Sometimes, the act of talking to someone and taking action is all we need to find hope.

This is her story of hope:

I went to see my doctor yesterday for major depressive disorder. He sat and listened. He took my problems seriously. He even asked me if I thought I should be hospitalized. He talked about what a loss my children would have if I was gone and how they would blame themselves. It made me stop and pause. I listened.

He added another SSRI to the two medicines I currently take.

I have hope now.

Hope that I will make it through this. Hope that the new medicine will help me cope with all the craziness in my life. And it feels good to have hope. It is something to hold on to.

I met with my counselor as well. She wants to see me more regularly to help me through this. It feels good to have someone want to help me fight through this fog of depression – to help me find the light. She helped me see that all this anxiety is in my head and when the anxiety and the depression get together, it’s not as bad as I make it out to be. I take other people’s actions too personally. My kids aren’t trying to escape me; they just want to spend some time with their dad. Even though it hurts me, it’s not personal.

That gives me hope that someday I will be able to differentiate between what is reality and what I am imagining or reading into the situation.

I don’t know if my marriage will make it, but I have a feeling that no matter what, I will be able to make it through to the other side. I will be okay. No matter what, I have my kids and I have my goals.

We all will be able to make it to the light and live to see another day.