The Abyss That Stares Back

    In a little over thirty days, my marriage will officially by law be over. I'm sitting here thinking and sifting through memories and trying to find answers. In the beginning, we were so happy; I was so happy. The whole world was wide open and we had it all planned out. However, we became parents before we learned to live with one another back then. It was also at that time when the beautiful little bundle of joy came into my life that this invisible shadow cloaked itself on me. I became fretful over everything but I wrote it off as I was a new mom and we lived next door to a nutcase. Every day I felt a little more defeated yet I would try to slap on a smile and shake it off. At moments and short lengths of time, it would feel as if it would go but it always came back. I tried to throw myself into different things but days became weeks and weeks became months. Those months became years. I would wake up every day hoping that I would feel different but I didn't. It wasn't like I was unhappy. I loved my daughter and my husband very much but there was something that had a hold on me. Something that held me in defeat every day. I was depressed; really depressed. For almost ten years I woke up feeling bad and went to bed hoping I would wake up and not feel so bad. Time passed and different things went on and I had a second child and the feeling was overwhelming. I can remember the first night at the hospital when my son was born. I was tired, in pain, and had this gorgeous little butter ball curled up on my chest and I wanted to scream. It was so quiet and I was so alone. Mike was at home with our daughter who wanted to be with her dad rather than be at her grandmother. I barely slept and I looked forward to the morning when Mike and Olivia or someone would be in. After I had Justin, I didn't feel female anymore. Justin had torn me in 13 places when he came into the world and I felt not like myself and I told the doctor about it and he immediately put me on anti depression pills. Now I had tried anti depressants before and they never worked. However, these did for a time. I felt like the world was not on my shoulders. It didn't stay like that forever though.

     When my son began having tantrums and meltdowns, my daughter began acting out in middle school, and my life started to unravel, I literally felt like I was losing my mind. I didn't know how to help my son and here I was going to programs, appointments, support groups, and researching everything I could about ADHD so I could help him, I felt like a failure. I have felt like one for years. It's not some pity trip or victim cry either. I literally felt as if I was being smothered to death by something I could not control or stop. My husband never seemed to notice or if he did, he dismissed it. I was hemorrhaging on the inside and then granny got sick and I threw everything I had into trying to keep her alive. When she died it was devastating and the depression got worse. So many times I just did not want to exist. So many times I stood at that edge of doing or don't. So many times I prayed to be put out of my misery from this horrible dark feeling that was tearing me apart. Then we moved to this house and it was a struggle the first year. The first week I didn't think I was going to make it in this house. I literally thought that I was going to tear my hair out until Mike painted the living room and hallway. This past year, I felt lighter than I had in a long time. I was babysitting and helping to contribute. Justin was doing good in school for the most part and was getting up in school. Then May came and all those dark invisible waves rolled back into me.  He told me once in a text message that it never seemed as if I was happy. What he failed to see or recognize was that I was happy but I was suffering too; I was fighting an invisible enemy that I didn't know how to fight. It was never that I was unhappy with him, our home, or our children; I was unhappy with myself with this horrible feeling that I had been carrying since 1995.


         I don't know how I got depressed when I was only 19-20 years old. I don't know how it even entered into the equation other than I gained so much weight with my first child and I lost a sense of self some how. I never really realized how much my depression affected every aspect of my life until he left. He doesn't act as if I am human anymore and maybe for a long time I haven't felt like one either. We've both been childish. We've both been hurtful. I just never thought that this would have happened to us. I thought despite the hardships and how I felt about myself that we cared enough about each other, our kids, and the life we so desperately wanted. Should he have noticed? Should he had picked up on things? Should he have cared? I wish he had. I wish he could have realized how hard things were. As hard as they were, he and the kids were always what made me happy. I don't know if I will ever know what happy is again. I'm afraid of it now because the hurting and the grief are so much worse.


    Don't wait years like I did. If you feel like something is wrong-whether or not where you rank the importance; get help. Let my tale be a cautionary one. Had I really gone for help when all this started perhaps my marriage wouldn't be broke? Perhaps I would have not felt defeated every day when I woke up and looked over the dishes that never seemed to end or the toys that littered the floor, the ash trays that never got emptied, the cups of tea that lined his bedside that had mold growing in them. Perhaps I wouldn't have felt overwhelmed. I don't know. I just don't know too much anymore. I know this grief over the loss of him, our marriage; the dream I had since I was a child of having a happy family of my own has destroyed me. Don't let depression destroy you.