I vote for #5. Variety is the spice of life.

I vote for #5 as well…it is this blog that helped to realize that I was fighting the beast again…today I actually picked up the phone to call the doctor to get some pharmaceutical help…hate to do it but sometimes it is needed. Please, keep up the great work, you are reaching us.

Definitely #5. I think you’re balancing things pretty well right now.

Another vote for #5, but with some comments on the proportions of #1 through #4 as well.
You started it — this blog, I mean and so you’re certainly entitled to share your stories, particularly as they relate to #2, #3 and #4.
There is an inherent tension between #2 and #3, although both strike me as essential elements of Beyond Blue. I don’t know how much of your readership is newly diagnosed vs. how much has dealt with the barking of the Black Dog for years or decades. The former would be much more interested in #2, the latter in #3. (I’m not saying those newly diagnosed with depression aren’t interested in the latest research, only that — from my experience anyway — you have to get a handle on what your life with this diagnosis is like before you can even make sense of what that research might mean someday.)
Likewise, a good balance between #1 and #4 (and again, focusing on reader comments that touch on points you’ve made from your experience, on “dealing” tips, and on depression research/news) I’m sure will help make Beyond Blue even greater than it already is

I like a nice balance of all those things to keep it interesting. I vote #5.

# 5, please. Too many articles out there listing what it is and its symtoms – what helps me is what you are doing with your site:your suggestions(others) failures,successes,relapses, honesty about it all,mostly what we can do to be honestly gentle good and gentle with ourselves and mostly, not to feel so alone. Thanks for asking.Have a sweet day.
Dianne G.

Another vote for #5 Some days I don’t even look on this site but it is of tremendous support to know that it exists. It has already made a huge difference in my dark, dark days. So I sat here a lot and read and cried and felt as though my whole insides were screaming and twisting in pain and I wrote confusing posts, but somehow I was so miserably relieved to not be alone. Decades is a long time to deal with this monster. Your honesty and struggle, insights, set-backs, desire to “raise us up” before the last day make you and all your readers real, compassionate, and determined companions. Anyone on this site is on a journey that forces us deep into the heart of the crucified Christ as He cried out “Abba, Father, why have you abandoned me?” Crucified, broken, mended, soothed…wherever we are…we are not alone and your site and readers bring HOPE and LOVE.

It is all good and valuable. There is not one “tool” that you incorporate in to your blog that is not worthy of the space and time you give it. As we know, there are always the “critics” – the internal ones too!! – that could NEVER be “pleased”. As you review the feedback you receive – remember – “Take what you need and leave the rest”. Whatever you do, please don’t ever remove your personal journey. It’s what I personally value the most. Keep doing what you’re doing – it works. However, your openmindedness (let’s call it that – in lieu of “people pleasing”) to the thoughts of your readers is wonderful. Just don’t let that be another area of feeling inadequate or questioning yourself. Your motives are pure. That’s all that matters. One person reaching out to help so many through each day by sharing her experience, strength and hope – even when toasting marshmellows, which is much better than the alternatives of self-destruction. The waiting place is not easy. As Scott Peck’s first three words in “The Road Less Traveled” – Life is Difficult. Period. He could have ended the book right there. Wishing you peace,
Nancy

i pick the last one: a combo of them all…there are days when what you write is “just what the doctor ordered” for my various daily situations…we also need to allow you the opportunity to have your “bad days”–which we all have, of course…i think you’re doing a great job–& looking at other comments, there’s a lot of agreement among us all…
“fight the good fight”…we’ll all help each other in our mutual quest for the better-day-we-know-will-come…

#5 definitely. Your blog is one of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite just the way it is. I love the variety that you offer and I know that I’ll always be able to receive depth of understanding and guidance by reading. Keep up the good work!

I agree with so many others…..I like the variety of your blog, especially your honest struggles from day to day. I feel “safe” to let loose and be myself. I will share thoughts here, rather than to tell my family. Thank you all for being supportive of each other.
God Bless…….Cindy

i received this post link at a time that was very crucial to me….Thank God and whomever was behind it….I enjoy reading every thing from this site….it is soooo helpful… to me. #5 is definetely my vote. Please keep up the good work….So many of us are in that slippery dark slope…hoping one day to get out for good….

