Unravelling

My husband is struggling with depression. This isn't entirely surprising given our circumstances over the last two years and he is just finishing a masters program. You would think he has landed in the exact right relationship if needing support for depression given that I have years of experience in dealing with people I love having depression. You would think by now I would know just what to say and how to say it. You would think I would be the last one to judge. But you would be wrong. It is my personal struggle to support him and he knows it. He has managed our lives through so much trauma and discontent. He has had to watch me go through my own merciful pain with absolutely no background whatsoever in depression and mental illness. His expectation is that I be there to support him and he is right. I am wrong. I know this.

I have personally been a champion of the cause of mental illness - rights, perceptions, discriminations. I have waggled my finger at many others about their narrow views and inability to understand. I feel like someone needs to waggle their finger at me. I want nothing to do with this. I feel bitter that my husband is going through depression. I feel angry and am resorting back to "you could stop this if you would just try" attitude. I feel cheated and I am pissed off. It's not the right response. I know he is very confused and I feel helpless to remedy this. I don't want to hold anyone else up with this despicable disease. I want it to stop infecting my life. I feel like even when I am depressed and low that I am incapable of caring for even myself - in fact, it is the times when I come to despise myself. It pushes me to get up and get out of that place even though it is clear to me that I have never quite eased myself out of the hole since my sister got sick again. I am not a well person. I am not making well decisions. I am putting my marriage at risk because I am screaming to the powers that be that I refuse to take anymore mental illness in my life. I have drawn my line in the sand. It makes me hate myself and yet I wonder if I could manage without doing so.

I miss my husband. I wonder if he and my former sister that I miss so much are somewhere frolicking in the flowers. I picture them with rosy cheeks and silliness that doesn't cover perceived inadequacies. I picture them laughing and crying at all the right times and being happy to be here. I picture the life we all used to share before this happened to us. We are so cold now, unable to see each other's perspectives, unwilling even. We want redemption. We want exactly what we cannot give anymore - compassion and peace. I want to smack myself when I tell my husband that I simply cannot help him. I tell him I have done this all my life and I don't want to do it anymore. Indeed there are days I am repulsed by his helplessness and then I am equally disgusted by my selfishness.

I see my Father in my husband so clearly and it makes me mad that Freud always seemed to be on to something with his theories. We repeat our comfort with family of origin. I tried to trick Freud's theory and find someone utterly opposite of my family. I used to joke that my husband had rainbows shoved up his ass because he was always so cheerful. He used to wake me up everyday with a silly voice and a kiss. It used to make me so mad because I couldn't get back to sleep. I used to tell him I needed an hour in the morning to work up to happy and I enjoyed my miserable musings in the morning - thank you very much. But he was persistent and unwaivering. I was so convinced of his infallibility to mental illness that I married him within a year of our meeting. He was gentle and kind with my sister and he loved my mom - genuinely, not just for me. And we joked about how my mom loved him more than her own kids. She was so proud that he wanted to be in our family and it was probably the first time my mom ever felt safe with one of our boyfriends. She said she could curl up in his capable hands and just fall asleep, even when her worry threatened to destroy her. He was something of a Saviour in my family. Not too much pressure right?

I feel like we have ruined him. It was only a matter of time. He is dark and brooding now. He has seen the worst of mental illness, he has been undone by it. Now he is plagued by it and the light that used to seep out of him is gone. It seemed impossible to me to topple this giant of a man - indeed it was the only reason I married him. I tried many times to convince him to walk away from me and my family - I told him directly that I was worried he wouldn't be able to handle it. I told him to go and ruin his own life - that I did not want to be responsible. But he was so persistent. He wanted it all he said - the good, the bad, the ugly. My goodness, he got exactly what he asked for.

How can I be so merciless to a man who gave it all up to see us through this tragedy? Why am I so angry? It is so unfair. I know this. But a wall literally springs up between us when I see his slow shuffle or hear the sadness in his voice. I don't want this again. I don't want to love someone who will never come back and I would rather walk away from it then watch it happen again. I see my Father in those eyes - the big man who fell to his death in such a horrible way. I think to myself that I could not make it through another. I could not ever bear that kind of pain. So I do not feel. At all. I will not share my husband's burden. What will he think of me when he pulls through this? How will he look at me in good times knowing I hid in the bad times? That was not what we agreed in our vows. Help me. I scream this to no one. Help these feelings to just go away. The one person who can help me through this is sinking. Ironic. Tragically ironic.