Am I depressed?

I guess I needed somewhere to explain my feelings and as I don't feel I have anyone to talk to I am hoping posting here might help, I hope this is the right forum for this..

Anyway, where to begin... I think I might be depressed but how do I know if what I feel is depression or not? For the past 2 almost 3 years my moods have become very unpredictable, the thing is I don't always feel constantly down, I have some good days but I have more low days than good.

I got bullied in school for 3 years when I was younger, I was quite shy and quiet in school and I never did anything to annoy anyone so why I got bullied in the first place I will never understand, I really didn't and still don't see why I was picked on, maybe I was an easy target, anyway for 3 years I had no friends, I never spoke and became very withdrawn and felt ill coming to school, people picked on me and always mentioned my looks, to this day I still feel as ugly as they told me I was then, I never really seemed to recover from this incident at school, it happened at a time when people look to their friends for advice/ help and I found I was growing up alone and I couldn't tell my parents and when we went to seek help for the bullying because our school was only interested in good grades they told me to "get over it" and that I must have been getting bullied for a reason. I guess the reason I feel bad about this even today (I am in my twenties now) stems from the fact I got bullied badly in school and I have never felt confident since.

I don't feel that I have friends, people seem to use me whenever it is convenient for them and this makes me sad, I always go out of my way to help my "friends", I don't feel I can tell my friends anything and they seem to find enjoyment picking on me or when we go out they would leave me alone. I have 2 friends I feel I could tell anything to but I dont feel comfortable, they dont understand how I feel and they won't let me believe anyhintg bad about myself, they tell me I am goodlooking, havea great personality and sense of humour, I don't believe any of this is true, they are my friends, they have to say this.

I have never had a long term relationship despite the fact my friends are engaged/ married/ having children now, I push away people who like me and I get frightened. I don't know what I am afraid of, I don't want to fall in love with someone who will hurt me I think if I keep a distance between myself and others this will stop me feeling hurt. I felt no man was interested in me and now in the past month I have found myself going on dates with 3 men, I have stopped seeing two of them as I only liked one, we get along really well and I decided that I would let everything take it's course and not push this one away, last night we went out and I discovered he had a daughter, to begin with there is an age difference between us (he is 33, 7 years older than me) and now he has a 5 year old daughter, I don't know if I should let this bother me but I found myself faced with a man I really enjoy spedning time with and then discovering he has a daughter and I always swore I would not get myself involved with a man with children. Now I am confused and don't know what to do. Another thing he pointed out last night was that he has neevr met a person with such low self-esteem, (I really thought I had seemed more confident these days) and he said that during the conversation I kept saying things that were not true about myself, he tried to tell me that I was beautiful and that I had all these great things going for me, my friend had also told me that last night all he did was speak to her about how much he liked me and how he had sat for 30 mins looking at me before he got the courage to introduce himself, they try to make me believe I am some wonderful person when I don't and never think I will believe that. I hate people bringing up the fact I am not confident in myself I don't like talking about it. I am happy if I can talk about anything else but when it comes to talking about myself I find myself lost for words.

At home: my sister and mother are ill, my mother read that people with her condition only live for the maximum of 5 years, this terrifies me, the thought that my sister also has an illness that could kill her at anytime also petrifies me, sometimes I look at her and feel that if I could I would wrap her in cotton wool, I dread a phonecall saying anything has hapened to them, thinking of the worst fills me with dread my heart races and sometimes I feel like I am literally unable to breathe and have to go outside for air.

I always feel guilty, I feel guilty for so many things, even insignificant things that happened years ago, I feel like I am constantly apologising to people. It is my brithday today, last night I was supposed to be going out but everyone decided they had better plans and let me down, I cried the entire evening, I went to bed and cried, on Friday I went out with my family and my sister said something which made me go back to my house early and cry. I never usually cry but at the moment one comment makes me upset. I don't understand wha't happening, sometimes I can't get out of bed in the morning, I am not working for my degree and would rather spend all my time sleeping, on the other hand sometimes weeks go by where I cannot sleep and lay awake all night only getting an hour or two worht of sleep. My Mum tells me to "stop thinking of myself", and now I feel guilty and selfish, I want to feel better and I hate feeling like this. I don't know whats wrong with me. am I depressed? Am i Just selfish? How do I "just get over it" as I have been told? This is a terribly constructed rant, apologies.