Humor: Depression

My husband does not believe in depression, he thinks it means being sad - so get over it. I have proof that it does not mean just being sad, but is; in fact, a real disease. You need to know that most of the relatives on my mother's side, me and my children are ADHD, so from the start, we think differently than normal people. Here is where one person's normal may be another person's insanity; nevertheless, I am going to tread boldly into what I think I might know.

My mother had SAD which is a form of depression that has to do with the lack of sunlight; being too cheap to buy the imitation sun light; she was SAD all her life - except in the summer when we would get the occasional day that was not gloomy and rainy. My dad died early on, so he missed all this and the only thing I knew about him is that he was very happy; yes, he drank, but he did not need the alcohol to make him happy - he just was.

My brother was an alcoholic and my sister is a paranoid schizophrenic. Out of my five children there were two that were drug users and alcoholics, one died of an overdose, and one could go at any moment (we no longer hear from her). Her daughter was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, several other diagnosis and lives in a group home 300 miles away. Two more of my children are ADHD, obsessive compulsive, and one of them is germ-phobic. The fifth child suffers from mild clinical depression, although a happy child in younger days, he is the one who got the disease. The doctor said it is a disease and he would know because he had training in that field.

With that pedigree, you would think I would be depressed too; my whole family seems to be falling apart and there is no quick fix; there isn't even a lengthy fix. If depression was a state of mind rather than a disease, I would be greatly depressed at my life's disasters; but since it is a disease, I can sail through life un-depressed and, for the most part, happy.

My husband is the only normal person in my family and the effects of our situations have made him grumpy, but not depressed. Probably because I have convinced him that we are no more dysfunctional than any other family (he is gullible too). Most normal people would be at least concerned; but being ADHD, I can look at life with a paper sack over my head and ignore the bad stuff. I have also developed quite a sense of humor, at least I think I have a sense of humor; being ADHD, I may never really know for sure. I would think that the college of psychoanalysis would like to do several case studies on our family, but no offers have come forth, maybe we are normal after all.