Hi Betty and All- I really do want to re-enforce the point that I think Betty and I might be attempting to make here-- If you go to a psycholoigist or psycitrist for counsling ect..make shure that thay have a basic knologe/acceptence of your goles and see them in a supportive light. This can make a diffrence in the binifits you recive from any councling. But like with the psychitrist and psycoligist that I saw both saw my activeites in the disabled community in compleetly oppisit lights from one another and you must take that kind of thing into account in finding a professional to work with you so that you can accomplish things and get on with living. CP will always play some part in your life if you have it and the person trying to help you must understand this. And to also give some aditional thoughts on this topic... I think at least for me alot of factors go into depression and I think that is true of alot of people. It may be triggered by one piticular event topping off alot of other events and pushing you to the braking point. The important thing is to be able to relize if you need help (and I know that this can be hard in some stages of depression) and get that help--what ever it is if you need it. All of us who have been sharing our experiencs come from very diffrent backgrounds and have very diffrent causes for individule cases of depression, some of us just became over loaded because too much was happening in our lives at once (me); and others of us were abused, and still others of us have had difficulty getting over what happend in childhood, and others have other issues as well. For some of us childhood was afffule, and for some of us disability was not as big of an issue as it has become for us as teens and on into adulthood---the latter was the case with me, when I was a kid I went to PE, went to sleep overs, girls scouts--I have the Silver Award--, went to scocer camp, swim lessons, piano lessons, ect. I could never keep up that schedule now! Some of us are fantastic at dealing with disabilities but pile on a heeping of other messy and onging issues and we crack. One thing that I have learned is that you never know what, when and how much life is going to through at us, and we all have our limits. You learn to deal with what you have and move on with life and adapt to what ever comes your way as best you can. But that dosen;t meen that you won't be pushed over the edge by something at some point. And if you do get pushed over the edge at some point than you can eventually find your way back--at least I did. Yours, Anee http://www.geocities.com/aneecp/CPIC.html In a message dated 11/9/1999 3:47:22 PM Central Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: << Anee's experience and my experience are particularly interesting in light of Szasz's comment that "mental disorders are frequently in the eye of the beholder rather than in the person." I would like to think I'm trying to follow Anee's lead by promoting disability awareness, except that I am probably doing a much poorer job of it (being a "newbie"). But what I consider to be a quality characteristic of Anee's (wonderful) personality -- the desire to focus on CP awareness education -- seemed to get negative attention from her psychologist. Focusing on disability awareness education is a major goal for me too, and my psychiatrist thought it was a positive step. There are many variables involved too, I know that. We're two different people -- different disability experiences, etc., but still, I think it's an interesting comparison. Anee is a tremendous asset to the disability community. Betty >>