My mother suffered from depression for over 25 years until she finally got herself medicated 10 years ago. Let me know if that’s relevant to what you’re trying to research and I’ll provide you any information I can. My email address is on my website.
My paternal grandmother suffered from severe depression which was probably inherited by my father. He committed suicide when I was 4 months old (with siblings who were 7 & 8 at the time). It’s something to consider - depressives have been known to do this. The impact on the kids is considerable.
By all accounts he was a wonderful guy and a pillar of the community.
If you want more info on that particular by-product of depression I’ll be happy to oblige.
My Dad was severely depressed on at least two occasions (and generally not the most joyful guy on the planet). Both times were triggered by job issues; both were cured by new jobs.
The first time lasted over two years. I was tiny so I don’t remember much, but I do know that I learned very early to play noiselessly. Mom tells me that Dad would play “Navarra siempre p’alante” (loosely translatable as “we’ll go on no matter what”) again and again and again; she’s also told me that once a neighbor with whose daughters I used to play told her “you need to get this girl checked: she freezes the instant she hears a male voice”.
I still count 1985 as the worst year of my life. The factory where Dad worked was sold to another company two years before; the old management team got shoved out; Dad was made factory manager, but they didn’t really want him to work there… they were pushing him every way they could think of, trying to get him to leave so they wouldn’t have to pay for firing him. They would call him at 3am telling him he had an 8am meeting in a town 4 hours away. Mom spent those two years in a cloud (she’s extremely good at blinding herself and always wanted to be Mrs. Big Important Guy).
Me, for those two years I’d get home from school, go to the supermarket, come back, do my homework and then help my brothers with theirs while Dad was still at work and Mom busy being “Mrs. Big Factory Manager” at some social function or other. Oh, and do most of the cooking. I was the official cook for pasta and rice dishes ever since I was 10 and I could do breaded fish, flat fishes, steaks and chicken; and of course lentil and other bean type things.
When Dad finally got fired in October '84, I felt relieved… but they both went into depressions. Mom got in bed with her back trying to divorce from the rest (and the depression, which was made worse by getting the wrong painkillers) about Xmastime; didn’t get out until the next November (she got the right diagnosis in September, a herniated disc). Dad was supposed to be studying for a Government job test, but of course he didn’t. So now I had 2 depressed parents and 2 much-younger-than-me brothers to take care of. There were times when Mom called me a bad daughter when I left her side to go feed the boys.
Dad got tremendously lucky in the second Gov test he took, they asked about something he’d been doing for over 5 years and could explain in his sleep (this was July '85, he started work in October).
Thanks God we had friends that helped, but Mom’s way of seeing the world certainly didn’t: a couple years back, Mom was gushing about how good her friend Rita had been to us during that year, and Rita stared at her and said “Maite, I helped, but isn’t it about bloody time you thanked your daughter?”
She’s never believed in mincing words, Rita 
During that year, both her and Resu would come over about once a week and give the house a good cleanup (I’m good at food and laundry, but sweeping is still kind of beyond me… what do you mean, you have to do that every day?), and both of them sometimes brought the kind of foods I didn’t know how to make (mostly casserole type things and veggies).
The depressions were bad, but the one parental trait I would have loved to lose is Mom being from… oh… Neptune at the closest, I swear. Small wonder my bros and me are aliens from outer space 
Having a mother who refuses to see reality whenever Reality insists in not fitting her theories is a goddamn pain.
If you need any specific info, questionnaries filled or whatever, just drop me a line.
You can e-mail me if you like, I thought I had posted that, but it must have slipped my mind.
My mum actually suffered a nervous breakdown before I was born which unfortunately I cannot recall the reasons surrounding it at this time. As far as negativity goes though, she was and still is not what I would call negative as such, but she is definitely the submissive partner of my parents and would never go against anything my dad may have said to any of us kids.
I think this is one of the main reasons why I have such a short fuse with my mum, because I have never been one to shut my mouth if I feel the need to say something, and I guess that over the years I wish she had’ve stuck up for me a little more.
Feel free to email me with anymore questions or even if you just want to talk.
Mine wasn’t. He was a mean sonofabitch. But I didn’t hate him, just felt sorry for him—total wasted life, no friends. My sister and I use him as a lesson: “Don’t be like Dad.”
Dad’s bipolar and Mom’s clinically depressed. Mom’s mental state has definitely had more of an impact on my brother and I than Dad’s. I don’t know if Dad is exceptionally lucky, or if it’s more common to be able to more easily (medicinally) manage bipolar disorder than clinical depression, but he’s certainly had fewer rough patches than Mom.
You’re always welcome to email me too…
Neither of my parents were ever officially diagnosed but there was serious depression in our household. All of us dealt with it differently and my mother is finally starting to work her way out of her depression. It’s only taken her 25 years to do so.
BTW- What DO depressed dads do? Or don’t do? I see a lot of references above about “yeah he was probably depressed” but I don’t see many examples of what, exactly, is a depressed dad. Sit around on the couch all day? Ignore you? What?
