The battle is lost

The battle is lost. Not yours, but mine. My loss is the foundation of your continious fight. Sometimes I can understand what happened yesterday when you told me you want to go on by yourself from now on. Most times, I don’t understand. You are still here. You are still my best friend. A friend like I never had before. And even after our break-up we feel close, we support each other. But I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that we will separate, divorce, live in different countries, on different continents.

Looking back at our nine years as a couple some incidents and patterns can explain your decision that you finalized this week. I tried to hear your opinions, tried to make decisions with you and not for you. It was difficult, you were insecure. But your great talent of covering up not only your depression also covered your insecurities. I never really knew the reason why I was the one making decisions for us while I was wishing for an equal partner. Your insecurities in relationships made you decide to go on from here by yourself. It’s the path you have chosen for yourself and I have to accept it.

Mistakes were made on both sides. And the depression brought out the best and the worse of us. Nobody is to blame for this, except this malicious illness of yours. I will tell myself that at least I could help a wonderful person and friend to go through clinic life and help recover from depression. All these therapies helped you find your way. For the first time you can make decisions for yourself without the thoughts of suicide in the back of your mind. I wish you all the best for the path you are going to take and I’m so deeply sad that my part in your life will not be the same anymore.

I’m packing boxes, separating your stuff from mine. Next week I will start a new life, in a new city, with a new job. It’s a life that was supposed to be ours. Now it will only be mine. We have one more week together and I have no idea how life on the other side of this week will look like. I’m on the floor crying, I cannot eat, I cannot sleep. Right now I cannot imagine having a restful day ever again. But experience tells us that it will be possible again, at some point.

One month is short and a year is not long…

“One month is short and a year is not long…”

This is what my mum’s friend told her about psychotherapy. Today marks one year and one month of your hospital stay and therapy. It’s seven years, seven months and seven days (funny!) since we first kissed. One year, nine months and nine days since we married. Yet, it’s nothing compared to what I hope life still has in store for us.

The husband

So, the husband has depression. I knew this for almost as long as I know him. And it was hard to believe for the first four years of our relationship. He is such a sunshine. He finds new friends immediatly, wherever he goes. And he cracks jokes at impossible times. Oh, he really does! An otherwise boring dinner can be turned into non-stoppable laughter when the husband is around. I always wonder: How can one person alone think of all that silliness? Let alone a person that is permanently sad deep inside? I guess this made it hard to believe. Adding to this was his ability, despite telling me that he is depressive, to hide it very well.

I didn’t know, or didn’t want to know, that he was suffering from a chronic depression. The diagnosis of a chronic depression is quite new. But it has been inside of him for most of his life. All those happy moments! And he was suffering from chronic depression. Always sad deep inside, with only some light moments interrupting those heavy feelings. How could I not see it, even though he told me so?

Then sometimes, just like right now, this chronic depression is topped with a severe depression. And this is when his depression actually becomes noticable for me and for others. It’s a depression so severe that he doesn’t want to live anymore. That makes him so hopeless that not even those happy moments we shared or the people that love him could keep him alive. Nothing gets through, nothing reaches him. It is as The Elephant in the Room describes it:

“Telling people I felt suicidal was an incredibly cumbersome matter. Whilst I felt nothing they felt a lot, they cried, yelled and hit me to express that.” (see post here)

Except, he never told anyone. I found out much later what have been actual suicide attempts. And then I was the one that cried, yelled. How can he not see how happy he makes me, how complete, how important he is to me? How can all this not matter?

And yet, my depressive husband taught me to enjoy life, seize every moment, and enjoy it to the fullest. After each great day we spent together he used to asked me what I liked best, making me remember all those happy moments we shared. I want to go back to have these happy moments. I want both of us to share happy moments again. And I think we are on a very good way, already.