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Depression is the dark cloud that hovers over my head and pours hot tears over me on a bad day. It's that feeling that nothing is going right and nothing is ever going to go right again. It's the river of tears that flow at the slightest word, or look or mistake. It's the sleepless nights. It's the mirror in the hallway that shows the picture of the ugly woman with the sad face and no smile.

It's the feeling that most people would be better off without me in their live. Being a burden, being a fool, being afraid. This is depression to me.

So how did I get it? Why me?
I have found that people who have never suffered with depression very often find it really hard to understand how we find ourselves like this. Let me try and explain it in my own, simple way.

I think that as you travel through life you pick up plenty of suitcases along the way. Some of these cases are light and we have the time to stop and undo them, look at the contents and then put them away. Some of these suitcases however are much bigger and much heavier. We try to unpack them and sometimes we succeed but other times we end up stuffing the contents in the back of a drawer instead of checking through them and folding them neatly away. There is only so much room at the back of the drawer and when it gets too full it all comes tumbling out, all over the floor leaving a mess that has to somehow be cleaned up.

For me I had more suitcases than I could carry by the time I was sixteen. I had a mother who hated me. I had a father who was taken from me in the most tragic of accidents,I was homeless for a while, I was belittled and ignored. I managed to unpack some of my burdens but I pushed many of them to the back of my cupboard. When the children were born I admit I found it hard. I wanted so much to be the perfect mum, to make sure they never had the childhood I had and I thought that meant abandoning my own needs and concentrating on those of my children. I hadn't time for all the luggage that being a mother left me holding, where did I put it? You guessed it. Back in the cupboard.
When my son was diagnosed as having Autism I found myself carrying not only suitcases but also two crates and a trolley. Show me a cupboard that could hold all that!
Mine couldn't. The doors bulged and then burst off, the contents came pouring out and my life fell apart.

It took me a long time to realise that something was really wrong with me. I lost my temper for no reason, I hated everyone and then I hated myself. I wanted

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