"I always felt like I was from another planet." Those are the words of 55-year-old Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of Melissa & Doug, the Wilton-based global toymaker.

Bernstein sat down with award-winning freelance writer Danielle Braff to talk about her lifelong bout with depression and how it affected her life. This recap of Braff's excellent article will prove that sometimes money can't buy happiness.

'Melissa & Doug' Car Loader
'Melissa & Doug' Car Loader
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Melissa and Doug, along with their six children, live on a beautiful sprawling estate in Westport. The toys they've created together are sold worldwide and if you navigate to amazon, you'll see that the majority of their toy creations rate a 5-out-of 5.

Melissa told her interviewer, Danielle Braff, she's lived with depression for as long as she can remember. When asked about what her depression felt like, she said,

It's like there's this cloud of hopelessness that sort of suffocates you. You question life's meaning, and you question why you're here specifically and what you're meant to do in your brief time here.

She also explained that you feel like you don't belong and there's a total lack of control inside your head. Bernstein explained that she thought about taking her own life many times until she began creating toys. She calls it "turning meaningless into meaning".

Bernstein was 50 years old when she finally began to learn how to cope with her depression, knowing that so many millions of people were going through the same thing.  She had gone from depression to enlightenment and felt it was her responsibility to share that revelation with the rest of the world by writing the book "Lifelines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light."

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