Just interested. I know it's not the happiest of topics, but there you go.
No, but there have been periods of depression in my life. For 2 months after the birth of each of my children, I had post-partum depression, along with some seriously suicidal thoughts. Fortunately, I had a loving husband, actually wanted the child, and I had some truly excellent friends who at times were literally guarding me.
When I read stories like Andrea Yates, who drowned her kids in the bathtub, all I can think is "there but for the grace of God go I." If my situation were different, I might have gone from thought into action. It's not difficult to imagine.
For the past few years I've been sick, and part of the physical ailment manifests as periods of depression. There have been several occasions where the pain was so severe and moving nearly impossible that I was thankful the one firearm we had in the house would've require too much effort to dig out of the closet, reassemble, and find the ammo. Also, if I didn't have kids I suspect I'd have been more inclined during those times to move toward some action. But I know what it's like to have a parent die when you're barely a teenager, and I couldn't bring myself to do that to my kids.
I've experienced periods of depression, but still I can't imagine what it's like to spend a lifetime battling it, and especially where there's not any foreseeable end to it.
At least in my case, as I continue to dump toxins and the body has a chance to heal, the depression goes away. Whatever I've had to deal with, at least somewhere there I had the intellectual knowledge that it was temporary, even though during a bout of depression you still don't really...believe it.