Have you ever been depressed?  Depression is characterized by being overcome with events and giving up, with feelings of no control and hopelessness.

One of the ways that I used to cope was to try and control things.  Ask any member of my family and they will tell you that I was a control freak.  In my mind, I wasn’t controlling - I was protecting them.  That used to be possible when my children were smaller but as they started to grow up, I realized that I couldn’t control them any more.   I saw my children making choices, that according to my value system, were harmful to them.  And I could do absolutely nothing about it.  That was time of major depression for me, probably the worst I have ever experienced.

We had a seriously handicapped child that died at the age of seven.  As a family, we never dealt with his death properly and nine years later, several of our children were having serious problems.  In an effort to help, we called a grief counselor in to meet with the whole family.

One of the things he had each of us do was to draw a picture of how we saw our family.  I drew my husband and my five children in the back yard, with me watching them.  To my horror, I drew myself with no arms!  Talk about an expression of no control and feeling hopeless!  I get emotional just thinking about it.

In this short little story, can you pick up the number of different ways that unrelieved stress brought on depression?   Do any of you identify?