Therese, I so agree that you should continue as in #5.
Since finding you and this blog there have been times when I’ve read about someone being bi-polar or knowing someone bi-polar (the last time being in one of those advice seeking columns in the newspaper), and so wanted to tell these people about your blog and how helpful it is. Thanks for all you do.

all of the above-although i love the personal stories, the get better lists and random stuff you put in their some times

Absolutely #5. Your blog is my favorite, as well. The energy, education, and honesty you put in your blog is a valuable resource for many many people.

#5 please. If you don’t feel like toasting marshmallows can you still be in the waiting place? Sigh.

Balance is always a good thing. #5 will do the trick for sure. Grateful is an understatement! Be blessed.

Bless you Child of God!
I have been many years now trying to balance my life and be a people pleaser too . Can’t be done because there is much trtu in the statement that you can please some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all the time ( I shortened that quote but you know it well) Now I am happy to please myself and a few others who want to come along for the ride.
I am from a family genetically predisposed to Bi Polar and Multiple personality disorders> I have decided it is best handled with humor and patience — we do have multiple personalities and mood swings but they can be balanced and I know so many people who have no personality at all — So perhaps we are among the Blessed? Have a good day and God be with you

Hi,
this is my 1st time, yet from I what I have seen so far, I plan to come back, so I feel You are doing all of it great.
Thank You for being here.I still have alot to learn.

I would say do your thing. You can’t please everyone anyway.

Your gut-level honosty is so raw/real; heart-felt ~ helping this sister of a borderline, bi-polar, drug addicted younger sister ~ maintain my borders/boundaries within her world that has few.
Thank you.

To me/my/younoto. You see I hear the word can’t and to me there is something missing the comma explains that to me (no) missing that part but you see it in minds eye so when I see this I always add remember me no you know how to say it write this way. we all play are part so well that we forget we r sometimes )0( that we are in play… When You see it like that then how on earth can anyone be upset. except maybe the apple cart! eh can you see the play now its on wards

Yes, I find what you put in here very interesting and helpful. It never hurts to read things about ourselves to better our lives! Keep it coming PLEASE!!!

I vote for No. 4. I really like your up-front, but compassionate approach to “helpin’ people get thru the day.” I used to e-tune into Beliefnet, but left it because it began to seem so . . . oh, I don’t know . . . and I don’t know where I was in my own “gratitude development” when I stopped reading it.
But now is now. And I like the job you are doing. It is very helpful. I, of course, jest when I say this: I think its good that you are still going to therapy. Possibly if you got “cured” you would stop doing this kind of communication. That happens! And it would be our loss.
Mitche Leigh Hunt

Please continue with your great work. You have kept me from succumbing to the darkness with your honesty and hard-earned advice. Please keep it up. God bless.
Karla Sanchez

Raised poor and on welfare, with an alcoholic mother and deserted by our father, only through the grace of God, we’re all grown now. All in our 40′s at this point and all but one holds a job, all but one is drug free and hasn’t had any run ins with the law. All are prone to depression and fight it daily.
We learned at an early age – you have to face life on life’s terms.
If not the drugs and alcohol will take over your life.
Not that surprisingly, somehow, we all married into hectic lives of addictions. We joyfully jumped onto the rollercoaster ride from hell with an addict.
Why? I think we were so browbeaten as children that anyone with a compliment must have been nice because they found worth in “us”. Yet the every people we loved and married had some (or all) of the same characteristics as one of our parents – and we became their emotional hostage.
After 10 years of being married to an addict, I am stopping the roller coaster. I’m not giving any more of my life towards a selfish self-centered person. Yes, we have done the NA, AA, therapist, church, marriage counseling, and several 28 day programs. The addict in my life has had every opportunity to “get help”. He has gotten “help” with dealing with his upper middle class upbringing, the fact his parents made him go to a jr college because he was kicked out of a major university, the list of reasons go on and on.
At this point I just don’t see where “finding a prior problem” is part of a cure for him.
He is going to use whether I’m here or not.
He is going to create excuses to use whether I’m here or not.
He is going to destroy himself whether I am here or not.
All this has nothing to do with loving someone. My addict will love me to death! Literally! It’s about taking care of ME this time – no one is going to do it for me – except me!

