SweetDeanie

Ok, I have been diagnosed since the age of 15 with depression then since then have been diagnosed with other mental health disorders, but the depression has it's reasons I guess. I don't know which one makes me feel the worst, I think it changed with the seasons. I don't want any sympathy, I never have. Sympathy only makes things worse. I don't want to feel sorry for myself either, I think sometimes I'm just full of anger because of the injustice of life.

When is my first memory of being happy? The funny thing is I have no pro-longed happiness. I obviously have certain happy memories, though brief and never long lasting. I was happy the moment I first saw each of my children or on my first date with my fiance. But even those things didn't take away the pain or anguish though I often curse myself that they didn't. I often think to myself that they should do, that they should be enough. Then the guilt hits me, and it's a vicious circle.

When did it start? I couldn't tell you to be honest, I have so many horrifying memories, shameful memories and other just plain saddening memories that make me long for something and yet I don't know what. I often have a feeling of emptiness, a feeling that something is missing, like when you lose something and you know it's just on the edge of your memory but you can't quite get it. Or when you go out and you know you forgot to take something or pack something and your getting further and further away from home and soon it will be too late to turn back but what was it you forgot? You know it's something really really important and it'll mess everything up if you don't remember soon but no matter what you do you can't remember.

Back to the story though. I guess the best place to start is with my background and my childhood. My parents split when I was very young, I have no memory of them together. I have an older brother. The two of us were bounced from one parent to the other for a long time. When we were with one we wanted the other. I guess really we just wanted both, we missed the absent one terribly. Longed for the absent parent. Eventually my dad got custody of us both. I never knew about what a good or bad parent was, only on reflection can I say my mother was a neglectful mother, but as a child I loved her terribly and idolised her.

I now know how bad she was to us both and it still hurts tremendously. My brother is just as messed up as I am. (not that I want to defend him in any way you'll later discover why.) My mother never wanted children, she said she had us because our father wanted children. She used to feed us toast in the car on the way to school as we finished getting dressed as she could never get out of bed on time. We were late everywhere. She used to let us stay up late watching horror movies even as very young children. I used to suffer from night terrors.

When my dad got custody she regularly used to turn up to see us after school in secret. We didn't spend long with her but every time I said goodbye to my mum I took it hard. It was bad enough on the regulated visits we had at alternate weekends but to go through it even more frequently I guess took it's toll. Every time I saw her I begged to come and live with her. My dad was very strict and I felt unloved and alone. He had live in nannies look after us because of the long hours he worked. I know he was only doing what he thought was right but it was hard rarely seeing our parents.

At aged 5 my older brother began "touching" me. I frequently told my parents that he was touching <me> and as soon as they'd told him off he'd laugh behind their back. All this did was make me feel more alone and isolated and angry at him. I'd cry myself to sleep nearly every night and by the time I was 8 and he started doing more ...I was no longer telling anyone what he was doing as it seemed like a pointless excersise that just made things worse, seeing the smug look on his face. I hated him with every inch of my being. Eventually I became numb to what he was doing, I escaped into my head. sometimes I'd be somewhere else in my head, other times I just wouldn't be there at all, like all blank.

When I finally did confide in a friend she told my mum. This was the worst thing she could ever have done. My mum didn't believe me and even said that "If it did happen it was probably your fault anyway" After that I remember the darkness wash over me. After that nothing mattered anymore, I hated everyone and everything including myself. I wanted to die and more than that I wanted my brother to die. My mum soon kicked me out for threating to kill him.

It was hard living on my own in a hostel at only 15. Social services had said that it was pointless putting me in care so near to my 16th birthday. Needless to say I didn't pass many exams despite my expected grades being pretty good. It wasn't long before I was taking drugs, drinking and going out sleeping with random guys every night. I just wanted to feel something, I'm not sure now what. Or maybe I just didn't want to be on my own.

Frequently I moved back and forth from my mum's, sometimes she'd take me back acting like some kind of heroine, but it never lasted long before she kicked me out again. It's often like she has some kind of split personality, and it's not just me that thinks that, lots of people have commented.

When I was 17 I ran away to London and moved in with some guys, but pretty soon they got fed up with how I couldn't afford to contribute so they tried to pimp me out, but I freaked and moved back home. I got a job after that and met a nice guy, but I couldn't cope with being treated nicely and when I found I was pregnant and he wanted to marry me I told him I had an abortion (even though I didn't hence my first child) and have not seen him since. I might have got back together with him if I'd not been raped when I was 3 months pregnant, and feeling it was my punishment, the shame and guilt prevented me from ever trying to contact him again.

I knew something was wrong with her the day she was born, but for years doctors wrote me off as neurotic, then told me she was lying about feeling bad to get out of going to nursery then school. Finally at aged 5 they diagnosed her with a urine infection, then discovered she had a duplex kidney with a refluxing ureter. It still took 3 more years before they operated and she's only just come off the antibiotics another 2 years later.

When my eldest daughter was 5 I had another child by my drug dealer of the time. Obviously he showed no interest in her and I was alone again. For some reason I thought having the children would finally bring me happiness and as much as I love them it wasn't the answer I wanted. I adore them, they bring light to my life, but still beneath that is the pain and anger. I'm scared of what my sadness and depression is doing to their lives but feel I can't change it. I do what I can.

Then last year, I fell out with my dad after telling him how him controlling me was making me more ill. I miss him now terribly. I met a great guy shortly after I became astranged from my dad though, and since then I have got engaged, he moved in and we just had a baby 5 weeks ago. It's the first real relationship I've been in ever. I'm 29 now and I told him when I met him that I don't do love or relationships, but I guess that's changed. Sometimes I think this has made me stronger, other times I think it makes me weak because I'm not the one in control anymore.

I still feel that i did things all wrong. The men I slept with which are countless now makes me feel dirty. I feel cheap and worthless. I feel ugly and as though anyone that meets me or touches me, or talks to me is dirty for even talking to me. I now have paranoid episodes, pscyhosis, neurotic episodes, manic episodes etc... the list is endless and half the time I don't know who I am or what's real anymore. As time goes on it gets worse, but someone once told me a long time ago that time heals and that things would get better but for me they don't. For me it's a balancing act all the time, to just try to keep my head clear. I have only moments of clarity it feels.