My story by Michelle

I was looking at your website as I have done many times before and decided it was time to tell my own story.

I was 24 when my mother died of cancer, I had cared for her for 18 months and although it seemed like an eternity, it was the best time we ever spent together.

Caring for my mother became my whole world, everything revolved around meals, medication etc. When she died I felt like my world had disintegrated. Not only did I lose my mother but I felt that I had lost my reason for getting up each day.

I thought many times "why didn't I die with her?". Each morning I found it harder and harder to convince myself to get out of bed - but I did. My fiance was my reason for getting up each day, he is the most understanding and caring man that I have ever known or probably ever will know. He was understanding and supported me through my time of grief. It took some time, but eventually the days became better and I began to see that there was a lot of great things to look forward to.

6 years and 5 days after my mother died, and 2 months to the day after I danced with my father at my 30th birthday - my father committed suicide, he was 56. For the 10 months before he died he had lost his business and felt that he had let everyone down. My father suffered a complete nervous breakdown, my stepmother was beside herself and didn't know where to turn - so we turned to each other and decided to find help.

It was not any easy thing to find help for someone with a mental illness, and this was only 3 years ago. We were directed from pillar to post, eventually we were directed to the mental health unit at the hospital. After 2 failed suicide attempts my father was put into the psychiatric ward at the hospital - let me tell you, I can understand that people would prefer to take their lives than to go into an institution like that. The things that I saw and heard were dreadful, you have all of these people needing help, needing people to listen to them, not ridicule them, not to make fun of them.

I saw first hand how my father's so called "counsellor" asked him for his atm card so he could go and get some money out of his account. He told my father that he was being ridiculous in thinking that he had no money and that everything was hopeless. Tell me, how the hell is that going to help anyone?????

My father was finally released back into our care as we could not stand to see the treatment he was receiving. I knew and I always knew from the time he rang me to tell me he had lost his business that he had found a way out that would solve everyone's problems. I knew exactly what he meant.

How can you help someone who already has decided that they know the answer and will take all the necessary steps to make it happen?

How can you stop the hand of fate when they don't want it to be stopped? My father was my whole world and had been my entire life, he is my idol. I do not justify what he did, but he was a proud man who was brought up in an era when men looked after their own and were not men if they couldn't.

So my scared and proud father left this earth in a garden shed on the 2nd of July 2000 by putting a knife through his heart. The police told us that it would have been quick and that he wouldn't have suffered. Well he might not have suffered then, but the past 10 months had been pure torture for him.

So we were left to pick up the pieces. If only he could see how many people came to his funeral, there were over 200 people there. If only he could have realised that he was still thought of as a respected person. Unfortunately, most of his friends had deserted him, as he was placed in the too much work basket and his mother told him he was just being ridiculous. To this day she still tells people that he died of a heart attack.

Needless to say we have no contact with her.

So now here we are in the year 2003 and I am telling you my story. Good things have happened in my life since my father died. My fiance is now my husband, who I treasure more than life itself he truly is one in a million. I have a very close circle of friends I also treasure dearly. I now only have one New Years resolution - "I will only surround myself with people that I care about and care about me equally". Every day now I wake up, I tell my husband that I love him and I am thankful to be alive.

I believe it is possible that you can help someone suffering from depression, but it can be a gigantic struggle if they do not want help.

Thank you for this website.