Rock on Marti! I’ve heard this story a hundred times, but never with such a courageous ending !!
Grieve the loss and go on. Hooray! love, shirley

Therese,I’ve found your blog to be very helpful,touching,sometimes profound.I hope you don’t change anything about “Beyond Blue”.In my humble opinion,it’s fine just as it is.You’re an inspiration,and I hope you keep at it!

Hi; I think that what you do & give is sufficient enough for me. I don’t like to read long & detailed information. The short & simple messages & quotes are inspirational to me. Tony

Dear Therese: You are an inspiration to me and I like your style of writing. Right to the point and sincere. Thank You! Sue

Thank you for all your articles. I am fighting depression and I just can’t shake it. Low self-esteem is a huge factor and life’s challenges. I have lost the comfort of being a mom because my daughter is 17 and no longer needs me. I based my WHOLE entire being on being her mother and givng her all I had. I guess I thought we would be together forever. That is not the case. I have been downsized and laid off from almost every job I have had and now I have been let go of the most important job ever and that hurts the most. But I keep trying to think positively. I tell myself that whatever happens, I will handle it. I am lost and I am trying to find my focus and my place in life. Your articles have been much help and hope for me. I have to be happy with myself and I am trying to do that. Thank you for your help.
Yolanda

Mainly I think it’s time to stop projecting so much negative from the media right off the bat. For instance
when I went to read your “What do you want from Me?” It took me directly into this miserable, insomniac,
that is incomfortable and feels terrible with hot flashes and night sweats. Don’t you think we could find a more positive way to represent the crossing of this threshold in a womens life besides terrible discomfort and suffering? For those of us who have not yet experienced menopause it creates fear and anxiety for the unknown. It’s as natural as childbirth in a womens life, an yes childbirth is also incomfortable and painfull,
but yet it it not depicted this way in the media. These are all sequential, and normal events in the phisiology of a womens life span, let’s celebrate and find the beauty in all that we endure discomfort and all. AMEN

I enjoy all of the articles. They are very helpful,informative and inspirational. Thank you and keep up the good work.
God Bless us all in these dark hours of troubled times.

You are doing everything wonderfully. You are giving of yourself in an admirable fashion.
Recently I told you how I was helped out of depression by focusing on “one thing” from the Martha and Mary story. After that, when I was having a good day, I hit on the idea to make a list for myself when I wasn’t having such a good day. My list consists of 10 things in 5 categories: things I like to listen to, things I like to see, things I like to smell, things I like to feel, and things I like to do.(Tasting is out because I overeat anyway when I’m not at my best). Some examples are listening to classical music, smelling French Vanilla, swimming, sitting on my swing, bubble bath. It’s not always possible to do some of them but I do what I can, taking time for myself. Then I can get back to taking time for others.

Terese, you have no idea how much i can identify with your personal stories and anecdotes about your life and what you are going through — those among us who are lucky enough not to be cursed with the black demon of depression and somehow manage to keep themselves treading water in the churning sea of life have positively NO CLUE what it feels like — when i read your blogs, this truly wonderful feeling hits me, of “hey, this woman knows EXACTLY how i feel some days,” followed by this second feeling of “god, i am soooo grateful to know that i am not the only person who feels like this.” Although I can neither cheer you up or cheer myself up, at least i feel a kinship of sorts, a kind of fellowship of depressed beings who are fighting like hell just to keep from giving up and letting the depression engulf them like a tsunami wave.
There are a thousand sites to which i can link up and read well-meaning advice on how to “get over it and get on with your life.” But there is only one “Beyond Blue,” where i can read one woman’s struggle and small triumphs in her battle with depression — Please, don’t change a thing — there are days when i sit at this computer, crying as i type my comment to your blog, feeling so close to you and what is happening to you because it is happening to me, too — Your blogs give me hope in a way that no advice on depression site can ever possibly do!!

