Dear Katie:

You shared that you “always had depression.. often hide it below the surface”. A year ago you moved abroad hoping to have “the adventure of a lifetime” abroad, but found yourself instead in “the deepest depression I had ever been in”, isolated, careless about your physical health and looks. You then quit halfway through the job abroad and moved back home.

My input: the depression you always had, you were not born with it. Your depression was formed during your childhood because of the life circumstances of your childhood. For whatever reasons, your parent or parents left you alone for too long, emotionally if not physically.

Your experience of being home alone for too long, alone with fear, alone with sadness, alone with desire to do this or that, but no one to show you the way… that experience of childhood became your experience anywhere you are, as an adult. I am guessing you felt not so bad at home before the travel abroad because you were adjusted best possible to your home of origin, made the best out of a bad situation. When you moved abroad, you were in a new situation for which you were not adjusted, and therefore your depression worsened.

If you let me know what you think of what I wrote so far, we can communicate further.

anita