Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

I thought I was a strong person but I crumbled like a house of cards when I came here. The good thing is it has made me have more compassion.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

I think the hardest part was that I no longer had over control my emotions. I could tell myself how lucky I was, what a great place this was, what a great experience it was etc etc...but for some reason I wasn't listening. :blink:

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

:lol:

You're supposed to be able to talk yourself into being positive etc according to those crappy self-help books.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

I can't say I talk myself into being positive...but I can give myself a good talking to (as me old mum used to say). I can tell myself to pull myself together...get over it and move on.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

That is different from clinical depression, a dark cloud which has no rationality.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

I didn't want to get out of bed...I wanted to pull the duvet over my head and sleep so I didn't have to deal with the day. I couldn't see beyond the day. I didn't know how I would get through the day. If my husband said anything to me I would burst into tears. That sure felt like depression to me.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

Oh it probably was, just making the point you (one) can't always move on by force of will.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

Yeah that was my point. Before we moved here I could always move on by force of will...then all of a sudden I was a crumbling wreck and I had no control over it/myself.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

This is what makes it so difficult to advise prospective expats. No-one really knows how it will affect them until they do it.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

Well now I'm a bit curious.

Does anyone you know with a history of depression (diagnosed or not) back in the UK come to the US and seen a dramatic improvement? Has a change of scenery done them good?

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

Its all so subjective and down to personality isn't it? As you said, you were able to talk yourself out of it before. Perhaps the landscape had changed so much that those rules just stopped working? Hiding away, reacting out of proportion and a sense of futility or confusion are classic signs (they say).
Wether you bury yourself in the covers or shut the living room door and stay there all evening amount to the same thing.

Its ironic that even tho I'd probably take on any challenge in life with confidence (mid-life bravado!), being able to force that dog to go away is akin to impossible. Or is that 'kin impossible?
It would be easier to find a good bacon butty here.

I think that was the drift of this post....
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showp...2&postcount=24

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

I was reading a news item today saying that more counselling is going to be made available on the NHS, for some reason I can't find it now though.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

I thought about this issue a little more the other day, and in my previous post I suggested that the reason for coming to the US might play a part in all of this (i.e. being the spouse of someone on a work visa), and now I'm wondering if age might be a factor too. I came to the US at a very young age, so I had no real established ties in the UK outside of my immediate family and my university friends. No house to sell, no job to quit, no kids to pull out of school, etc. I was also young enough that I didn't have what I'd call a very established British identity. Aside from the initial awful homesickness that hits after the honeymoon period of moving abroad, I've had no real trouble adjusting to life here at all. Just wondering if others think this played a part in a difficulty readjusting, or not being able to adjust at all. If you had been younger, would the move have been easier?

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

Generally speaking, i would agree with you, however it's different again for teens, my son was 12 when we came and he had a hard time adjusting.

Re: Should someone with a history of depression be an expat?
 

That makes sense. Maybe because again, he was coming for someone else (presumably one of you on a work visa)? My father had the option to take a job in Wisconsin when I was 15, and I remember being really excited by the idea, but in reality my mum would have never adjusted, my sister might have had even more turbluent teen years than she did in the UK, and as for me, I could have seen it going either way. I would have been furious at possibly not getting to go to uni in the UK, and I was in a pretentious literary phase that might have isolated me from my fellow US students :o