Lifelong depression?

[Jso2009]

Has anyone else experienced depression since their earliest childhood memories? I honestly don’t even know what it feels like to actually want to be here on this earth? That thought is always in the back of my mind just waiting for my next depressive episode. It’s always been there. Has anyone ever gotten to the point of that feeling going away completely after only experiencing life with it?

[DageLV]

Well when I was 6 I remember one incident of taking my sisters sunglasses and thinking i looked cool and tried to hit on a girl. That was cringe af but yeah. Other than that it's been bleak as long as I remember.As the other guy commented, theraphy, yeah I don't believe there is anything to be done. It's just a massive and expensive gamble just for a maybe, years down the line. I don't know what is supposed to be normal. Normal for me is apathy, indifference and hatred towards myself. People may say "things will get better" yeah... When? It can also get worse. I have about 18 years which tells me it won't be better.

"your own life has worth" show me a gravestone saying "he loved himself" it's always what you can provide for others, beloved father, husband etc. I got Noone. Everything comes to an end, especially all what's good, so why bother to continue,if the very few good things last the shortest.

[Wildwynd]

Unfortunately, yes. One of my earliest memories, I was 4 or 5 and I was laying on the lawn of my house absolutely still with my eyes closed and holding my breath. I was convinced that if I did things well enough, I would convince God that I had died and he would just "take me" and I wouldn't be alive anymore and that would make me happy because then I could go to Heaven and I would be happy being dead.

It's freaking dark and grim as hell, I know! No 5 year old should be thinking like that. From the time I was that age, I have always felt like I was not meant to be here at all and unfortunately, my whole life has reflected that. It's really damn hard to pull through every day when you don't believe you should be here...

I wish I knew what it felt like to love life and to want to live. Strangely, I understand that most human beings feel that - a gratitude towards life and the great desire to want to be here for as long as you can, but I have never been able to find those for myself. I have always wanted to be able to find them, but I guess my brain just doesn't work that way.

[cashew78]

yes, i had inklings that there was something wrong with my environment since I was quite young (about 3 and 4), and then remembering not wanting to be alive/not exist/to die by about the age of 7. Don't know what to say aside from I hear ya, and I understand. I very much like animals and now, 40 years later, I try to give my cat as good a life as possible and am trying to untie all these knots that bind my mind in weird ways. I'd like to think that there's something wrong with me, that there's just a singular fault in the world and nobody else, luckily, ever feels this way... but I know better. Life is hard on people, and some of us have it worse, and some don't navigate it well. Oh well, I try to play with my cat. Maybe I can bring him some joy instead. At the very least it distracts and detracts from the gloom that still hits me in waves.

[rksn]

Yeah, I've been suffering from anxiety and depression from the age of 14 till today. I'm now 60yrs and still going through it. At the moment it's very severe and debilitating...