I would like to see a combination of #1 and #3 with the comments (as always) being the readers’ feedback/personal experience/helpful advice.
Basically, what the knowledgeable sources have to say in their research and studies on depression and anxiety don’t always apply to everyone and often sharing our own stories (knowing that accepted practice did not work for others) does help.

Terese – I love hearing your personal stories about how you make it through each day. I reached rock bottom with depression this past January. I’ve had issues with post-partum and SAD, but now that I’m pulling out of the Funk (with the help of medication), I am starting to understand that my whole life has been a roller coaster of depressive episodes. I love reading your positive blog entries with hopeful, cheerful advice – like How to Find Your Joy, etc. But it is so hard to be reached by those blogs if I am having a really down and Funky day. On those days, I find it is just as helpful to read your personal experiences of relapse and how it IS a struggle to keep yourself out of the Blue. Thank you, thank you for showing us that there is hope, we are not alone, and that many of us are fighting against the Blue Funk every day.

I really enjoy the combination of articles you write. I am in an outpatient program for mental illness & substance abuse (I have been clean for 9 months now). I read your articles everyday & sometimes my program uses them in our groups, you really help all of us alot on so many different levels. Please keep up the good work & thank you.

I really think you are doing a wonderful job! I personally enjoy your sense of humour and approach to a subject that I have always found difficult to discuss. I like the fact that you are so candid, and honest about your tragedies and triumphs! I think the combination of information and education is excellent. I appreciate the reader feedback too. If it’s “misery loves company”, I’ll take that too. I also enjoy the natural remedies and as much knowlege as I can cram into my little skull. Thanks!

Teresa, First 1 & 3 occasionally number 2. Now what I want to tell you…I ran accross your web page when I was just surfing. Ya know that feeling of relief you get when you realize your not the only one, thats what I felt after reading your blog. I still carry bits with me, when I feel like curling up on the couch, “I just keep going”. Thanks

As a psychiatric nurse, a student, and a person actively recovering from a severe bought with depression and anxiety, I find all your features to be comforting and inspiring. But I especially like #2 and #3. I think it is so important to arm people with the tools to understand their illness-what it is and what it is not, and to advocate for themselves. There are so many sources of poor information and antiquated myths about mental illness and treatment out there…In my experience, this site provides real, honest feedback and current, practical information that has empowered me in my recovery. For me, this site is a light in the darkness…I no longer feel so alone or so vulnerable. THANK YOU-from myself and the countless others whose lives you have touched! Your hard work is appreciated.

By the way-LOVE your people-pleaser comment! I can relate! Humor heals, doesn’t it? I’m greatful for the sarchasm of others!

I concur with Katie; hearing the stories of others (Therese herself and other readers) is what has most helped me since discovering this blog. Methods for combaying the black dog are helpful at times too, but I find that I get those from what all of you lovely people are willing to share.
I can locate other sources on the net or through my therapists’s recommrndations and at the bookstore, and when I found Beyond Blue I visited several web sires to help me decide that this was home! my vote is to continue doing just what you’ve been doing, Therese; I’d feel a great loss if the formay changed TOO much (How’s THAT for inflexibility?) As corny as it sounds, I feel like I’ve made a community of friends her at B. B.;Rvrn though I read almost all comments posted, I actually often look for specific readers’ responses because I’ve read then before and felt a connection! The service you’ve chosen to prvide to us is prooving to be invaluable to me on my journey, Therese, and I’ feel pretty confident in saying that I fon’t think I’m alone on that view. I thank God daily for having bfought me to discovering this internet of obviously intelligent anf compassionate individuals. It has become a real lifeline for me, and it isn’t only because ‘misery loves company’, either. If it were possible for me to remove the misey others asre experiencing and shating, I would glasdly do so, so I COULD survive without their company if I needed to. Membership in this club to which we all unwillingly brlong isn’t something which I would wish on ANYONE; nonetheless, reading of how others have survived specific circumstances has given me hope where i’d lost sight of it and inspired me to ‘keep on keepin’ on even when my feet feel as if they’re encased in buckets of cement and will pull me under the stagnant water in the bottom of the pit (The resident snakes aew undoubtedly water dwellers!)
Remember writing in high school yearbooks telling clasmates to ‘stay as they are’ and not change?(Or am I dating mtself here?) That’s how I feel about B.B., Therese. I doubt if you have any idea how many lives you’ve impacted by your presence on Belifnet! It would sadden me deeply for you to change styles (unless you need to for your own well-beibg, of course! That always should come first!

