lifelong struggle with depression

Hi. I am 37 and the proud mother of 6> I have 3 teenage boys 15, 16 and 17, 1 teenage daughter 13, 1 nine year old son and 1 three year old daughter. I have struggled with depression all of my life, at least since I was 8 years old, thats as far back as my memory will allow me to travel. I have made made attempts to end what “life” I had up until my senior year in high school in1990. I won’t go into details about the how because I don’t want to be responsible for giving others in the same boat a method of jumping overboard. Why am I depressed, that is a tough one. Really I am just an unlucky person. I may have a chemical imbalance that could be treated. But that isn’t where it started. I have been sickly for as many years as I can remember, long story short, my mom got tired of taking care of me and so one day she walked away. She walked away with both of my sister’s and a car full of my memories from our home. I was raised in my father’s home but he was so busy working that I raised him more than vice versa. My mom didn’t look back until I was in my early 20’s with kids of my own. These are my memories her version of the story isn’t quite the same. I was molested from the time I was around 9 and that is damamging to anyone in and of itself. I’m not sure these things are the causes of my depression either. I have a strong faith in God and his powers and that is why I am still alive today. I begged for an answer, an end, a release from the nothingness that was me. I married after graduation and soon was the mom of my first 3 boys. Over the course of the years that followed I had 3 more children. My children were my answer from God. I devoted myself and my life to being their mom, to spare them from any of the heartache I had known. I swore I would protect, guide and love them unconditionally no matter what it took. I have done that. My oldest three boys are graduating with honors within the next 3 years. I am so proud of these kids, each one of them. I am still here but sometimes I feel myself being tugged backwards into the emptiness. When those times come there is almost nothing I can do to get out, I just get swallowed up in the endless void. I devoted my life to providing care for those who can not care for themselves; the developmentally disabled, the elderly, the sick. It was my way of saving myself. sice there was nothing I could do to help myself I figured at least I could help ease the suffering of others. In 2006, I suffered a bad work related injury to my spine which ended my career in health care. i almost lost everything I spent my life working for, talk about your garden variety depressed person. That same year my sis and best friend was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I have been by her side all this time until we got the news that she could no longer be treated. She moved far away from me to be closer to our mother and seek alternative forms of treatment. I am still devastated to not have her here with me. I don’t have any answers, I can’t even say that I know where to go to find them. I am still that same lost 8 year old abandoned girl, just a bit older, a few more wrinkles and grey hairs. I have come to believe that depression is a part of my genetic make up, that the desire to be at the end of my life where I can finally find peace is just an inherent part of who I am. I don’t know why it is that way for some of us. why we feel every heart break so painfully, why every loss is so devastating, why we look at the world and wonder at people’s tendancies toward cruelty. I have just taught myself to accept that I don’t get to know all of the answers. I have taught myself to have faith that there is a purpose for all of us who are “lost wanderers” in this big, sad world. Maybe we are how we are to recognize this pain in others who are as we are, we are here to help each other up and out of the void and lonliness. I hope I can help some of you find peace, that is my peace. Your lives are my salvation if that makes any sense. Help as many lost souls as you can on your way to Heaven’s gate and there we will all be at rest. I don’t know what I am going to do with myself when my kids are grown and gone. I know I am who I have always been the depression is always in me. I don’t think there are answers only solutions that can help us learn to live with the way we are.