This may sound a bit strange…

I’ll tell you my story and you make of it whatever you want. I come from a successful family, put of seven kids, me being the last, there are 4 PhDs, quite a lot specially if you think it is all happening in a developing country. I land in North America for my post-doc and decide to live here. My first depression happened right when I was finishing my PhDs and having already decided to live here, am worried about my future. Now, my parents are so proud of me for doing my PhDs because my older brother did his at MIT and was successful at it, what is next for me when although I finish, I have nothing to do after, no job, no prospects, nothing? Ok, life goes by, I find my job, I get in a serious relationship, I have a child. Job seems good now, but life at home sucks, while my partner doesn’t seem to understand me and what I need, I don’t seem to find a connection to earth, as if I am here as a guest, looking at friends and seeing nothing in them, not finding pleasure on anything. My child is three at this point, and although he is the love of my life, I know it in my heart. I start feeling that I am not good enough for him, or anyone else for that matter. My first suicidal attempt went with pills, not knowing exactly how much to take apparently I took enough to knock me off but not enough to stop me from answering my partner when he asked me if I took something. After a night at the ICU, I went to the psychiatry ward and feel worse for being one of them (as I thought of it). Three years of psychology went by, up to four times a week, until my bank account went empty. By then I was able to manage my life, see friends, find another relationship that fulfilled me better. My shield grew to ten years old, many drugs for depression I took, switching from one to the other, and then it all came back again. I had. A terrible work that didn’t fulfill me (amongst the recurrent depressed people you will find often that there is nothing they fully like and feel good, really good about), and there came another bout of depression, this time with many episodes of mania, thus the recent diagnostics of bipolar type 2, in other words, mainly depression with episodes of mania. One year of treatment, another chance of drugs, addition of others, therapy, the whole package. The thing is that we do feel when we are reaching the bottom of the pitch, but somehow we can’t accept it is coming and try to brush it off, hoping for the best… Not so lucky, I lost both my brother and my father at the same day, on different episodes that went purely coincidental for the date, then a few months later I lost my job, which is the measure of how good I am for those that look from the outside ( in my only perception, not necessarily theirs), and to top of off, I think my partner doesn’t want me anymore for whatever fight we have for. I try it again, this time not being shy on huge amount and type of drug I take, and to make sure it works, I drink a lot of hard alcohol. I end up falling on the floor, grasping for air, my partner finds me and calls emergency. I end up in the hospital, and after three days I recover conscience. I tell you all I thought when I took those pills is how much better my partner, my son and everyone else would be without me. I felt to bad about myself that I could not believe that anyone else would even be able to find any good by being with me. I convinced myself that my dead mind, my negative outlook of the world is no good for my child, and she/he would be better off with my sick influence. And that’s how you feel about everything around you. You look at he happiness of those close to you and wonder how much better off they would be without you, you look at the sad faces and convince yourself you have created them, so what else but killing yourself is the sensible solution? All being said, I have good and bad moments. I know now I will never be cured, that’s a far fetched dream, but maybe I could leave moments of happiness to which I could cling on when the bad times come by? I live one day at a time, but to be honest, I know in my heart I will not make the glorious golden years of the wise age, when I would be able to think of my life with nostalgy and wiseness. I know I will have to finish my life at one point, whether in 10, 20 years from now, I feel it in my heart. So far, I won’t do it for the sake of my mother that has been suffering a lot from the loss of my brother, and then I will focus on my child, who is now 12, too young to go through the lost go his mom. When he is old enough and capable of dealing with it, I will reconsider it all, knowing that that feeling of not being part of here will never be there for me.