I’m glad I’m still here. If
not for luck and a lot of love I wouldn’t be. Depression is a deep dark pit of
despair. There is no light, there is no love, there is only the echo of the
terrible thoughts in your head. Depression is lonely. It is isolating. It is
tiring. Your very soul aches. Everything is painful. The present looks bleak
and you don’t even think about the future other than to hope you don’t see it.
The pain becomes excruciating. You pray for it to end. It is at this point that
you are dying to be free of the nightmares that are your own irrational
thoughts. Sometimes you hold on. You have too. Others are counting on you to
make it. Sometimes you give up and leave a wide debris path when you extinguish
that pain forever.
My husband, Pete, died by
suicide. He was depressed, he was anxious and he was paranoid. I tried to get
him help but it was too late. Two weeks into beginning a stint with antidepressants
he hung himself. It was a terrifying ordeal. I have never felt pain that deep.
It shattered my world. I spent eighteen years of my life loving him and now he
was gone. You just don’t do that to people you love. I know how great his pain
was. I have been there myself. I never would have guessed how damaging suicide
is to those you leave behind.
I curled up into the fetal
position both literally and figuratively. I just went through the motions of
daily life and self medicated as much as possible. I dreaded waking up in the
morning. I felt like, “Fucking great! I woke to see another day. Yay me. Not?”
You see the truth is that at that point I just wanted to die. I prayed that I
would. I prayed I would just die in my sleep of a broken heart. I now knew the
great depth of pain that Pete felt when he decided to commit suicide. I now
understood his despair. It killed me that he had been in that much pain, but
then so had I.
I spent several months on
auto-pilot. I made a lot of poor decisions. My moods were all over the place.
Then I sort of stabilized. Sort of. I think I became hypo-manic. It is not a
full blown manic episode it is just a heightened state of euphoria. It was
during this period that I met Mike. I honestly don’t know why he is still with
me. I did everything I could think of to push him away. He wouldn’t budge. Mike
is my saint. He swooped in, scooped up all the broken pieces of my heart and
put me back together. It was not smooth sailing. I was the mess I was because
of what I had been through in addition to being bi-polar and Mike was a mess
from having been used and fucked over so many times. We knew we were in love
but we fought hard against it. Then one day everything just magically clicked
into place. It’s like the clouds parted for me and suddenly I was living in
abundant white light.
My relationship with Mike is
easy and loving. I love him unconditionally as he does me. There is a strong
trust in our relationship. We love like old souls reconnected. I bask in the
glow of our love and everything in my world seems just fine.
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