by Warrior Woman

Created on: April 09, 2009

Depression and Anxiety disorders are extremely debilitating conditions. They affect your health, your ability to work and carry out everyday necessities, and your relationships.

I have suffered trauma after trauma after trauma since childhood. From the age of 5 I was molested by a close friend of the family for several years, and due to this I was a very introverted, shy child, which meant I also suffered bullying at school at the same time. Then at the age of 19 I lost my daughter to SIDS, 9 months later losing 3 friends on the same night in separate, unrelated accidents. One month after that, my father committed suicide. He had been diagnosed with Cushings Disease, which affects the pituitary gland in the brain, giving him no control over his moods. In what must have been the most profoundly depressed mood he had experienced he made the decision to suicide.

The whole time, for many years, I kept telling myself I was OK, even while suffering through other traumas - the losses of many other family members and friends; the abuse and assault perpetrated upon my person by my sons violent alcoholic father, that has left permanant yellow bruising on my eyes 20 years later, after he kicked my entire body and stomped on my head and chest with his steel tipped work boots, leaving me covered from head to foot with black bruises that covered my body for a month, and concussion for at least 3 months, before retrieving a knife from the kitchen and considering stabbing me to death; the mental and emotional abuse perpetrated by another partner that destroyed every bit of self-confidence and respect I had for myself; learning 4 years after my daughter died from SIDS, from a complete stranger, that my mother-in-law had told everybody I let my daughter die from malnutrition; almost losing my life when my liver was shattered having been kicked by a horse, and finding out subsequently, that my mother, who had been called by the hospital and told the family should attend because I wasn't expected to live, not only didn't even tell the rest of the family, she complained because her days plans with my sister had been ruined; and not ever really feeling alright.

Then in 2001 I was assaulted by my teenage son, and I was arrested and charged with Assault Occassioning Actual Bodily Harm, as he had injured himself beating me up and lied about how he received the injuries, accusing me of inflicting the injuries on his knuckles. This resulted in my mother refusing to speak to me for 3 years,

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