Bright like a diamond

Today I had the chance to meet your therapist and take part in your therapy. It was such a great meeting! I learned so much!

After so many treatments didn’t work out for you, they assigned you to a therapist who doesn’t follow the book. He looked at what lies underneath your depression. And today he explained to me (and us) how his approach works and how I can support you.

We also addressed some issues between us. Such as problems talking about feelings.

Then you worked on a time schedule for your next steps. You might be coming home soon. It will be scary and you will need a lot of support. But it is an important step for you. You need to take this step to move on and out of the clinic.

I had all kinds of worries and questions for your therapist that were related to my worries. They were all blown away as soon as we started talking. And tonight I feel a big relief. We haven’t reached the finish line yet, but we are close.

In the end your therapist and his student (who also joined the session) did something really neat. They let us listen to their de-briefing in which they talked about us as a couple. I’m not sure how much of it was for therapeutic reasons, but they mentioned how close we were as a couple, how gentle. At one point the therapist called me “a diamond“. It felt so good to hear that, after spending the last days and weeks contemplating about how I feel so alone in supporting you with our families being so far away. And he wondered how we’d be doing once your depression has passed. How much energy we’ll have at our hands, energy that right now is going into fighting your depression. And this thought just made me so very hopeful! It made me see light at the end of the tunnel. FINALLY! I even forgot how that feels!

So, today I will spend the rest of the evening thinking of our future together. A bright future. I will be hopeful for the first time in a very long while. And my smile will just be bright, like a diamond. Maybe even brighter ☺

On guilt

I wanted to write about this a long time ago. But it was difficult to even start this post.

It’s about who is guilty of my husband’s depression. I’m not sure if that is even a relevant question or not. You can also say that this is how it is and we’ll have to deal with it. But somehow it matters for me. Partly because I’m always a fan of rather talking things out than having it still floating somewhere, unspoken of. And partly because it makes me terribly angry that the people that are responsible seem to care so little about my husband although they should be the ones to care most.

It was very clear early on that my husband’s parents play a major role in his depression. When I first learned about his depression it was through a story about an unreasonable punishment by his parents for a, in my eyes, minor mistake. For something that kids just do because they are kids. I don’t want to go further into details. There are stories about high expectations and lot’s of taboos. Just as his hospital stay is one of the things that remain secret with only the closest family members knowing about it.

I’m not a parent and I can very well imagine what insecurities are connected with it. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be making mistakes when I might raise my children one day because, let’s be honest, who could be that perfect? But I still believe that maintaining the family’s image rather than caring for the feelings and needs of your child is a different league. On top of that it seems as if they are not even interested in his therapy. But maybe I’m doing them wrong. Maybe occasional phone calls and post cards is all they can do for him right now. But it leaves me as one of the very few that is staying by his side, dealing with his illness.

My husband claims that he sees me and his sister and brother as his family. And that his parents don’t matter too much. But I can tell that his anger towards his parents is still inside him.

And it affects me, too. I feel betrayed of a happy marriage. We were only married for about half a year when my husband’s depression got so bad that he had to go to the hospital. And he has been there ever since. We also wanted to plan to have children together. Now, I’m not even sure whether we will ever have children. What if we are too old when my husband finally feels healthy and ready for it? I hear from others our age, family and friends, who move on, who build houses, have children, travel. And it makes me so jealous that we cannot have any of it right now. Because our life is on hold for one and a half years now with no end in sight. Because two people maintained their family’s image rather than dealing with their child’s needs.

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel like this. There were times when I just wanted to confront them with all this. But I decided against it because the last thing I want is getting between my husband and his family. His family is still very important for him and in the end he has to find his own way to deal with it. And he will, once he is ready for it. Today, I had a very good talk with my friend who went through very similar difficulties with her parents. She suggested that I just write it down whenever I feel angry about his parents. This will be a relieve for myself without hurting anyone’s feeling or getting in the way of my husband’s recovery. I think it’s such a great suggestion and today’s post is a very good start. I’m so thankful that I have friends like her in my life who make talking about my husband’s illness so easy and offer so much help.

Happy Birthday

Today is your birthday. I visited you at the clinic, brought you flowers and gifts from me and my parents. You really liked the gifts and my visit but it was hard for me to celebrate your birthday at the clinic. One and a half years and you are still in there. When does this nightmare ever stop?

You were very close to coming back home again. Lately, you were home on weekends and I felt you are doing fine. When you are able to leave the clinic it is so much easier for me. I can just do my usual errands without scheduling my trips to the clinic. And it’s great to have you home. A little bit of normality.

However, your condition got worse and now you are not allowed to leave your station and you have to check the nurses’ office every hour. You call it suicide watch.

I’m totally lost in what to think about it. In a way you made great progress in opening up to the doctors before you were in actual danger. I’m so glad that you did because the doctors wanted to send you home and we both got more and more worried about you. But at the same time I cannot understand how you are still so badly in danger. On top of that, I thought I learned from your last attempt. I thought I can read the signs. Last week taught me that I cannot. I was relieved to hear that you can stay at the clinic longer, I didn’t know that you have to be on suicide watch.

I sometimes worry whether you will ever be ok again. I know you want to feel better again. You work so hard. And we have so many plans. And there is progress. I can tell that there is. But then again, these steps are so tiny. And then I hear stories of depressed patients for whom no therapy worked out. Like this case in Belgium that everyone is discussing right now.

Tonight I worried so much about you that I called you again and we talked a little. It felt very good. You explained more about how you are feeling right now. And that you told exactly that to the doctors last week. I hope they can work with you on it.