Originally Posted by Wolf_22

rharman, I've read through this and while I can't comment on the AA / addiction things, I can definitely comment on your depression and hopefully provide some food for thoughts about it...

One thing I've found in my life to be true where depression is concerned is that half the battle in fighting it is about identifying the cause, which sounds obvious at first until you're thrust into an actual situation where you realize that it isn't. This deserves emphasis because it's almost a mental-emotional form of agnosia where the person in question sees the item in front of their face but their mind doesn't know how to recognize the shape, color, assign meaning, etc. As such, the brain can't process it, thereby creating a psychological context where the person basically can't "see" the thing responsible for it. It's a very odd phenomenon and I've always believed that this same conceptual framework can be said to apply to many depression situations that people experience. The funny thing is that once the person can identify the depression (or the things causing it, I mean), a certain level of enlightened perspective is achieved whereby the rest of the scientific process kicks-in to find the inevitable solution for the circumstances.

With you, I think it's especially applicable from the standpoint of recognizing everything you've been going through better than your awareness appears to be showing. Hopefully what I'm about to type out here next results in your penny-drop moment:

You mentioned above that you experienced menopause during your addiction. Given our lack of completely understanding brain chemistry, yes, it's very possible that it could've caused imbalances in various brain chemistry levels with you (something that is definitely worth bringing up to your doctor). But adding to this, you're also married (which is a massive responsibility in and of itself to deal with), you have an autistic daughter, and you're currently dealing with a living situation where a set of parents is living in your house while you and your husband are living at your place of work... To make matters more tense, you've mentioned that your leave is almost expired (thereby creating anxiety from the standpoint of knowing you'll have to return to work soon while simultaneously struggling to find solutions for the depression you're facing). Needless to say, these things would be enough to make anyone undergo various stages of mental health "turbulence" but understanding this and better appreciating the enormity of it might result in giving you a certain sense of security or compartmentalization necessary to begin enacting efforts to fix or deal with these things. Most importantly, it's worth realizing that you should be EXTREMELY proud of dealing with all these things as well as you have! Not everyone can overcome or just manage to deal with these things and to see you on here, asking others for their insights about addiction, about the steps, and to just talk through the stuff you're experiencing says so much about your character. Give yourself a pat on the back for that because not everyone is that enlightened.

This is just my opinion but given everything you've described up to this point, it doesn't sound like the stress you're going through is addiction-related but with that being said, it's worth following the steps because it won't hurt any. So yes, it's worth doing and yes, it's been worth doing (so don't let yourself fall into that pit where you begin to question all the effort you've put into getting to where you are today).

I could go on about finding things to assist you with your life, ranging from trying to find different living solutions for the parents to perhaps figuring out a way to get help with the daughter but I'm sure you're already doing that or have done that. Is it possible to get with the husband and put into your guys' schedules a "date night" once per-week? Marriage is something that takes effort but it's also one of the most important things to care for and having a date night not only fosters harmony between the partners but it also gives you something to look forward to. Moreover, it might be worth considering something like a gym membership for both of you, too--something else to look forward to and something that results in the good brain chemicals being produced more often at higher amounts.

I hope all this helps in some way. I know it's kind of a thought dump of sorts but it's meant to provide different angles of thought about your situation and to spark ideas about things you can do to assist. Hang in there.