Anyone feel embarrassed to admit their depression?

[MCspeaks]

I've also found that the people I tend to gravitate towards are the people that are the WORST listeners (they are great at talking, which I admire, hence the gravitation), so that is part of it too. I'm already introverted. I'm more comfortable with writing than talking and it makes it hard to get out of my own head. I think I've found a good outlet in my depression blog. At first I was just posting/linking related stuff and kind of commenting on it. But today, I finally talked about me. It feels good (despite mostly how I'm talking about feeling like crap). We'll see how it goes...

[shawnkathleen]

I used to be, but I am now 43 and finally said fuck it. It's liberating as hell to be open. Also, it allows me to meet people like you!

[Jazz and blues]

I am a very private person, and was for the longest time very embarrassed about being depressed. In fact, though I have been living with depression for 1o years, I am now 25, and I only told my parents about it as of a suicide attempt two months ago. A very large part of why I feel shame about being depressed is that I have two older brothers, both with severe mental illnesses and drug addictions, and have been in and out of jail for the entirety of their adult lives, and so I always felt like it was my responsibility to my parents not to burden them with my problems, which are minimal in comparison to those of my brothers.

[ididthatonce]

Totally. Most of my depression/anxiety issues come from being bullied as a kid and not having any teachers or administrators stand up for me... ever. (Heeey trust issues fancy seeing you here!) When I hear stories of people who were abused or had major trauma, I feel so guilty about suffering from depression. It's like, if people with REAL problems can manage their depression, what right do I have to go home and cry myself to sleep because a shithead kid called me "cow" when I was 8? And when people try to cheer me up by saying "look at all the great things you have"? FUCK THAT. It just puts me into a deeper hole because I feel like I'm being selfish for focusing on my stupid shit when people are starving and homeless. It turns into a messy cycle to the point where I have to use my daily allotment of courage just to tell people, "thank you, but that actually makes me feel worse."

Actually, I confessed to my therapist recently that I'm afraid that I made the whole history of my childhood bullying up or exaggerated it because I have so little recollection of the events. I'm sure that somewhere along the line someone said, "it can't REALLY be that bad," and I convinced myself that I was making the whole thing up for attention. And that scares me even more than just being depressed.