Sorry, I should have said "interminably depressed" rather than terminally.  OR longterm depression.  I meant an unhappiness that they just can't get out of, or actually, a bitterness.  I can think of two ex-premies who went/are still going through this - after years - and they just can't get out of it.  They don't post here, as far as I know.

In both cases, they were happy enough as premies - or certainly functional, but only as premies, if you get my drift.  Their problem seems to be that they left it too late, or think they left it too late, to get their lives in order; they now lead lives of deep pain and regret.  It's very sad.  I've spent hours and hour with them trying to suggest things they can do to sort their lives out - therapy, study leading to interesting work, etc etc - but in the end it has to come from them.

Yes they may have been like this anyway, but who knows?  Perhaps being a premie kept them in a bubble that made life somewhat bearable (perhaps some of us were unconsciously self-medicating), but I really don't know, any more than we can ever know what would have happened if we'd made different choices.

Bests

Livia