I have come to realize that there is a major connection with depression and control. If I feel out of control I react to it with depression. I used to think it was the depression that made me feel out of control, but its actually opposite.

I work in the helping profession and lived most of my life putting others first. I listened to their problems, gave them comfort and support and when the day was done there was nothing left for me. So I found food as "someone" that was there for me day or night.

This takes hold in other areas of my life too. The house gets to be a mess and I feel depressed, but just doing one thing to improve the house begins to lift my mood. So for me when I am feeling depression creep in I've finally learned to ask myself where am I really feeling out of control or where have I given my sense of personal control away and that is where I put my focus. That in iitself helps me feel more in control. Hope this helps someone else.

Thanks. I think what you are saying makes good sense and I'll try it to see if it helps. PMS and my clinical depression are wrecking havoc in my life right now. A little control would feel real good right about now.

I've found that the loss of control comes after I am depressed. Which has been very frustrating for me.

For years I would get depressed for months and months at a time (once it lasted, non-stop, for 18 months). During that time my house would turn into a horrible pigsty and I would have nightmares about the Health Department coming to take my children away (they're 17 & 19 now and don't seem to recall the really bad times we went through). When I would emerge from a depression for a brief time (a few days at most), I tried to play catch-up with the house (lots of things got quickly stuffed into boxes and stored in the attic).

I've now been on medication for about five years and rarely go into a depression that lasts more than a few days. I'm just now (in this past year) starting to regain some control over my life. This is why I think my depression led to loss of control of my life and not that loss of control of my life led to my depression--although the greater my level of control, the more my happiness is increased.

I'm a bit down today (which is why I'm visiting this particular forum), but at least now I know it's a temporary state.

Thank you both for responding. I do believe there is a difference between those who become depressed from their thoughts and those who are depressed due to a true chemical imbalance. Many people will say as soon as they were put on medication they felt better but the professionals say that isn't possible since it takes a good month for the meds to even kick in. The "feeling better" can be a result of simply feeling that you are finally getting help which helps ones sense of control over their life. Perhaps depression is like any other illness, left untreated for a long period of time it gets worse and it requires more aggressive threatment like aniti-depressants. If treated sooner would meds have been needed? Or would cognitive therapy have been enough? Who knows.

For me I have found that my thoughts have an amazing ability to control how I feel so if I want to feel in control of me I have to get better at controlling my thoughts. No meds can help me do that. How I perceive a situation, how I think about a situation will impact how I react to that situation. Have you ever really listened to how you talk to yourself? It may sound like a strange question until you really hear yourself. I found that I would never talk to another person the way I talk to myself, in my own thoughts. I insult myself, lecture myself, and often put unrealistic expectations on myself yet I wouldn't do that to someone else. Treating myself like I would another person has helped me alot.

I suffered severe depression, and medication (5htp) made me feel enough to seek therapy. Therapy is one resource that helped me change my thoughts. I use to worry about everything, now I don't. I give it all to God. I am constantly telling myself...

1. Let it go
2. The Lord will provide
3. All in His time
4. I can handle this with Him

I am not in control of my life HE is!

I also think control is a very BIG issue to deal with and The #1 cause of my depression. What I've come to realize is I can only make choices for me, and some for my children. But even then as my children grow up I can choose less and less for them.

I trust the Lord and surrender to Him. I think the following prayer says it all:
GOD, grant me the serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change,
Courage to change the
things I can, and the
wisdom to know the difference.
Living ONE DAY AT A TIME;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the
pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this
sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next. Amen
Reinhold Neibuhr-1926

I love the serenity prayer and the hardest part of all for me is, "the wisdom to know the difference." I feel as though I've had to undo so much of what I was raised to believe. Its hard to accept that I was raised to be unkind to me, but I was. What people do in the name of "love" never ceases to amaze me. What people tell you YOU SHOULD DO in the name of love amazes me even more.

I've made my life so much harder than it ever needed to be. One of those events that had a life changing effect was the day, not too long ago, that I realized I can define what love is for me.
Another day that changed my life was the day I realized I could choose to let go and let God handle things that I foolishly believed were my job to do.

It saddens me sometimes that its taken me so many years to learn just the basics, but then I think how horrible it would have been to have lived my entire life never even knowing that much.

Food is just an outer sign of whats been going on in the inside for a very long time. As my insides improve I have no fear that my outside will improve too. Thank you all for being here.

When I finally started taking meds, I did feel a very slightly bit better almost immediately (of course, I think part of it was that for the first time in years I had a good night's sleep ), but also because it was, finally, something positive I was doing. Other than one medication (I think it was Elavil) that gave me very weird dreams almost immediately, it was a week or two before I really started noticing any real difference and finally felt "normal."

I, too, have spent an inordinant amount of time over the years repeating horrible things to myself -- and trying to find comfort in food. I think part of it came from all of the incredibly depressing thoughts going on in my head -- then, no matter what nice things anyone else said about me, I would tell myself "they wouldn't think that if they knew what was really going on in my head."

I've been learning to let go of a lot of things I have no control over (like some of the decisions of my 17 & 19-year old sons) -- my therapist once told me "No one will ever have to accuse you of something in order for you to feel guilty -- you already feel responsible for everything bad that happens."

