I don't know how it feels to not be depressed

[MarineWife]

I wish I did. I honestly don't get how people can go through their day-to-day lives pretty much happy or content, or at least not miserable.

I don't understand why I feel this way. I love my children. They mean everything to me. But I hate my life, or maybe I just hate life. I can't stand to even be around my husband most of the time. He just annoys me and makes me angry. I don't understand how that can be. How can I love my children so much but not be happy living my life with them? I mean, I get that I probably have a chemical imbalance but why?

[SweetSilver]

Because you are constantly giving of yourself, for one.  Your kids are still looking to you, and at the end of the day, especially after long stretches without physical intimacy, you feel --*I* feel anyway-- like I need to give of myself again and feel guilty just crashing on the couch.  I'm definitely not saying their isn't a chemical imbalance there, or that, after the birth of your little one you still have not pulled yourself out of a possible PPD (??) but all these things make it that much harder to get a handle on things.  

  Hugs, mama.  

[MarineWife]

I've been like this since I was at least 15. That was when I was first diagnosed with depression. I've been hospitalized three times. I've been on and off several different antidepressants and a few anti-anxiety meds.

[MarineWife]

Part of it may be sleep-deprivation. My toddler still isn't sleeping through the night. The most he sleeps in one chunk is 4 hours in the first stretch. I have difficulty falling asleep because my mind races so I may only sleep for 2 hours of that time. Then he wakes me every couple of hours.

My husband doesn't seem to care. He shows no sympathy, empathy or compassion for how I feel. He's just angry and annoyed with all of us all the time. That makes it even harder for me to like him. It's really hard for me to like someone who doesn't like my kids, especially when it's their own father.

[Jules08]

MarineWife,

I take it your husband is in the Marines? I can relate with how you are feeling. Part of what I'm going through, well, most of the depression I feel is because of how things are between my husband and I. He is an Army veteran. He has PTSD and I feel like I have been just feeling the effects of how he is now. I'm not sure if this is the case for you, but I can completely relate with the loss of interest in life in general. My 8 month old has been getting up every couple of hours during the night and it has been awful for my moods. I feel like my husband is not of any help in simply taking care of our son most days.

[MarineWife]

My husband insists he hasn't changed. Nothing that happened on any of his deployments has affected him. But he had become more and more detached with each one. It's now to the point where I feel like he's not even part of our lives anymore.

A lot of my depression has to do with that. I feel like he doesn't like me. He never seems happy when he's home. He hardly notices me. A lot of times he only notices the kids if I make him. It seems to me as if everything is about him. He tries to make it look like it's not but it really is. For example, he says he likes to cook dinner for us but when he cooks, he doesn't cook something that we, especially the kids, will all like. He makes one of his special paleo meals for himself even though he knows we don't like most of the food like that that he prepares. If he had only been home for a few weeks, I could understand. He's been home almost a year now and most of that time has actually been home.

He's also been negatively affecting my relationship with my kids. He came home and decided we should have a bunch of rules that I don't think are necessary. Like, since he needs to go to bed early to get up early for work, we all should go to bed whether we are tired or not. That means that I usually end up laying in bed wide awake for at least 2 hours while the baby flips and flops all over me, sometimes nursing, sometimes not, because he's not really tired. I've been trying to back up and support my husband but all it has gotten me is my kids telling me that I'm mean to them.

The older kids get mad at me for making them go to bed when they don't really need to. (We homeschool so we don't need a set bedtime since we don't need to get up at any particular time in the mornings.) My husband tries to force them to eat and if I say anything he gets angry and annoyed with me and then refuses to do anything with me or the kids. It's like it has to be his way or no way and he's very passive/aggressive about it.

All of that makes me very sad because I don't want to be around someone who doesn't like me. I don't want to spend my life with someone who doesn't want me around. I could leave and go back to work. I had a quite lucrative job before I met him that I could get back relatively easily. But then I'd have to put the kids in school and daycare and I don't want to do that. So, right now I'm just staying for the kids. I've even been trying to figure out when they'd be old enough that they could stay home by themselves to homeschool while I worked. Maybe another 5 or 6 years.

[SweetSilver]

It almost sounds as if he might be feeling.... depressed?..... and having similar feelings to what you are having.  Your attentions are divided.... you maybe don't like him any more.... he needs something to be about just himself because, despite his macho denial, he really does need some help.  (Even though my dh is no Marine, he still went through a period of selfishness.)  Especially if he has been away, with no immediate family responsibilities, then returning and finding that family life goes on without him.  Does he feel invisible?  Does he feel inconsequential?  Is he trying to find his place back in the family?

