Last night I was reading in my husbands blog and came over an old post (one that I have read before many times). It was about him wanting to take his own life.
4 years ago my husband developed serious manic depression. This was a thing that had been lurking under the surface for years but first bubbled up after we got married and got into serious money problems.
When we got married my husband was working as a phone salesman. Right after we married the company declared themself bankrupt and refused to pay the money they owned their employers. This set us back 60 000 NOK (about 6 600£ or 10 000$). When you first get behind with that much, it's really hard to get back on your feet. Luckily our parents could help us a bit. But still it took us a long time to get all the bills from the wedding payed. And on top of that, he had lost his job.
Now I don't fully understand what happened to him, and why he became so ill, but the fact is that he did. He started getting more and more depressed and at it didn't help that we lived in the same house as his parents. We argued more and more, went to bed angry from time to time, and he started to take the car and leave when we fought. And all the time I didn't know what was going on with him. All I saw was that he was changing right in front of me, and I didn't like the change. It was hard on me to see him change so. We had just married... we were supposed to be happy, weren't we? We weren't supposed to be arguing every day, and he wasn't supposed to change!
Luckily I have my best friend, lets call her C. She was there for both of us in all this. But most of all she was there for my husband. She listned to him when he couldn't tell me how he felt, and when he started talking about how he saw himself dead she sendt him to the doctor to get help. And all this time all I saw was that he was changing. He never told me about any of this until he started getting help. I knew that he was depressed. I could see it on him. But I never knew how bad it was until he finally told me. And let me tell you, it broke my heart! It is painfull to know that the love of your life is hurting. That he wants to take his own life and leave this world... leave you.
I didn't understand him. So I started thinking it all was my fault. That I was the reason he was so depressed. That all the arguing drove him to depression, so I started giving in. Whenever there was something, I gave in. I gave up somehow. I put on a brave face and tried to not feel all the hurt. Tried to be brave for him.
I could tell that if I was smiling he was in a better place. I thought that if I held him tight and told him I loved him enough times, he would be all better. Sadly it didn't work that way.
He started therapy once a week and things changed again.... Luckily I could talk to my friend too. She told me things about that she thought I should know about my husbands depression, and she helped me understand how, and why my husband changed the way he did. But I could not fully understand. The whole period he was in therapy is kinda blurry for me. I have my own things to struggle with, and when I get really down I forget. It's a coping mechanism.
The things I do remember are when he told me about how he felt, how he had been at the worst, the fact that I was not by a long shot the first person he told, that he had been hiding things from me, the long nights of waiting for him to come home, being afraid that he would never come home, that this was the night he couldn't cope.... It's a really difficult state to be in.
During the worst periods I walked around in constant total terror. I was afraid every time I couldn't reach my husband on the phone. Every time he didn't come home when I thought he would. Whenever he had been to therapy and didn't come straight home. I spendt most my time waiting for him to come home safe. And when he did come home late, I was angry. I can look back now and say that I was so angry because I was so scared, but I know that all that I did was make things harder for my husband. It took a long time to figgure that out... to look beyond what I felt was happening to me and grab a hold of myself and look at what was happening to him.
So how did I deal with it? I didn't. I got depressed myself. The difference was that now I had noone to go to for support. A sad consequense of him going to therapy was that he became very self centered. This was a thing my best friend, who have been going to therapy since she was a teenager, told me was very normal. This was very difficult for me. Suddenly everything in my world was all about him. My life was buildt up around him in a way that excluded me almost completely. And all I could do was accept it. I could no longer go to my husband for help when I was down. I couldn't go to him to get help when I needed it because he was no longer there. He had all but disappeared from me. He was no longer the man I so fell in love with, and the constant threat of loosing him made me cry myself to sleep many a night. I stopped completely to go to bed with him. I stayed up all night and slept until noon. I rather slept on the couch than go to bed at a normal time with him. I felt like a total failure.
In 2008 he was declared healthy by the therapist. He was "happy" again. Still I didn't believe it. I couldn't. I still saw the same white color in his cheeks, the empty look in his eyes and the feelingless smile he put on. And I still held up the mask. The "I'm happy, everything is fine, everything is perfectly normal" mask. It is amazing how a smile can help keep people from asking questions...
It seemed too good to be true that he was healthy again, and I was right. Not long after he started getting depressed again. It took nothing to get him down, and I had to weight everything I did and said against how his day was. I took hand of all the echonomy, I took hand of food, house, pets, husband and on top of that trying to get a job. It was tough. I whent everyday worring if we would make it through this month and at the same time I could not have a bad day. I had to keep the mask up so not to make my husband worse. The only thing that I had to comfort me was my cat Pharao.
This time things got a litle better though. I made him go seek help again as soon as I saw the first signs of depression again. He never got too deep and started doing better again sooner. Also, now I knew how to be and Not be around him. I held up a happy face as long as i mustered (ofcourse around my periods I was a raging typhoon). Then suddenly my cat Pharao disappeared, ( I knew that he would not come back. I think he whent off to die. He was 8 years old after all...), and my world fell apart. With nothing to hold on to I struggled to keep my mask on and I spendt many nights crying again... After a while though my husband could hold me in his arms again and comfort me. I slowly got someone to hold on to again.
2009 came and that spring we leaped on a spur and applied to schools. I came in and last autumn I moved north. Hubby was supposed to be back south just a litle while and clear out the house for sale. A while became months and soon it was christmas. While I thirved alone here and became much my old self. Independent, strong and believed in myself for the first time in years, my husband suffered down there alone. He didn't have me to help him. He had to take over the echonomy again, and on top of that the best friend suffered now from a serious case of social angst. She still does. So now he could not go to her either. So we decided that even if the house was not by a long shot cleared and ready for sale, he should move up here.
So in January he moved in with me up here in the north and things were looking great! Things Are great! Yes, I still have my mask on some days, but those days are fewer and fewer, and even if my husband still has to go to therapy I now know that he is better. I have stopped being afraid of him killing or hurting himself. Now, if he doesn't come home as planned the only thing I'm afraid of is that he has been hit by a car and is in the hospital. Since I got the faith in myself back I stopped believing he was going to sleep around too. Even though sometimes I have a relaps and wonder... When I moved I took along one of our kittens, and he was something for me to hold on to when I was feeling lonely and depressed. He soon started picking up on how I was feeling and started coming to my comfort when I needed it. Just as Pharao had done. He probably saved me more than once.
To all those out there that are in the same position that I am in/was in: Hang in there! It gets better. Remember that nothing gets better without first getting worse, "the darkest hours of night is right before dawn". You are alowed to feel and to look out for yourself, and if you can I recomend getting a pet. They are great help. They are someone you can talk to that will listen forever and will not think badly of you. They love you as long as you treat them good, and if you get them as young ones they often learn to pick up on how you are feeling (the cat my husband had with him from south is an example of how they don't pick up on your feelings if they are not used to you. She has no clue on when to scurry and when to cuddle... but she's still cute... and she's learning ^^).
Our two cats now: AiBast II (or "lille Bast" as I call her) and Mithmin Begolas, or Begolas for short. Begolas is mine and AiBast II is my hubbys.
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