Depression, diagnosed at last

I was reading an article today on depression (and caregivers).
The signs of major depression include:
1. Depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure in most daily activities ( For me it was loss of pleasure in life)
2. Significant change in weight or change in appetite (I would go through cycles of eat/starve)
3. Trouble sleeping or excessive sleeping (I would go through cycles of each. I took naps every day during my 40's lying to Dow about what I was doing-like the alcoholic, denying the drinking.)
4. Feeling tired and lack of energy (all throughout my 40's and into my 50's. We moved to Chicago when I was 53.)
5. Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness (For the last 25 years until I said "No" to Dow after Jason's wounding. Somehow I was responsible for our relationship. If I was unhappy, it was my problem. (and it was except I didn't discover the reason))
6. Feelings of worthlessness and inappropriate guilt (for the length of my marriage to Dow)
7. Feelings of low self-esteem (Dow destroyed my self-esteem early in our marriage using humor to do so)
8. Sudden outbreaks of anger (expressed at Jason when he was young instead of Dow because Dow and I were codependent and I was emotionally blind to the reason for my anger.)
9. Difficulty thinking, concentrating or making decisions (Dow made all social, emotional, and spiritual decisions for the family unit.)

Reviewing the symptoms, you only need 5 to be clinically depressed, I now realize that I was depressed from about the time Jason was 6 years old until I entered analysis and began studying to be a chaplain in the year 2000. Looking back I cannot believe how emotionally unhealthy the marriage relationship was. How could I function? I didn't. Emotionally I was frozen in fear. From the article, "Factors that increase the likelihood of becoming debilitated by depression:

1. tending to a love one with disruptive behavior (Dow's emotional behaviors toward me and Jason-all on an unconscious level)
2. Lacking available social and emotional support. (After Jason's birth we moved to VA where I knew no one and was all alone emotionally. Totally dependent on Dow who could give nothing emotionally I spiraled down into depression.)
   

Now I am always so at peace. I had always feared that "emotional emptiness will be filled with the negative" For me it is the opposite. Ending my destructive relationship I am filled with peace and freedom. As I dreamt at Walter Reed, I am walking out of Hell with the fires burning behind me. Now I can take pleasure at the golds of fall, the beautiful blue sky we have been blessed with in this Midwest region usually gray and overcast for months in winter.

I love to speak for peace (5 times in the month of November), telling the story of my personal emotional resurrection through the suffering of war.
I love that I experience inner and outer peace.
I spend the time outside of work alone.
It is time for my soul to heal.
I have no emotional needs unmet.
I am alone, emotionally safe, and hopeful for the first time in my life.
I feel held in the hands of God/Mystery that creates, sustains and receives.
I do not worry about the future, it is God's will.
I feel released and free from emotional and spiritual hell.
I take each day as it comes.
Knowing in life all continues to change.
Pray for the healing of Jason's and my relationship knowing that I have no control.
I feel like I have come through the combat zone, healing into wholeness at last.
It is a blessing for which I will be forever thankful.
I will truly celebrate Thanksgiving with a joyous heart this year for the first time in 31 years.
Celebrate life: how precious, how wonderful, how rich.
I want to share my desire and passion for peace.
We must envision peace and live it through all the choices we make.
Gandhi said, "Live the change you want to see."
Now I am living the change I have emotionally wanted since growing up in an emotionally and physically abusive home.

Each choice I make increases the peace within.
Blessings of peace to each who reads this.
The struggle for self is a long and arduous journey.
It is the only journey worth taking.