Without hope or any positive goals, depression sets in and will grow into monstrous proportions

by Michael in Michigan

I think I was just a boy when I started suffering from depression. There was a sense of hopelessness and I asked God to save me and my family from my Dad, but all I ever got was voice mails. When you're so young and don't have a clue where to get any help, you just learn to cope or accept what is going on around you. After a while depression hits very hard and actions and consequences blend and really don't mean much, so you start to use drugs to plug holes and gaps in your life followed by negative police associations which becomes normal.

You get older and you try to deal with some of the core issues that you grew up with and then you're met with the stigma of addiction where people would rather see you in jail than deal with you anymore. Even in your own family they don't see the addict doing wrong--they believe it's you that is the liar, the thief, the idiot.

Mental Health: Maybe we should start there. Let's change it to not sound so hopeless or infectious. The U.S. is part of the United Nations to help third world countries who cannot defend themselves but here in our own country we just leave people to rot out by the curb. I have been an addict for most of my life -- 35 years -- until three years ago. A judge showed me a different direction or I would do years in prison or finally a grave yard. I only hope that I will be allowed to continue on the new direction I have chosen to live unless the establishment slams me down and makes life seem hopeless. Without hope or any positive goals, depression sets in and will grow into monstrous proportions.