My name is Heather. I suffer from depression. I find that people don’t understand depression as a disease. It runs in my family. My Dad committed suicide when I was nine. BAM! The thing is I didn’t meet him until I was 7. We share the same birthday: December 28. I had a father for 2 years of my life. The other thing is I carry all the depressive genes he had. I never knew how he could commit suicide when he had two girls.

I grew up, am married and I have 2 beautiful girls. I love them with all my heart.

Back to the depression-I suffered for years and saw many doctors and they just medicated me and the therapists didn’t get it. Unless you have suffered major depression you don’t know how it feels, waking up wishing you hadn’t, feeling like you can’t move, not wanting to see anybody, and in my case hating myself because I couldn’t get up and play with my angels. I just lay on the couch, couldn’t sleep, doing just enough to keep my kids healthy. I didn’t care about me and my husband had to step up and take care of the children when I couldn’t. I felt nothing. I would have rather felt pain than feel nothing. I was in the bathtub one day; just in the water thinking now was the time to commit suicide. Depression took over me, no one could fix it, I felt nothing, I felt my husband and girls would live without me. The disease took over me. It takes over people who commit suicide. I understood how people could kill themselves when they have everything. At that moment I was dead.

I couldn’t kill myself where my kids would find me. I planned on going to a hotel and killing myself with pills. Then when I was dying I would start slicing veins to make sure I died and didn’t start throwing up the pills. At checkout time someone would open the door and find me. I didn’t do it. I don’t know why. I finally knew how my father felt when heput the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. It wasn’t that he didn’t love me. The disease took a hold of him. It wrapped itself around him and made him feel that all would be fine if he died. People would go on and he wouldn’t be in pain anymore.

I’m alive. I’m not dead anymore. I got help and found a great psychiatrist and a great therapist. I empathize with people who have killed themselves and those with depression. I feel when a person is depressed. I want to help. Some just don’t want help yet. Now I have my depression under control and will never forget the day I “died”. Now I am thankful I wake up, that the sun shines, I play with my kids now and enjoy every minute. Finally I got what I always wanted-to be cured of depression before it killed me and traumatized my family.
What would my girls have done without a Mom? I’m so thankful I “died” and came back to life. Now I have a new understanding for depression and want to help others overcome it.

Related Experiences:

  1. The Night My Life Changed

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