I just started to read all of your comments today and feel quite inspired by all of you! I suffer from chronic urticaria (giant hives) for the past 3 1/2 years on a daily basis, no doctors can figure out what causes it! The quality of life as I use to know it, is no longer there. I fight against depression on a daily basis and pray for an answer that has not come yet. What has helped me though, is realizing how lucky we all are! We could all be suffering from some horrible disease like Cancer, so really we are quite lucky! We need to focus on the fact that God has a purpose for all of us and he never gives us more than we can handle!
Focus on the very special person that you are and how different life would be for some if we were to give up! We touch peoples lives everyday and some of them need us on a daily basis. Nothing lasts forever, not even sickness! I wish health and blessings to all and remember WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS! BE STRONG!

Therese,
I think you have been doing an awesome job! In my opinion, you should keep on doing what you have been doing and don’t change a thing. I empathize, enjoy, and am uplifted after reading your blog. Your sharing through writing is beautiful in its honesty, emotions, and humor. When I read it, I feel as if I am sitting on your couch, having a conversation with you as pals. You are touching the lives of many. Keep On Keepin’ On! :0)

My youngest son moved out in September because he was to be married soon. On October 25th he was married and his new bride moved in with him. I like her very much and am totally happy for my son because he was always a loner and unhappy with his life until he met her over a year ago. I wish them both the best in the world.
The problem however is that seem to be going through a major depression. I don’t know if it can be attributed to empty nest syndrome but I feel that is a big part of it. I was a mother first and foremost for 23 years and now I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I used to be an artist, a pretty good one too but for the past 4 years I have had a creativity block and I can no longer create anything and when I try I find it to be a chore. I miss being an artist terribly. I miss having things to do with my hands. I miss my creative mind. It is difficult for me to even compose this blog .
I have been on Prozac, Wellbutrin and Buspar for many years for my chronic depression and other psychiatric problems although I don’t feel like the Prozac does anything for me. I no longer think my depression is caused by a chemical imbalance but by my current life situations or lack there of. I have fears at trying new things and getting involved in new situations and I have only one friend who also suffers from depression and is usually done with her day by 12noon.
I feel lonely and alone and sad all the time now. My children no longer need me. So what is my purpose now? Household tasks have become to difficult to do. My attemtps at art are also a chore. Someone told me to have faith in god but I am an agnostic and do not believe it is probable that there is a god. I envy those with a true belief because it must make life easier to bear if you believe there is a higher power looking after you. I am alone, I have no significant other although I wish I did. I don’t do anything to meet anyone new so most likely I will be alone until I can get over my fears.
My depression is so severe that it is considered a disability. Therefore I don’t work. I very rarely get out of my house and into public places where I could possibly meet someone. I recently worked up the courage to get involved with a local theatre company and do volunteer work. I went once and they told me they would call me if they needed me. To date, I have had no such call. I go sometimes on Sunday mornings with my one friend to an AA meeting as support for her. I am not an alcoholic although I am a recovered heroin addict for over 12 years now. The meetings don’t do me too much good however because they are based in a belief in a higher power. I know I would not likely relapse because my greatest fear is death. Although this is a great fear it is also a blessing that it keeps me from wanting to relapse into my old lifestyle.
All I really have in my life to care for anymore is my dog. She is my world now. But I want to be involved in a bigger world. I need people that can talk with me and spend time with me.
Has anyone else been in such a depression from their children growing up and leaving? Please tell me how to deal with it so that I may overcome some of this depression and be able to function as a responsible and reasonable adult.