on a serious note
 

To everyone on this site, if you know of someone suffering from depression i urge you to get them help, if they refuse help please do all you can to override their decision, my sister in law lost her battle last night, it has absolutely devastated all who loved her, she continually refused our attempts to help her or to get her help, we all feel we have failed her, if only we could have done more she might still be with us so please try your hardest.

Oh man. That's crushing news. Condolences for your family's loss.

So sorry for your loss Harvs. An all to common affliction of this present age.

My condolences to you and your family.

As someone who lives with depression myself, I can understand how she felt. That said, I'm sorry it went this far.

I'm really sorry to hear that Harvs, depression is an absolute...well, it's a horrible thing, and I'm sorry to hear that your sister lost her fight.
Don't blame yourself though, blame the illness that took her from you, but don't blame yourself.

Depression
 

I'm very sorry for your loss Harvs. I'm sure you and your family did everything you could do but depression and bi polar illnesses are horrible for those afflicted and those who can only stand by and try to help. Prayers for you and your family.

Sorry to hear about your loss Harvs. True depression is a terrible, and devastating affliction. I've seen way too much of the result myself. I know it's terrible on the family. You and your family did all you could, and as a loving family, you did not fail her. Like cancer, it was the disease that took her. Prayers for you and your family.

So sorry to hear about this, Harvs. I can only echo what's been said, especially by Oberon.

So many of us have a close relative suffering from this. Perhaps the worst thing about it is that they often don't know why they feel the way they do, so they try to hide it because they don't think their family will understand either: it's a "black dog" which comes of its own accord, and an illness which you couldn't have cured for her. All you can ever do is try to be understanding. Don't blame yourself, mate.

Very sad to hear of your loss, Harvs.

I don't know how they do things down under but, here where I live, if we have a person suffering from this awful malady, we do have recourse to get them the help they need. A family member need only make a trip to the hospital ER and request to fill out a 302 intake form. Then a county social worker comes to review and sign off on the form, which is then hand delivered to a law enforcement officer for patient pick up and delivery to the medical facility for a mandatory ten day stay in a psyche ward. The wife and I had to do this for her Bi-polar son. He's still with us today because of that. I know most folks would feel like doing that would be betraying the trust of their loved one but, it's better than the alternative. My stepson actually thanked me for it.

Hopefully this info might help to save a life.
When in doubt, call your local emergency room, law enforcement or crisis hotline.

Depression is really nasty. It keeps you from functioning properly which leads to more failures in every day live which then strengthens the depression. A vicious circle that one must break. It really doesn't help that a lot of people underestimate depression and tell you to "just pull yourself together" and dismiss it as just being in a bad mood or even lazy and weak.:/\\!!

Sorry for your loss. :/


I have my ups and downs. It's the worst during the winter months though.

I'm the same as Steve, had this condition for over 20 years now the medication does not work for me as I react badly to it, counseling helps to agree but when you go though NHS channels here in the UK it take time. Statistics in the UK show Depression is on the up and there are people who will not except it, I went to a job interview and as you do answer their questions and when it came to my depression the guy said oh that old chestnut dodge to get out of work! Made me go down couple more notches for that week.

Harvs you and all who tried to help must not blame yourselves you tried to help and that something was better than nothing.

Terrible news :/

Aye, you poor sods up north have it pretty bad during winter because of the daylight hours. Even worse the further north you go in Scandinavia.
SAD (which has the most apt acronym I can think of) is a pretty significant feature in depression, but I think that some elements of society itself can be blamed for the rise in depression these days, trying to get the human body to do thing that it's not evolutionary used to. I suppose, in short, trying to be machines in order to compete with machines in this fast paced world we live in.

I would say to anyone with depression, try to find joy in small things, obviously on a bad day there's nothing that will bring you back up from the slump that you're in, medication can help reduce the depth of the slump (but the downside is that it also reduces the heights of euphoria, since it is designed to reduce how far the emotional swings go either way and plateau them out, it also...somehow, seems to reduce creativeness a bit...I don't know how, but it's something that has been noticed) but it won't bring you out of it, only time will do that. But on a normal day...watch the birds, look at nature, even if you're in the city, look at the grass growing through the concrete cracks in the pavement and think of how nature prevails, stroke a pet if you have one, watch youtube videos you find funny, listen to music that you like, find something that makes you smile and hold onto it, because it is precious.

Of course, someone could tell me 'physician heal thyself', because it's easy for me to say these things to other people, but less so to remember it myself...but I try, and I've made it this far.

Deepest condolences for your loss.