My personal struggle with depression. Share your story struggling with depression here! All welcome

11 years ago, I made rhe mistake of eavesdropping on my family. I heard some of them say they preffer a son than a daughter. So I tried acting like a son would. Fast forward to twenage years, they nowexpect me to be feminine af because they had a daughter and want a daughter. I was 8 then. I can't win. I think that was the time I just stopped caring about whatI want and just put my family's happiness first. Apparently, i have freewill and have control over my life because "its my life" ( lies).

I think the first time was when I was about 12. I was being bullied and school was too stressful for me. I started wishing I'd get sick so that I wouldn't have to go. Things got better for awhile after I changed schools, but then I had a major depressive episode last year, and that's when I really started getting treatment.

Been up and down for a long time. It got more severe a few years ago as things felt kind of like they were tumbling out of control. Parents got divorced, had to leave a job that was my whole life, herniated a disc in my back, feel in love with some girls that didn't love me back, and just general financial difficulty.

I got a dog a few months back, he had definitely helped hold off some of the worse feelings, but still, things are out of my control. I feel like I barely keep it together sometimes. I just kind of coast through each day, just trying to get to the next one.

My depression started when I was 9 years old. I binge ate and gained a ton of weight. Being Korean and Swedish didn't help either because I look nothing like my adopted family. I was constantly bullied all the way up to high school where I was bullied because I was raped and no one believed me till the guy got put away. In the same year my best friend committed suicide and later on my mom got cancer. Now I am 22 years old and I am finally knowing what happiness is.

@Laura

My personal struggle with depression this time around- over six years since the last time- is that I'm reconnecting with a sibling with a shared trauma history and it's bringing up so much. I'm using a therapist online and it has been helpful.

it started when i was 14. my classmates played a mean prank on me where no one spoke to me for a day, a week, until it turned into a month or so. i don't know why it started or who started it, and it just became this thing. it really messed me up and my mental health, it pretty much destroyed my view of the entire world, because i used to be this very happy girl... and suddenly i'm avoiding school like i'm avoiding home because at home i'm forced to go to a church that i don't want to go to, and at school there's that thing with my classmates and i didn't really have anyone, so i just started to be angry with the world and i guess yeah, maybe that's where it started... i'm 19 now and i'm still learning how to accept myself and build up my self-confidence.

Well, I had depression from 11 to 13 years old, when I moved out of town, my family environment was (and is) horrible, and now I have entered again in this suffering.

I am 22 years old now, I have spent the last 5 years giving up life, get into social reclusion, pushing away friends, keeping inside the house and giving up on my dreams. But in my mind I was settled, "everything was fine", I would expect death and there was nothing to be done. Recently I rebelled against all this, and I decided to do everything I stopped doing, get my friends back, try to be a normal person and then pursue my dreams.

As I was completing my challenges, the suffering was increasing, and I had to stop thinking that everything was fine and accept that everything is bad, that I do not know anything, I do not have experiences, that I do not have the skills, that everyone in my age is more evolved than I am. That I should be an adult, but I'm a child.

The trigger for this depression was a woman 7 years older than me, my first girlfriend, a completely opposite person who became independent at age 19, fully experienced and talented. We went on a trip together, I gave my virginity to her too early, without even telling about my situation. And I keep trying to improve, even if everything in her reminds me of what I might have been, and I'm not.

(Forgive my writing mistakes, I'm not fluent in English)

I don't really know because it was subtle at first. But around a couple of years ago. It's still going on now and I battle with it every day. I was and am suicidal, but the self harming started before that. I have been trying to stop, and so far it has worked. I have body image issues and my mind tells me no one cares on a constant basis. It fluctuates, and sometimes I feel fine, and have no reason to be depressed.

@Laura

When I left for college and got very, very sick, to the point that I should have dropped out and taken a recovery year. It ruined my first year's grades and my social life, and because I didn't understand what had caused this flare-up in what had before then been a relatively benign chronic condition, I lived in fear of a relapse even when I began to recover. I never managed to salvage my social life, because by second year my small college already had tight-knit social groups of which I was not a part.

That was ten years ago. I'm still struggling with both issues today.

After having anxiety for aprox. 13 years and going through having hyperthyroidism for 3-4 months, then ended up in the hospital for 12 days, had for about 5 yrs