Depression was my soul's reaction to about 16 years of systematic abuse, emotional neglect, ridicule and bullying. My intellect finally shut down and I withdrew

Depression was my soul's reaction to about 16 years of systematic abuse, emotional neglect, ridicule and bullying. My intellect finally shut down and I withdrew from reality entirely, or at least that was the goal. At the time my new abuser would ask things like what I was thinking. This was a novelty for me but she was probably trying to figure out ways to torment me more effectively. She also explained that I was trying to hide by sleeping all the time. One teacher wrote a note about my laziness, and I knew he was correct. Depression wasn't my fault, and it wasn't within my capacity to recover from it. But my family turned it into something exclusively my responsibility. I was drugged over and over; I was permitted to leave home without any means of support or homemaking skills, and I was eventually discarded by means of restraining orders and physical assaults, so I left the state. If a child is depressed then the worst thing to do is blame, medicate, and isolate them with individual treatment. My counselor encouraged morally reprehensible behavior and never questioned my home life. If your child is depressed then you'd better consider their environment and social networks to be suspect. If you can't identify problems, then YOU ARE the problem and you'll need to address that with decisive action, in a practical and honest manner.