punching bag and let that anger out, then, after getting some of it out of your system, you might see at the situation differently and be better able to handle it without having the anger in the way. But, should you crawl in the bed for days on end, stop eating, answering the phone, it's time to talk to someone!

Sorry, didn't mean to write a book, but computer time for me is rare, lol

Pam