I have suffered from depression for such a long time now, since I was at school, I think it began with the bullying, up until then I was a happy,energetic soul. Now I have lived with this for so long I have built up a nice facade for when I am out at work or socialising, I can be funny and laugh and I am still energetic and somewhat childish, but occasionally I can't just keep that facade in place, it slips ever so slightly and the real me has a peek out. When I do I often say things I don't mean and do things I don't think about. One night out I had an argument with my girlfriend and decided to walk home at midnight, home was 65 miles away, I was dressed in a t shirt and jeans but I was stressed and upset and real me was venturing out. Well it pissed down on the walk and I got soaked but I kept on walking, 12 hours later after being stopped by the police three times and then left to it, accquiring a short lift for a couple of miles off a kind taxi driver I eventually gave up. I'd walked around 28 miles and still had a while to go. I found the nearest payphone, called my parents so they could let my partner know as she doesn't have a phone and was going to get the kids from them that day anyway, and I sat down to contemplate my brash desicion. Well it was lunchtime now and the sun was beating down, I went from freezing overnight to getting sunburned during the day. I sat there for six hours contemplating my life and decided an apology was in order, which I did when my partner eventually picked me up. But this is just one of the stupid things I've done, I've cut myslef taken pills and drove away. I've never done it to kill myself though, I do believe with me it was a cry for help.

 However my facade is crumbling once more due to a rocky relationship in which I feel I am not loved or respected and that I am the last in the line, before me comes kids, friends, socialising, work and projects, then me. I am an insecure person lacking in self confidence and very wary of all social excursions. My partner was more like me at the begining of the relationship, she stayed in most of the time, but now she likes to go out with her friends when they are in the area and she likes to do that everyday I am off work, so unless I force myself to go out risking upsetting everyone I don't see her and then she gets in around 2 in the morning and we don't speak. I told her I can't carry on like this we are becoming different people and I can't do the socialising and I get anxious when she does it. I can't tell her not to go out and I can't feel good about her going out so I can only see one option here, we quit, after eight years of ups and downs I have decided its a no goer and it hurts real bad. My facade is crumbling and I do wish I could die. I know I won't do it because I can't, my younger brother died three years ago from leukemia on his 25th birthday and I couldn't do that to my parents, or my children for that matter. I feel life is so unfair, I have been wishing to die for years and what happens? My brother dies though he was not wishing to. If only all the suicidal people in the world could trade places with the terminally ill we'd have a much better and happier population.

I feel now though that because I can't die that the self destruct mechanism is going to kick in, why not quit work, I don't like it anyway, resort to drink and drugs to ease the pain like so many. I've tried anti depressants, they depersonalised me to the point that I no longer cared about my problems, worries or concerns, that was no good as then I had no drive to try and fix them. I've had counselling which I quite enjoyed but it did bring all those feelings to the surface but of course I could find no reason for me to be depressed, yet here I am still depressed. The years have been spent in a constant search for a coping strategy or a means to end this depression but all I have truly achieved is to create a mask so fitting I almost become the person I try to project, but never completely. People have told me that confidence in things comes when you keep trying it and get used to doing it but for me that is not true, the confidence I project is a mask, inside I am anxious, stressed and depressed no matter how many times I try it, but outside I am dealing with it. But I am tired of it. Though there are so many wonders in this world, so many joys and so much pleasure there is also so much pain and suffering, death and destruction and I can't not see these negatives, they are everywhere. Humans are a nasty species and we need to do some serious thinking about our futures if we are ever to survive.

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

Pursue mindfulness in all that you do. Seek knowledge of yourself. Always be aware of your thoughts and feelings and try to convey them in a manner which avoids causing suffering to others.

 We all must suffer during our lives, it is inevitable, we will lose loved ones, we will become ill, we will grow old and eventually die. But we can minimise our suffering by cutting out on our attatchments to material possesions so as to not suffer when we lose them. People will upset us, both intentionally and unintentionally, but we must question why we are upset and why we think it's important that our expectations are met. If we question ourselves enough we will eventually come to understand the nature of our expectations and we will come to view them like everything else in existence, impermanent.

From gaining understanding of ourselves we become equipped with the tools to better understand others and if we are truly to minimise suffering then this is to be our primrary goal.