Monday, December 12, 2016

Storms after the Rainbows

Some days are so good I think maybe the depression is gone and maybe I can get off the medication, and then out of nowhere, I am in a downward spiral.

Last week my husband and I were talking and then suddenly my heart started to feel heavy. Did we hit a trigger? Did my broken brain decide to make another crack in it that second? This is still new to me so I wasn't sure what was happening. Right away, I turned around and kneeled down. I offered a prayer to my Heavenly Father asking Him to take the heavy feeling out of my chest. 

Slowly I was sinking. My chest got heavier and heavier and eventually all my energy left my body. I started crying and I couldn't stop. I went to lay down in the bed and began crying hysterically. I felt like my whole body was in pain and I went into fetal position. I couldn't help it. It happened so fast. I had drowned in my depression and when I was crying so hard, I had the thought that I wish this wasn't real. People experience what I just experienced and it's not something that you can fake. Who could ever want to fake that? 
I was wishing I could say I was faking for attention. But this was real! My husband came to me and asked why I was crying so hard. Then he realized the depression had taken over my mind and body.

He asked me to sit up to see if I would feel better. After saying many times I didn't want to move, I forced myself to sit up.

I cried to him that I wanted to die. It was better to die then to feel like this.


In these moments we forget that we were once happy and we forget that happiness will ever come again. I can't imagine what it is like for my husband to look in my eyes and hear me say I want to die. Then he hugged me and I could barely hold myself up.

Then he put my head in his hands and said, "honey, it's the depression. I know you feel heavy. I love you...."

I had drowned in my depression and I told my husband I didn't want to live. I can't imagine how hard that would be on him. I couldn't control my feelings of brokenness or the headaches and heaviness. 

When I am in that state of mind, I forget my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and my children don't enter my mind. I can't control it. It's not my fault. I am not crazy. I have a mental illness, but it doesn't define who I am. I am a daughter of God and He loves me with or without my mental illness. My Heavenly Father wasn't absent to my uttered prayer. He sent my husband, family and friends to be His hands. 

My husband picked me up off the floor I ended up on. He carried me down the hallway to our baby and asked me to hold her. My eyes were bursting at the seams with tears, but I could make out her face through the tears. Her huge eyes brought a little smile to my face and slowly I was becoming calm. My husband feels the worse thing to do is to let me stay in bed.
He really does try his best and he loves me. ♥ Good days do come afterwards. Hold on while you are in your bad days and surround yourself with helpful and supportive people.




A few days later a friend wrote me this message that reassured me and gave me some answers. I feel that it's very important to share in case it's also helpful to someone else.

"I need to say I admire your courage and strength in the face of your illness. I really want to stress that this is a medical condition, like diabetes, for example. Like any chronic illness, knowing what you're dealing with and when to expect symptoms to get worse (or better) is part of the journey. The hard thing is that it's affecting your mind, so it's not always easy to tell what's the illness and what's not. Encourage your husband and those around you to remind you that the depression can take over talking and thinking for you, and that these horrible feelings are not permanent - they have come and gone before, and they will come and go again. Of course the feelings will show up, that's part of the illness, but by externalizing it ( It's not the real me, it's the Depression talking) and by talking back to it (I hear you, Depression, but I have evidence my husband loves me) and by writing down daily the things you are grateful for (even if it's only 3 things - the sun rose today, I ate an orange, my daughter smiled) you work on making your symptoms easier to live with. "


To make your symptoms easier to live with, what three things are you grateful for? 
1. _________________________
2._________________________
3._________________________





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