on depression

ABDmom, Dorcasina and Dr B (three of the bloggers who made me want to start my own - I wish I could write as well as them) have all posted about their experiences with depression and since I'm still in bed at 7pm and can't face doing anything constructive or even venturing out of my room to where I might have to interact with housemates, I figured trying to write a response would be a better use of my angst than lying here wanting to bash my head against the wall to stop myself thinking so damn much. I should have gone to a classmate's party, too...
My mother and siblings have suffered with depression but I never thought it would happen to me. I've always been the healthy one, the one who didn't need any help or cause any bother. Sure I was miserable a lot of the time, I couldn't sleep and everything seemed to take an inordinate amount of effort, but I still made it out of bed (wouldn't want anyone to guess there was anything wrong or they'd try to make me talk about it) and I never wanted to kill myself. I've always enjoyed being sick in a way because it was a way of getting attention without having to ask for it so the couple of times I thought about whether or not I could be depressed I concluded I was just wishing I'd have an excuse to let go and stop doing what I needed to do. I used to daydream about someone seeing the despair in my eyes and... I'm not sure what exactly - somehow the recognition that I felt like crap would be enough to make me feel better. Of course, if anyone had happened to notice anything wrong I would have made excuses and fled in terror. People with depression had bigger problems than me, they felt worse and their illness wasn't their fault - I couldn't be depressed because I had no reason to be, even if I thought I felt bad it wasn't anything to complain about really and anyway it's all self-inflicted so I should just deal with it myself.
I'm not sure what exactly changed my mind and made me think maybe this was depression. Maybe it was the realisation that I had been feeling this way for at least 8 years, maybe it was recognising everything my brother described feeling during his depression, maybe it was the increased pressures of grad school to act competent and knowledgeable... I'd started spending more time in bed too. It still took me almost a year to seek help from that point, though.
So now I'm on antidepressants and they help a bit. The first few days I felt fantastic - I'd forgotten how it felt to not be dragging around an enormous boulder of misery, but presumably that was just placebo effect because it wore off. I'm still increasing the dose so maybe things will improve but I don't have high hopes.
What got me to the mental health services finally was John Falk's memoir "Hello to All That". His recovery was so dramatic and his symptoms familiar enough that I had enough hope to make a phone call. I should note that my major problem is the social phobia; depression is a result of living with the constant fear and anxiety with no hope of ever having a normal life so I wasn't convinced I'd have anything like the same results, but I was finally desperate to try.
The triage interview was incredibly painful. My major reason for never going to a therapist before was that I had no clue how to talk about any of this. To tell someone all my deepest, darkest fears and inadequacies when I can barely tell someone my taste in music without fearing their judgement seemed impossible. In the end I printed out the results of a couple of online depression and social anxiety tests and just handed those to the psych person without saying anything. I was in tears as soon as I entered the room (my instant response to anxiety) and she took this to be due to depression so she tried to get me to explain what I was sad about, but I couldn't say anything. At least my inability to talk made it blatantly obvious that I needed help so she made me an appointment with a meds person.
I realised there was no way I could say enough in person to explain the situation so I eventually wrote a letter and sent that to the therapist before I went. I've been three times now and I think I've said about 100 words total. She seems to be at a loss to know what to do and I don't blame her, but it's not helping my feelings of hopelessness.
The anti-depressants may be doing something, but I have less confidence in them than in my ability to sabotage any improvement with negative thoughts about the likelihood of overcoming my social phobia.
What I desperately want is someone to tell me that yes, I am depressed and it's understandable; it's not my fault and I shouldn't have to feel like this. Most of all I want someone to tell me I deserve to feel okay. Somehow that feels too much to want. I manage to have some fun times, hang out with friends and enjoy things so I feel guilty about claiming to be depressed; I should be satisfied with that...