I have been suffering from major depression since I was a child in elementary school. It wasn't correctly diagnosed until I was in my 40s. Even though I saw a clinical psychologist as a child and a psychiatric social worker in my teens, they didn't correctly diagnose my condition. This is the reason: My parents had hired and paid for those therapists. It came out in my childhood therapy sessions that I was suffering from abuse, both psychological and physical, by immediate family members. I still remember the head psychiatrist calling a special family session for my parents and myself. He emphatically told them that I was being abused by my grandmother and I should never be left alone with her. But nothing changed. Little did he know that the abuse from my parents was even worse. There were no reporting requirements in those days. I don't even know if in the 1960s there was a social services agency to report child abuse. I had to find my own way out as an adult.

@gagelle -- I'm terribly sorry to hear about what you went through in your childhood.

You may want to check out and participate in a few other discussion threads on Connect that deal with abuse:
- https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/anyone-else-with-ptsd/bookmark/?ajax_hook=action&_wpnonce=b57d5cc4ad

- https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/anger-post/bookmark/?ajax_hook=action&_wpnonce=b57d5cc4ad

- https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/new-here-1/bookmark/?ajax_hook=action&_wpnonce=b57d5cc4ad