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Hello Friends!
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....this is from the archives. (new post coming tonight!)
Over the last couple of months, I have had several emails from people who wanted to find the post that I wrote over a year ago about my husband's horrible illness with depression, and how it had affected our marriage...Typepad had a glitch about a week after I wrote it and somehow the post got erased in the form it was in, and I have not been able to find it on my computer...I think there's still a way to find it on typepad, but I don't remember what it is. Anyway, today while filing a bunch of documents on my laptop, I found the original document....so, here it is......I think this was the first time I really starting sharing things that were difficult to share...it was a huge turning point for me when I realized how healing it is to hear the stories of others......
Leaving Out the BAD, SAD or MAD Parts of the Story
July 12, 2006
I spent a long time last night creating a post for today...and when I was done, I decided that it was entirely too personal....and raw, and painful and scary and real.
And, in the end, I've decided not to post it quite yet. I have to think through it a little. It actually kept me up last night...wondering why it was so hard for me to share it...when, I know FOR SURE in life that the best way to help and teach others is through real life stories, especially when they are our own.
I had a conversation with my grandmother a few years back. I gave her a whole stack of journals for Christmas and asked her to fill them. She wanted to know what I wanted to her to write...and, I told her that I wanted her to write EVERYTHING....she told me that she'd always been told, from the time that she was young, that you just shouldn't talk about the bad or negative things that have happened in your life...so, in her journals, she only talked about positive, happy things.
I was appalled.....and I said "Grandma...if you died, and I read your journals...I would feel SO RIPPED OFF!!!!!" Let me tell you why I would feel ripped off....back then, in my twenties, I would have felt ripped off because I would wonder why my life has so many struggles when my grandmother's life didn't....now, today.... I can say that I'd feel ripped off because I know FOR SURE that everyone has struggles, shallow and deep, and her withholding hers keeps keys to her treasure chest from me and the rest of her progeny....
And...over the last few years of traveling the road to HE*L and back several times, I have learned how important it is that all of us are open, when the time is right, to sharing things with others. Even if that means we are just writing things, especially feelings, down so that our children can read it all later. Everyone has these HUMAN problems, but somewhere along the way we are taught that if we have problems, we are failing...or we are less as people, or we will never overcome them....so we hide them. We put on shows, on the outside, to make it look to everyone else like we have 'the perfect marriage' or 'the perfect children' or 'the perfect life'
And, fact is....and the dumb thing is that we all already know this....that NO ONE has a perfect anything. But, we make things so much more painful when we turn regular everyday struggles into embarrassing 'crimes' in our mind....AND AND EVEN BIGGER THING that happens is that when EVERYONE is doing that...making things look 'perfect', we all think that everyone else is perfect except for us.
So......Ok, I'm just going to share my big long post right here so you can see what I mean........If I want other people to do this....I better do it myself....as Ghandi said "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
So...here goes....
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Staying Married Through Depression
A little more than a year ago, people started coming to me…looking all around first to make sure no one was looking or could hear them, or people would show up in the evening or on Sunday afternoons on my back porch…and again, they would hush their voices and look to make sure no one one was listening before they would tell me…then, they’d say, while looking at the ground, or while looking at me with painful desperation, “my husband has depression” or “I have depression” or “my wife has been suffering with depression for years.”
OK, I’m just going to lay it right out here…first, I want to tell you that I asked my husband’s permission to tell this story…and second, the reason I want to bring up this topic is because I find more and more every day how many couples suffer through this alone and won’t talk about it because of the stigma attached to depression. It’s really time to bring this out in the open so there can be some kind of support.
People started telling me their own stories because I was so open about the pain of my husband’s depression, one of the after effects of his brain injury…the worst one in my opinion. We have been dealing with severe depression for 2 years now…9 of those months where he couldn’t even get out of bed and didn’t want to live…and I have decided that it is one of the most cruel diseases out there…much of it’s cruelty coming from the lack of understanding and even tolerance that people have for it. I must admit that I used to judge others with depression pretty harshly…thinking to myself “snap out of it!”…really believing that any person could will their way to happiness, no matter what. Then it happened to us…and I watched the most positive, driven, confident, incredible man I have ever met melt into a pile of paralyzed despair, immobilized by the chemical mix-up in his brain that led to this severe condition. Depression is not a “bad day” that you can “snap out” of. Depression is a disease and it has such an unfair and cruel stigma attached to it that not only does a victim have to suffer from the disease, but from the isolation and embarrassment of having the disease.
You would be absolutely shocked if you knew how many people suffer from depression…how many marriages are wading their way through those kinds of muddy pits…but NO ONE WILL TALK ABOUT IT. I looked for a book or a website or a support group…and there was hardly a single thing…yet, day after day…I have people confiding in me about the turmoil that depression and the isolation that it leads to. And, if the person you love and have devoted your entire life to is suffering from depression…your life is consumed by it. It is the most excruciatingly painful experience you can imagine to have to watch your beloved suffer through it and not be able to help…even if you’d do ANYTHING you could to make it go away. It’s been two years and it still makes me cry big huge tears when I talk about this. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever been through…
We have been to a lot of doctors this week and it has been rough. Things go up and down and right now they are down. I know they are going to go back up, but what it requires from me is 150% because my husband can only give –50% right now…at least that still adds up to 100% in the end…and that’s all that matters. When you make the promise of “for better or for worse” and “in sickness or in health” you think it might be all about taking care of your sweetheart through the flu or a cold…even cleaning up their puke…I certainly could never fathom that I’d be more than 2 years into a chronic condition…trying every single thing under the sun to help…but, I’ve learned how to keep a promise, that’s for sure.
What I’ve learned about depression is that people who are living with the effects of it need support…they need love…they need to know that other people have made it to the other side of it…they need to be reminded that THEY ARE NOT THEIR DEPRESSION, they are still inside there, and they’ll be able to break out of the bondage they are in…they need to be accepted and supported without conditions and without expectations. People need to know that it’s ok to talk about it…that it won’t be judged as a character weakness or punishment from God or all of the other mean judgments that can easily be made about depression.
What depression HAS taught me is what TRUE love really is…it is being able to love someone even if you don’t get a single thing back…you love for the sake of loving…without any conditions or expectations. It’s been a painful journey, but when I learned the power of this kind of love, it made me want to give it to everyone I meet. And…I do look at every other human being differently now…I just KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE that even if someone is walking through life with a smile, there may be something very painful and almost unbearable going on in their life right now…and they don’t need to be judged….no one does. What we need from each other is a big hug and the words “you can do it.” Or “I am here for you no matter what.”
You can post anonymously on this thread…your identity will never be revealed…but I want you to share your stories…I want you to share what you’ve been through and how you overcame it. If you know someone who is dealing with this right now…please forward this to them, because believe me…they feel very very very alone right now….
And, I love my husband not only just as much as I ever did…but even more. We will make it through this, we always do…if you need someone to talk to…please come here and let us all talk about it from time to time….
I know I get really personal on this blog…it’s a big risk….but, I have found from experience that the only way to tell our stories and really really help each other out is to not leave the sad and difficult parts out of our stories….it is in the discomfort that we grow…but sometimes, we just need to know that someone has made it through what we are going through right now. I hope you’ll share….you’ll be helping so many other people when you do.
Lots Of Love to You All,
melody
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P.S.....that was a year ago.....Marq has had over 4 months now without any kind of depressive episode...through love and patience and the right meds and some life choices and mostly God...I really believe that we are on the other side of it....hang in there if you are suffering. It's been 3 years since it all started and the ups and downs were dramatic and painful, but it is all worth fighting for....