I am curious to find out why this might happen and is there anything you can do to prevent depression if you already have a history of depression (especially during teenage years and postpartum).I have a few questions for those out there that this happened to them also.

1. Were you missing periods and starting menopause?

2. Were you on any type of antidepressants before you became suicidal?

3. Was there anything that helped like hormones, bioidentical hormones, antidepressants, counseling, behavioral modification or anything else?

I, like the author, had no idea what was happening to me. While I became suicidal after 2 weeks on Zoloft, I could not help myself. Even though I teach patients to call a suicidal hotline if suicidal, that thought never crossed my mind at the time. Your decision making skills are out the window.
Thank you to family and friends, I too am alive to tell my story. I would like to share our stories to hopefully save some lives.
Even though it was the toughest thing I have ever gone thru, I feel stronger and better than I have ever felt in my life. Also thru this experience, I am able to recognize depression in my patients and understand it on a level that most health care workers do not. It was a great growth phase for me.
Would love to hear any comments from anyone so that I can continue to learn about it.

Happy to be ALIVE!

Four years later, I’m starting back to school part time to get my RN. We do recover.

I especially liked what you said about not being depressed, having no reason to be depressed, unable to identify any triggering stressors….
Actually that is true more often than not. I like to refer to this process as ‘kindling’. It only takes the smallest spark to set a fire when the kindling is aged just right. So to with depression. It can result from years of small to moderate insults to the psyche that one has just put away and then just as the kindling for a fire just a spark sets them off.

Health care professionals tend to be the worst at being kind to themselves while caring for everyone else. Others around them perceive them as having their life together and never notice the chinks in our armour. In fact we rarely allow others to see those chinks.

Mental Health is part of the whole person. Many times we are taught to ignor that aspect of ourselves so it goes unloved,untended for years.

Thank you for sharing your experience with depression and hospitalization.

I have still have been struggling, but I keep fighting it. I was recently told I was bipolar.

Anyways, my boss was cruel on my return to my high stress job. I quit before I was fired….

My point? I see that mental health stigma is everywhere. I will begin grad school this fall for social work. Ironically, I found descrimination and stigma here as well. I begin my studies with my mental history in the closet. And I hope to work with the severely mentally ill in my future.

Thanks for sharing.