I have been treated for depression on and off in my life over the past 15 years. Ironic that this would coincide with the span of my marriage.

For anyone who has never really experienced true clinical depression, it might be hard to comprehend the depth of the darkness a depressed person experiences. It isn't just a matter of having the blues, it isn't something you can just "snap out of". It can be encompassing, pervasive and overwhelming. Your brain doesn't function normally, and many times your body doesn't either. You feel as though you have a perpetual cloud over your head, even though there are times when you might be caught smiling or even laughing.

But the cloud doesn't go away for very long. If you're lucky, you might have a whole day when you think that things are looking up. More likely, you'll get but a few minutes of sunshine.

Although it might sound somewhat egotistical, I sometimes think I'd be better off if I was less intelligent. Dumb and happy would be nice. I want to be able to lead a mundane, everyday kind of existence without being aware that it could or should be better. There are millions of people who function every single day under what some would deem to be the most boring of circumstances, yet they don't whine and moan and bitch about how pitiful their lives are. They are happy. I am not.

Of course, I'm at the point where I know that I could go to my doctor and get medication that would help my outlook. That is frustrating. Why? Because I hate knowing that I am dependent on some sort of wonder drug just to feel normal.

Perhaps right now, my depression is more a result of my current circumstances than the need for a pretty pill. You have to wonder if winning the lottery would change my perspective? (Hehe.) Or having a job I looked forward to each day? Or a mere change in environment?

These things are achievable - okay, the lottery is a long shot, but the point is, I know there are things I can do, changes I can make, that will help my outlook. But the depression gets in the way of doing the things that could be done.

I'm not an irresponsible or unmotivated person. In fact, for far too many years, I've been more responsible than perhaps I cared to be. Although the thought of being dependent upon anyone rankles me to no end, on the other hand, I long to be taken care of in a way that I never have been in my life.

Maybe for the first few years of my life, I felt safe and protected, although given the frequency with which my mother and I went back and forth between my father and my grandparents, perhaps I've always been insecure without realizing it. I only know when my memories of insecurity begin, and that is when my parents divorced and my mother married the stepfather from hell.

He was abusive, more so to my sisters than me, which made me feel guilty and responsible for protecting them. I even felt responsible for protecting my mother. Once I heard him slap her in their bedroom, and I screamed out to him that if he ever hit her again, he'd "never take another breath, I swear". Ha. Big talk from a 12 year old girl who probably weighed no more than sixty pounds at the time, but it had the intended effect: it diverted his attention from my mother to me, and thus I ended up being chased throughout our house with him swinging a belt at me (he always swung with the buckle dangling, and this time, it barely missed my head and left a scrape on the wall instead).

My mother, God bless her, was very weak and in no position emotionally to change our lives. It didn't help that he threatened to kill her and us and her parents if she ever left him. But from the date of their marriage, I always felt that the burden was on me to be the adult, because of my mother's weakness. To this day, she is still dependent on my grandmother for many things, money chief among them, and I think right now the fear that I might become like her is driving my depression. Because I am oh-so-tempted to let my life just wither into a replica of hers.

There is a theory in psychology that concerns the guilt an adult child may experience - usually subconsciously - if they achieve a level of success that surpasses that which their parents achieved. Perhaps on some level, I'm operating out of that guilt, and therefore, never let myself get too far beyond where my mother is, despite my stubborn assertions that I will not ever be like her. Perhaps that guilt is at the root of my frustration with my life, and the ensuing depression.

See what I mean about being too smart? I have the ability to analyze - well, perhaps overanalyze is the better term. Thus the occasional wish for dumb and happy.

I've made some foolish choices in my life, and I know there is nothing I can do about them but correct them and move on to better things. Just wishing will not make it so.

But every now and then, the desire for a fairy godmother is all too consuming.