Forum post from a woman whose father battled depression

My father, who has always suffered from depression, explained how angry he used to feel to see other people happy and how it used to make him resent them, that he would push them away because he really needed to talk to someone on his level.

He explained how paranoid he became that nobody cared no matter how much they showed they did, he just thought they were lying, why would they care for him?

He described the feeling of watching himself and thinking "that person can not be me because I am smiling" and that he did not know how to be happy or how it felt to be happy because he was dead inside. I mentioned H’s dead eyes and he said that is because he feels dead inside.

He totally understood the running away because he said H associated all of this anger and resentment with me, our home and our life when all that would happen is that the unhappiness will return and just keep getting worse until eventually something has to give.

He did say that to start with, he felt physically ill all the time -- tired, restless, angry, sad -- and then he spiraled out of control as the fog came over him.  He has done some awful things during his life but I think I understand a bit more now that he was not always in control of what he was doing and that he was desperately clinging on to stop these things happening.

He has been on medication for many years and if he comes off them he becomes a monster pretty quickly so he is resigned to taking them for the rest of his life.

One thing my father said last night is that he could never have spoken to anyone close to him as he became paranoid that they were the enemy and that he resented the fact that they seemed strong and happy, so he could understand why H latched on to someone who is pretty mixed up herself, it goes with what is said on here and what my counselor has mentioned, that at the moment H feels safe with someone who is also not very stable. He also said that the grass is not always greener but when you are in a deep depression you are convinced that the fantasy will be.