It's horrible that you are made to feel ashamed of yourself, it's terrible as well that it can be the luck of the draw, depending on where you live, what your local council/government offers in the way of support, whether you have money, whether the GP's in your area are worth a snot - unfortunately this can mean that some people get the help that they need and others don't. Much the same as with things like brain tumours going undiagnosed etc.
I'm so pleased that you are on here and continually returning, it shows that you are not entirely without hope and hopefully makes you feel better knowing that you are not alone and there are others out there.
I've had to get past the shame and it was difficult without the help of other people.
One of the things I've done which was really helpful was some activity books and reading. Have you looked into a book called The Artists Way by Julia Cameron - you can order it on Amazon, I would order a couple of new notebooks as well. It's actually designed to unblock artists but is such a wonderful investigation into the self that it has been extremely successfull in helping people out of Depression, I would highly recommend it! And, it's fun to do some art and do something you can be incredibly proud of!
I'm also in the middle of reading a book called Women who run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pikola Estés which I would recommend too. It's a powerful spiritual book that reminds us that as women we do have a lot of external pressures, predators and cares and it's okay to feel under it sometimes, but we have the Wildish Woman and an extremely powerful Psyche inside us that if we can get in touch with her, we can get back to the power we're meant to have.
I hope that helps Alys, and feel free to reach out one on one to talk, I'm more than happy to message back and forth to discuss :)
