I haven't been around for a bit. Perhaps it's because I feel like I've had nothing to contribute to the conversation here. For the last 3 years I've been in a slump I can't seem to get out of, but I've had to deal with this sort of thing for my entire life. The depression, I mean. It comes and goes, I guess, but it's been there for as long as I remember.
It probably started in my early teens. Back then my dad had just died and I was still learning to cope. Losing a family member to something like alcoholism is something you never truly get over. That, and having to deal with my mom's abusive boyfriend right after the fact and the unwillingness of my mom to acknowledge the situation. She finally did after a while and kicked the guy out before it got worse, but it didn't really get better after that.
Then there was trying to cope with my own situations and my peers throughout middle and high school. Boy that was pure hell and I'm never going back. When something is 'wrong' with you, everyone knows. Everyone. And once that happens, you have no social life whatsoever...unless you consider other kids and in some cases, teachers, calling you 'retarded'. I graduated, but just barely. I was lucky to be part of the last class that was able to take the HSCT after failing the FCAT in 8th and 10th grade.
College a few years later was a very different story. Just to give a little back story on this, I'd spent a few years in the world of food service and grocery stores and eventually, after not being able to hold down several jobs, I felt college was my last hope. I had people there willing to help me and my teachers actually gave a damn.
I came through it all with 2 degrees, an overall 3.2 average, and during all that, managed to meet the woman I later married. Been with her almost 8 years and married for nearly 4. She and her family are very supportive to put up with me and my antics and I do everything I can to help them out.
Even after all that, part of me still feels like I'm in a rut I can't get out of. So what the hell do I do? I can't really get the psychiatric help I need because I don't have the money and can't even get medicaid, and of course the sliding scale psych places have a waiting list that's a mile long.
I guess I'll have to keep waiting.
See you around,
Homer