Thank you so much, both for your reply and for the info about the book. We (my husband and I) have talked to him about it a lot. He says his reasoning is because he doesn't want to live in a world so full of horrible things He says he doesn't understand how God could let this world be like it is. One of the main things that has him upset is that his new GF confided in him that her dad beats her. I guess he felt that he alone was carrying the weight of knowing that on his shoulders However, I don't believe that is the whole problem...he's only been seeing her for a couple of weeks now and he's had depression problems much longer than that.

I think what scares me the most is how fast his mood changes. Sunday afternoon, he had a friend over and they were laughing and talking and playing with our dog. He seemed to be in a great mood. Then suddenly all of that changed...within 30mins of the friend leaving, my son was very depressed. It's like a light switch gets flipped. That's part of why I worry so much...it's not like I have lots of warning since it all happens so fast. I'm scared that he'll swing into depression sometime when I'm asleep and I won't be able to do anything (my husband works 6 hours away from home and is away for 3weeks at a time, so most of the time, it's just me and the kids)