I can't say I know of anything that works for me. All I know right now is that after probably suffering from depression for all of my adult life and most likely through most of my childhood I have had to accept it. I suppose, or at least I hope that this is the first step. All my life I have been beset with a feeling of inadequacy, of inferiority. This is with me today. The last 5 years of my life have been hell. I have always been self employed and in a business which is competitive to say the least, but to me everyone in it seems to be better at it than I am. I can't reconcile this with the fact that I owned and ran one the best respected businesses in my region for some considerable time and I was asked to sit on various bodies related to my industry.

Four years ago my wife moved away. We knew this would happen..we had planned it. Because of international laws related to her son by her first marriage it was imperative that he be allowed to have a court hearing in his own country (USA). My wife and I planned it, saved for it. 4 years ago she left with my stepson and our own son who was then only 3. She found a house and settled down. I was supposed to move there in about 2 years. We won the case. My son (I think and act as if he were mine) won his case. He wanted simply to live with his mother and be allowed out of the country he had been forced to live in (where my wife and I met). He is a free young man now, coming on 16 and doing fine. Our other son is now 7 and so bright. I never made it to the USA. Depression set in like a never ending typhoon, whirling me around, lifting me up and throwing me down. I blamed my sadness on being apart from my wife and children, but deep down I knew it was more. My wife had even told me before she left that I was depressive. I used alcohol as a self medication (I stopped that last year). Last year I went through a major depressive period without alcohol. It was physically painful. I seriously thought that at any time I would shatter like crystal into a thousand pieces.

I felt so proud when suddenly it lifted, just as fast as morning mist and the sun came out. I was scheduled to go home for Xmas to see my wife and children. I was elated that I wouldn't be carrying a heavy black dog with me.


In the 4 years that have passed my business has gone from bad to worse. I am in a business that deals with people. For ages now I have feared contact with them. Although I have reasonably managed the affairs that they have given to me to look after I have been paralysed to find new customers and my lack of meetings with clients has meant that many have found other advisers. Now still apart, the dreaded feelings have come back, almost 6 months after they left.

Yesterday I shivered in my small apartment, shivered through a feeling of absolute terror that I would fail in the very near future, that my wife and children would move on and leave me behind shaking. That I would drift into oblivion. This morning I made an appointment with a doctor someone has recommended. Tomorrow I see him. I have a dread of taking drugs. Is that part of not wanting to recognise that I am a depressive? I have tried in the last few good months to find a job, rather than working on my own (5 years ago I employed 7 people)all my approaches have been declined.

This is not exactly an uplifting tale but I am reaching out to just find confirmation that others have been there and have at least been able to come to like themselves again. I feel that I have let my family down, although I am still supporting them and that at my age (54) there is little chance of getting my financial solidity back again. Last year I handed everything we owned to be placed in trust for my wife and boys in case I failed at least they would be safe.

I can cry but it doesn't make me feel better. I live far away from all my family and there is nobody here I can talk to about this. Someone tell me that it is possible to make it go away.

Richard