So here it is, the low down on depression. At least on my depression. Today I am angry. I am angry that the kids didn't do their chores. I am angry that the dog has to be taken outside. I am angry that the trash can is full and the only one who seems to notice is me. I am angry that the toilet seat got left up and the dog drank out of the toilet because now I have a wet butt from sitting on a wet toilet seat. I am angry that I am so tired. I am angry that the TV show I started watching is not what my husband wants to watch. I am angry that my husband doesn't grab my hand and pull me to him and just hold me...you know, like they do in the stupid TV show.
I am JUST SO angry.
I am full of regret. I regret being so angry. I regret all the things I say when I am angry. I regret being angry at my husband for not doing exactly what the TV husbands do. I regret being so angry about the overflowing trash can when I can't get off my butt to take it out, I just sit here, being angry and full of regret. I regret not getting up and taking the dog outside because someone else had to do it after I got angry and screamed at them to do it. I regret being mean, and saying so many awful things.
I am FULL of regret.
I am afraid. I am afraid that my marriage will not survive this. I am terrified that one day my husband will look at me and tell me he has had enough, that he can't keep listening to me complain that he doesn't hug me enough or that he doesn't do enough to help out around the house, or that he doesn't do whatever it is I am angry about at the moment. I am fearful that one day my kids will look at me and tell me how much they hate me for all the times I yelled, for all the times I couldn't get out of bed, for all the times that I couldn't be the mother that they deserve.
I LIVE in fear.
So, let's assume that I was properly diagnosed when I was 19...Major Depressive Disorder. My life has been good. I have been happy, mostly. I fell head over heels in love at the age of 19, making the high school romance that I thought I couldn't ever recover from seem so ridiculous. I fell HARD. And it felt AMAZING. Then along came baby, and life got even better. Who knew it could? I didn't think it was possible to be more in love than I was until I met my daughter. She made me see EVERYTHING differently and I fell so much in love with her and even more deeply in love with her daddy that nothing else mattered. We were living a fairy tale romance, in my mind anyway. Along came our second daughter and then our son. Each child filled our home with more love than before. I kept thinking that I could not possibly be able to have more love than I already had, but it just kept coming. And our third daughter brought even more love into our home. How BLESSED! What a gift to have 4 healthy children and an amazing husband that loves me so much and is an amazing father to our children. What more could I have ever wanted???
Well, what I wanted was to continue on with being blissfully happy. Truly, I did. What I did NOT want was for my happiness to be slowly chipped away by every little thing that happened in my life. I never anticipated that we would still be struggling to make ends meet when the kids all started school. Honestly, I thought that we would both work and everything would just fall into place. I mean, at least we wouldn't have to pay for diapers anymore, right? How foolish I was. I didn't foresee going into a career that would suck the life out of me. I went to school because I was so full of love, I wanted to share it. I wanted to care for others, I mean truly care for them.
I began working in the nursing field and fell in love with the people, with caring for them. I went to school to do more of that, hoping to better support my family doing what I loved. Schools out, time to go from the full time student and full time employee to being the full time and overtime employee. They teach you to accept nursing as a "thankless job". I did. I accepted that the people I cared for would most often not say thank you and that their families would secretly resent us. (The family can't help it, they resent the care provider for being able to be there day in and day out for their loved one. They love us for it, but they resent us too, most of them don't even realize it. But we, the care providers, we sense it from time to time.) Anyway, we accept that. What they don't prepare you for...your coworkers. They teach you about the importance of showing up no matter what because if you don't, the care still has to be provided. They teach you what to do in the incidence that something prevents you from going to work...call your own replacement and when you can't find one, you show up anyway. And they teach you that you will have to go to work on your days off to cover for someone else who couldn't fulfill the responsibility of showing up. Feeling burned out, I quit and accepted a part-time position somewhere else, still in nursing. Part-time was never part-time. I was still working full-time and overtime... What burns you is the politics involved. As a woman I realize that working with a bunch of other women will involve some amount of drama. But that does not mean I enjoy it.
We all work hard, we all go unnoticed, under-appreciated. We all signed up for this. But what I didn't sign up for was making my family take a back seat to everyone else's families. Not fair, not doing it! I worked hard to get where I was but I wasn't going to continue making my family suffer at home, alone, while I was working. No amount of money is worth not getting to see my kids every night. No money will ever be enough to make me want to skip out on school musicals or dance performances. No money will ever be more important than taking my child to the hospital...so I quit.
There have been so many things that have happened over the past 15 years that have set me back. My world has been shattered several times with marital struggles, hospitalizations of loved ones, death. I still have all 4 of my children and I am still happily married and madly in love with the same man who swept me off my feet nearly 14 years ago. But it has not always been blissful.
Don't misunderstand. I love my family with all that I am. But sometimes what I am is angry, afraid, regretful. Sometimes I am nothing. Sometimes I am just SO tired. Sometimes I hate me.
I say things when I am angry that I regret to the core. But I can't take it back. I can apologize a thousand times, but I can never take back the awful things I have said.
You know, the thing is, no one is doing anything differently today than they do every other stinking day. What is different is ME. I am having a bad day and therefore I am forcing my bad day upon everyone else. My husband DOES grab my hand sometimes and pull me to him and honestly, it is WAY better than anything you see on TV. My kids do their chores, usually, and if they don't, all it usually takes is a reminder to get them started. The trash...it is on the chore list, so someone will take it out. The dog, well, I have two legs and I can take him out just as easily as anyone else, except when I am in a bad mood, in which case someone usually tells me they were just getting their shoes on when I started yelling. The toilet seat...I probably left it up yesterday, causing someone else to get wet butt, so I probably deserved it today.
Here is what sucks the most.
I already know all of what I am angry about is ridiculous, but right now I am so angry that I can't see any of that until I scream and cry it all out.
All that is left to do is beg, and pray. I beg for forgiveness. Of course every single one of my family members forgives me right away, much too easily. I don't really deserve them. And they definitely don't deserve me, what I do to them. They are good people and I am typically a good person too, until I become consumed by the monsters inside me. I pray that my kids and my husband will continue to love me and forgive me no matter what. I know they will never forget what I have put them through and that sucks. I am not what you call normal and I am not what you call sane, at least not right now. A couple months ago, if you knew me, you probably would not have thought anything was unusual about me. I was the typical working mother who was stressed from "managing it all". And today I am not that person, today I am the one who needs managed. We all have a breaking point, a rock bottom, a dark place....
My family, whom I love more than anything else in this life...I am sorry for what afflicts me because I know it afflicts you too.
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