Warning - long post
This is the message I drafted on the weekend. Except I feel better now. But I figure that if I felt the need to post it then I should probably get some advice now in case I do end up actually need it...
... I am 35 and have had two episodes of what I think was depression except it was never diagnosed as such.
The first was when I was about 15/16 and I was miserable. I thi k it was put down to being teenage angst but I remember being very lonely despite having friends, very despondent about the world, and wishing I was the kind of person with low ambitions who would be happy with low achievement rather than constantly striving to do well and be interesting etc. (I am and was a pretty high achiever). But in retrospect I was also very tired in a cumulative way. Anyway I remember my parents telling me the pay off would be a fun and interesting life after working hard at school and they were right. I have had a great life so far. Loved uni. Interesting jobs. Great experiences. I don't remember how this melancholy ended but it did.
Then aged 24 lots of things happened together. I had a bereavement and a break up and a crap job (after having had a brilliant one) that made me miserable. But it was more than that. I was the only single one of my friends and my overwhelming feeling was loneliness. I cried every night. People used to tell me I had so many friends more than anyone they knew yet I was so lonely. I went away with my mum during this time and shared a room with her and she said I tossed and turned all night. I got a massage and the therapist said she had never massaged anyone so knotted and tense before and I remember every touch from her hurt like hell. Anyway after about six or seven months, helped by leaving that job, I felt better. But I promised myself that I would never let myself get like that again and seek help if necessary. My own analysis of this time is once again I was exhausted - ten years of student and young person drinking and partying and drug dabbling. Nothing excessive but I think it was a cumulative exhaustion.
And now, happily (mostly) married with a three year old and one year old, I feel that feeling again. An utter exhaustion though I am very happy with my life and my choices. I am scared of getting melancholy again. I don't want to feel lonely. I don't want my children to have a sad mummy. And I feel a little bit like running away (though I would never leave them). I had a weekend away recently just me and came back feeling refreshed (the wonder of my first eight hour sleep in three years) but that, my first time with nothing to do but think, made me realise I am walking a tightrope emotionally.
Does that all make sense? Any tips for heading this off at the pass? Is it 'normal' (in as much as depression not being normal, but is it normal for depression) to have ten years between episodes?
Thank you