-Tcat
(I went through a severe depression last year because of a work/friend betrayal issue. And I am a dad. Just wondering if I am exhibiting any of the ‘symptoms’ - or at least want to watch out for them.)
I think it depends on the degree of depression…
For example - When my mother was not in public she was asleep. Literally. She came home from work and fell asleep on the couch. She’d get up long enough for supper and be back to sleep on the couch afterwards. Later she might go up and sleep in her bed until it was time for work in the morning.
Very slowly my parents withdrew from their friends and family. Eventually no one from outside ever came to our house for any reason.
Also - our house was filthy. I’m amazed I never saw a roach. We did have mice. I would catch about 7-10 mice a day in my improvised “live trap” and would let them free at the park on my way to work each day. The bathroom door would hardly close for all the dirty laundry piled up on the floor. Basic houshold maintenance never happened. Dishes were never done, lawn never mowed (until the notice from the board of health showed up and then it would be mowed once and they would wait until the next notice.)
My father would just disappear for weeks at a time. Or quit his job at random for whatever percieved slight befell him. He constantly had girlfriends on the side.
“Fun times”
My dad would go through depressive periods when he was just emotionally unavailable. He would go to work, work long hours and come home, eat dinner and then either read the paper or (later) fiddle with the computer until bedtime. After some time of this, he’d disappear for a few weeks and then come back in a better mood. Since I’m not him, I can’t really tell you what all his symptoms were.
My dad was diagnosed with the depression.
He claims divorcing mom and essentially abandoning his children made all the difference.
I’m not completely skeptical. I’m sure my mom has an undiagnosed mental problem that contributed to the tension and stress in their lives.
I grew up with a manic depressive mother and a clinically depressed father. Feel free to email me. So far, brother and I haven’t been diagnosed with depression but my brother has ADHD and I have anxiety issues. Also, there a common perception that alcoholics are self-medicating depressives. I have a long line of alcoholics in my family. Oh, twickster? Right there with you baby!
My dad sleeps when he is ever home, and doesn’t try to have a relationship with me. We haven’t really had a conversation since I was about six or so. I don’t even knows my middle name.
That should read I don’t even think he knows my middle name. :smack:
Tomcat, a couple of years ago, when my husband was fired from the best-paying job he ever had (right out of the blue), he went into a depression for about six months. He just didn’t feel like doing anything. Chores went basically undone, unless I did them. We (normally a three-times-a-week couple) went to having sex about once or twice a month. He just had no interest in anything. This is what the pros call a “situation-driven depression”; it just went away on its own.
Are you my brother?? 
He was the one who was more resentful of the fact that Mom was submissive; we found out later she had been suicidal all the years we were growing up. She also had a nervous breakdown after we were born. I wouldn’t have known it from how she was always there for us, but now I can see she was tired and had a sadder aura than I realized at the time. I just thought that’s how people were. When my father was depressed (may be somewhat manic too I think) he took it out on others through being short with you or giving you the silent treatment. It’s taken me years of therapy and meds to realize that it’s him not me, and that I can find ways not to be influenced by his shit.
Not me, but my dad was. My grandfather was institutionalized (committed himself), and committed suicide a few years after. This was in the 30s. He was not an alcoholic, BTW.
From an environmental standpoint, neither my dad nor his five siblings (all older), seem to have been harmed by this, other than wishing they had a father. My one uncle may have had some of the same symptoms as my grandfather, or at least my dad thought that might be the case, but he kept on going until dementia got him. The other sibs are/were quite mentally healthy, as far as I can tell, and a couple of them had to deal with things that would have just about wiped me out.
How you doin’?
I don’t know if my parents were certifiably depressed. I know my father currently suffers from it and I know my mom used to have it, I also have it and so does my brother but as for growing up, I don’t know. “depression” seems to imply lying in bed all day crying. I don’t recall that, just a sublime hopeless drudgery to it all. The Devil’s Grandmother description is close to what I grew up with minus the disappearing for weeks on end part. My parents have/had no friends. My dad just went to work and came home, if he had free time he’d spend it working in the yard. His only friend that I can tell is my mom. My mom’s only friend is her sister and they only talk sporadically, she spends all day listening to talk radio and doing housework. There was almost no emotional closeness in my family growing up. It wasn’t a disciplinarian household, but there were no hugs or statements of love. Occasionally there were acts that proved love (like when I had a bad drug combo and my dad spent 3 hours sitting at my bedside in the ER even though he could’ve gone to watch TV or read a magazine or when I went out to look for him in our yard for fear he’d hurt himself), but no real expressions of closeness.
PS; welcome back Inigo Montoya.
Yeah, I have decided not to have children for fear they will inherit my flawed genetics. Considering that I have suffered from serious schizophrenia and 4 out of 5 members of my immediate family suffer from/have suffered from depression (the only reason I don’t include the 5th is that I don’t know for sure, not that he has never had it or anything) it doesn’t seem worth it unless really good methods of warding off mental illness are invented within the next 20 years.