Depression

I swear to tell the truth. The whole truth & nothing but the truth...

Lots of you responded to the One Year Later post. Most of you were very supportive & loving. Thank you so much for that....you have no idea how much it meant to me during that difficult week. I really appreciate it. However, some of you (mostly family members) expressed some concern for my well being. Well....I guess this is a topic that needs to be addressed due to it's relevance of learning to live with autism.

For several months now, I have been in conversation with my doctor about depression. Nothing severe, and honestly, I wasn't even "sad" most of the time, but I noticed that I would cry every day because something would touch my heart so deeply. I thought this was just part of becoming a mom! Ever since this amazing little guy has come into my life, I feel things deeper & stronger ever! So those silly Hallmark commercials that I used to tease my own mother for crying over.....I was now the one who was crying! This & other signs led me to consult with my doctor, family & close friends. (You know who you are! THANK YOU!)

So, for the past 6 months or so, I have been working with my doctor & trying to overcome this "emotion surge" that would happen to me several times a day. I would pray, meditate, get more sleep, eat better, do more relaxing activities, exercise more and so on. But after 6 months of this, the surges still persisted. So, my doctor has given me the smallest dosage possible of an anxiety-relieving medicine. I have been on it for a few weeks now, and I can tell a HUGE difference. I am able to talk to others about my child's disability without bursting into the ugly cry. This is nice because.....knowing that I couldn't talk about it without crying would lead me to simply NOT talk about it.....and that isn't healthy either. This is just one area that I have seen an improvement, but there are many others too. It has been a good choice for me.

Now, this is just my own story. This is not an advertisement for medicine or anything like that....I am just being real & honest. This is a journey, a learning experience, and this is where I am at right now.

But this did cause me to wonder if this is typical of mothers/parents of children with special needs. And I discovered something over & over again while researching this topic, and I guess it shouldn't surprise me. It IS common! Here is part of one article that I read......this echoes a lot of the other things that I read...

"Struggling to make sense of a foreign, chaotic and often lonely world, 40-70 percent of family caregivers show clinically significant symptoms of depression with approximately a quarter to half of these caregivers meeting the diagnostic criteria for major depression, reports the National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA) in the 2006 “Assessment of Family Caregivers: A Research Perspective.”

Mothers of children with autism had the highest rates of depression, according to a pivotal report published in the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research. Additionally, mothers of children with an intellectual disability (ID) had higher depression rates than parents of normally developing children (single mothers of children with disabilities were found to be more vulnerable to severe depression than mothers living with a partner).

Notably, fathers of children with disabilities showed normal depression scores. Why are moms at greater risk for spiraling into depression? The study suggests what is obvious to many women: We take on a greater share of the responsibility of parenting, are more likely to give up our jobs and interests and our self-competence is often tied to parenting—something that is tested beyond measure with a special-needs child.

“Parenting a child with ID increases the risk of provoking feelings of loss (i.e. of the perfect or dreamed of child and of one’s personal freedom), helplessness (i.e. experiencing high stress, not being able to change the situation and not being able to get the help one needs) and failure (i.e. having a child with difficult behavior and not being able to pursue one’s personal goals in life),” notes the study called “Depression in Mothers and Fathers of Children with an Intellectual Disability.” http://www.dfwchild.com/Thrive/showarticle.asp?artid=118

So, why am I sharing this with all of you? Because I want to share every part of this journey....the good, the bad & the ugly. And, honestly, all of you strongly responding to that particular post gave me the extra push I needed to admit that I need some extra help. So, thank you for your courage to speak your mind! And maybe this will help someone else!