More and More and More

Life has felt like I've been thrown through a roller coaster lately. My husband suffers from severe clinical depression. He has his bad days and good days. for the past few months his bad days have outweighed his good days. It is very difficult for him to function on a daily basis. This makes it difficult for our family to deal with things as well.

As I have mentioned before, we homeschool our children right now. They are very intelligent children and I value their education dearly. There are just some days when it seems quite difficult to keep homeschooling, work, and make sure that everyone is taken care of on a daily basis. Granted between working and making sure that everyone's needs are met, I rarely have time for myself. I'm not too concerned about that either. I do however, worry that my family is suffering because my husband is the main caregiver at home when I go to work.

About a month ago, I started a new job as a front desk person at the Caribou Inn and Convention Center. It is a job that I have loved from the start. There have been days when it has been difficult to work because of my family situation but I have worked through it and have been able to keep the communication open between work and home. Some days it is difficult to come home though. I know my family is waiting for me to get home and to spend some time with them. I work three nights a week and two week days. The nights that I work are quite difficult for my family to be away from me. This week the nights have gone by pretty quickly though. I really like that too because it means that time goes quickly between home and work.

Being the wife of a severely depressed person is difficult at times. There are days when everything seems fine. Then there are those days when things don't seem fine at all. It's those days that my husband is distant or doesn't seem to be there at all. It's those days when his stare looks vacant and he only wants to stay in bed all day. It's those days that I worry about leaving him home alone or with the kids. It's those days where I worry if I should start planning his funeral. I hate those days. I hate seeing him in this state beecause he isn't himself. He's just a shell of a man who I used to know and love dearly. While I still love him dearly, I really don't know who this man who has taken up residence in my husbands body is.

Sometimes I feel like I am all alone dealing with my husbands depression and trying to run our household and work. I feel that nobody else understands our situation. I have put this before God and I know that I've laid it out for him several times. I also know that when I feel alone, God is there carrying me through this situation and any other situation that my family is going through. It is his footprints in the sand of my life, not mine. I share this with my church family and they try to understand. Some even have been through a similar situation. I just don't think that they truly understand. I attempted to share this with my family too but they don't understand it either. They don't offer to help or anything. They are there for us from afar. They talk through messengers and go about their days because their days are busy too. It just seems like I go through this alone being the spouse of a seriously depressed person. Sometimes I just feel alienated from everything in this world because of my husbands depression. It is difficult to go throughout the day and know that he's there by himself with issues that are far to great for any of us to understand. It is hard listening to him say that he doesn't think he can live this way anymore. That he just wants to give up. That he doesn't know what else to do. It is hard to hear him say that he had a lot of bad thoughts today or that he couldn't think of anything good that happened today.

If you are a praying person, please pray for my family. I love my husband more than any words I could put on a screen. He is the other half of my heart. I worry about him each and everyday. I worry about the medications he's on because they don't seem to be helping at all. I worry about the depression that he has been in, how it just seems to be lingering on the margin between bad and very bad. I miss my husband being happy. I miss his smile. I miss his joking. I miss his love for me. I miss his happy kisses and bear hugs. I miss him being a great dad for our kids. I know that physically he's not gone but socially and mentally, he's not here with his family.  Please pray that God will guide us through this once again. Comment as you like but if you have a negative comment, keep it to yourself please.

Have a blessed day,
Auntie B