Feeling guilty for many of us is like a way of life. For example; I was having lunch with a friend and she didn't like the way her lunch was cooked. What did I do? I immediately felt guilty as if I'd been the one who cooked it. Just another example of "If you're not happy, it must be my fault." That kind of thinking is exhausting.

Well, I'm getting better because there was a time when that would have bothered me all day long but thanks to cognitive therapy I've learned to catch those thoughts and get some control over them. Now when a thought like that goes through my head I've learned how to stop and ask myself a few questions. Like, "what do you have to do with her lunch? Did you cook it? Sounds simple, but to me stopping for just a moment to ask those questions helps a lot and puts things in better perspective. So I was then able to say to my friend that I"m sorry she doesn't like her lunch. What is SHE going to do about it? You see, its her problem, not mine.

I'm learning to take on board what does belong to me and let go of the things that aren't my burden to carry. Its helping me to be less controlling with others (always trying to fix their problems) and spending more time and energy on me (controlling myself.) One of the most helpful books I've ever read is "Feeling Good" by Dr. David Burns. He helps people to recognize self-defeating thoughts and how to let them go. Have you ever read it?

Hello Everyone

I'm taking wellbutrin for depression, over the years many meds have been prescribed but usually I don't tolerate them well, some have been effective but because of the unwelcom side effects I stop taking them. Wellbutrin however has for me only good side effects.

I was so surprised to see how many others have the same symptoms, its so hard to try to explain to someone who does not get depressed just how impossible even the simplest things are when these moods hit. I am what they call a rapid cycler, I can be fine in the morning and in a depression by noon. Its not always fast though, lately the depressions have been stretching for days to weeks and the periods in between have been less high for me. I am not manic depressive but do have mood swings which the Docs describe as manic depressive tendancies. Apparently I too have control issues, I am totally frustrated by what I cannot control - the weather being one the best examples .

When I'm depressed sometimes its hard to even get it together enough to answer a question - a simple question asked by my husband. Some days its too hard to even take a shower. I can lie huddled in a corner of the couch - with a full bladder for hours because it seems too hard to get up and walk down the hall to the bathroom. I don't over eat when I'm depressed, its too much trouble to eat anything, hours can pass and I'm not really aware of time passing I just exist. Then as others here have said I realize how much control I've lost. When I'm not depressed, I'm obsessive about my house, my hobbies, everything. In the depression everything is let go, and day after day the bad feelings about that pile on top of the depression and I feel so overwhelmed. Then usually I can start to feel it lift a little when the first thoughts of actually doing something about it manage to break into my mind and I (like someone else earlier said) do just 1 thing when I reach that stage usually within a day or two I start to function again.

The weather too has such an effect on my, after a few really dull days, its almost as if I'm looking at the world through a sheet of gauze that is tinted grey and everything looks dull and ugly to me even things that I love. When the sun is out, I feel everything sparkling.

I feel for you and can relate. Sounds like SAD to me. I think this winter has been one of the worse. It must be especially bad for you living up in Canada.

Last year my husband was working full time and going to school for his MBA. When he would try to study at home while the kids were awake it always ended up in an argument or someone crying, because the kids can not be quiet for long and he cannot study while they are being "kids". So, I would be the one to feel giulty about it, and then everytime he told me he was going to have to study at home I would have a panic attack, it was so stressful. Finally, my therapist told me it's not my problem it's HIS. I should not be the one stressing and having panic attacks over HIS problems. Only he can control where and when he studies, and to expect the kids to be quiet was ridiculous. Well, he decided to go to the library and I gave up control/guilt and the panic attacks stopped.

It seems so stupid looking back now, but what an eye opener as well. Now I am very careful to consider just how much control I may have in any given situation and what I just need to let go.

DuPont Darn I put the little sun in and lost my whole post, I will come back later and do it again. sorry

There is a comfort knowing I'm not alone. Thank you all for sharing your experiences and I hope you'll keep doing so.

DuPont, I was glad to read your husband finally figured out it was HIS problem. Amazingly when you wouldn't fix his problem, he had to find a way to fix it himself. He couldn't avoid solving his own problem anymore once you refused to do it for him. He obvioursly knew he had a problem studying because he was complaining about it, but what it took a while for him to recognize is that HE had to do something about it, not you. Good for him and good for you for not taking it on anymore.

I think the more we fix other people or even show a willingness to do so it promotes them expecting us to do it even more. So if we don't want people treating us like that we have to start treating ourselves differently. When someone starts complaining to me I've been trying to say, "It sounds like you've got a problem. What are you going to do about it?" Right away they hear the message that its theirs not mine. Its a matter of setting boundaries and letting them know where that line has been drawn. If I can help someone I will, but I won't make their problem mine to solve. Sometimes that line is hard to recognize but over time I'm getting better about recognizing it.

I really do understand. I have been up and down for years, and now that I have some hindsight it is easy to see that I was beating myself up. I'd go along being happy, and 'in control,' and then I'd let go, and fall into the deepest depair. When I was in the 'dark' I did not want to use any energy to think about why I was so unhappy. It was just easier to be bummed out.

I think I can stay strong now and I hope you have the same sense of inner stength that I've recently found.

Just think of the little engine that could, and did.

I really like that, gonna have to try it on my kids!!