I don't want to turn the spotlight off of you, but I have a strong suspicion that he is feeling this way.  Maybe he doesn't like you anymore, but maybe he just thinks you don't like him anymore.  Maybe he doesn't like how he is acting, but is finding the way easiest to him to adjust.  Trying to find his place in the family again that has managed just fine without him.

I hear both of you saying "What about ME?  Am I not important?  Am I not lovable anymore?"

Finding a way to reconnect as a couple isn't always easy, even if the couple hasn't been separated at all.  Family life can be all-consuming.  Work life can be stressful, and stay-at-home parenthood is definitely stressful.  Then, throw possible depression into the mix (on both sides, perhaps) and you have a sizable obstacle to surmount.

[MarineWife]

The whole, "What about me?" thing has come up between us. It may very well be true that he's dealing with his own demons. I can't deal with that right now, especially when he won't even admit it. Like I said, whenever I ask him, he says he's fine. Everything is fine.

I spent a lot of years trying to take care of him as well as everyone else. I was able to let a lot of things slide or just laugh them off for many years. I can't do that anymore. I'm so tired from taking care of my kids. I don't have the energy or motivation to take care of one more who shouldn't be acting like a kid. I'm just over it.

I spend all day every day constantly on the verge of tears. Sometimes I'll be sitting in a room and suddenly just feel so sad. I become immobilized and feel like I'm going to cry for no tangible reason that I can figure out. I'm sad and tired and feel alone and unloved.

[justmama]

You are on meds but obviously they arent' helping.  Are you seeing a therapist or even a psychiatrist to manage your meds?  I think you need an adjustment.  I'm not denying the fact that you probably have a lot of situational depression but since you've already been diagnosed with depression, I think maybe speaking to your doctor about a med adjustment is in order to at least stabilize you so that you can deal with life changes as need be.  You can't change anything about your life/marriage/parenting unless you are mentally stable and from my personal experiences with depression, you AREN'T sounding stable.  Please call your doctor.  It sounds like you are slipping too deep.

[MarineWife]

No, I'm not on meds now. I was and they were helping but I gained a lot of weight in a very short time after starting them so I stopped taking them. Putting on weight was depressing me, especially since I had been steadily and easily losing weight and had gotten down below my pre-pregnancy weight before starting the meds. I talked to the doc about the weight gain. He insisted that the meds weren't the cause of the weight gain.

I am seeing a therapist. I am just sick of it all. I'm tired of being sad all the time. I'm tired of having to take meds just be considered "normal".

[pek64]

You know the cause of your depression. I'm guessing you had issues at home when you were a teen, too. I know I did. I'm currently separated, and feel glad, nearly all the time. I stayed in my marriage for my son, for 12 years after the marriage was really bad, so I know how it is to choose that. We homeschool as well.

Depression can effect sleep; lack of sleep can cause depression. A catch 22.


Fresh air, sunshine, and exercise can help. Exposure to morning sunlight will make it easier to go to sleep earlier at night. Positive affirmations and visualizations also help. At night, when you can't sleep, focus on a positive visualization, rather than dwelling on your situation.


If you have family that can and will help, then ask if someone will speak to your husband about getting help. Keep in mind that if his father behaved the way he is behaving, he may feel this is normal behavior, and decide you are the one with the problem. That doesn't make it so. It just means this is *his* normal. Your normal can be different.


I have to go. Good luck!

[abbylotus]

Clean up your diet, get moving outside, take your vitamins, stick to an appropriate sleep schedule and open up the lines of communication to your loved ones......there's 60K of psych advice I learned the hard way. A willingness to follow through with the above will help TREMENDOUSLY. Listen, I was in a bad marriage for me before, too. I wallowed in my misery very well for ten years. I was a hippy hot mess. Psych ward three times and a mental illness diagnosis. Then the unthinkable happened, my husband dropped dead suddenly at age 32 of natural causes. Seriously. It was my bloody worst nightmare. Anyway, that was nearly two years ago and I'm a new person. I still have crazy tendencies, but I follow the above advice and it keeps me on the right track. Life is really weird and you never know what's going to happen, but mostly it is just too damn short to be miserable all the time. 

Also, keep in mind your husband most likely seen some really terrible stuff. You know, the stuff that haunts you in your sleep kind of terrible. That's got to do a number on a person. 

[justmama]

Originally Posted by abbylotus 

Clean up your diet, get moving outside, take your vitamins, stick to an appropriate sleep schedule and open up the lines of communication to your loved ones......there's 60K of psych advice I learned the hard way.

                         ^ That's so true and depressing in and of itself.  That's really the basic foundation that therapy is built on.  Huh.  Makes me glad I bailed on it.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by MarineWife 

Part of it may be sleep-deprivation. My toddler still isn't sleeping through the night. The most he sleeps in one chunk is 4 hours in the first stretch. I have difficulty falling asleep because my mind races so I may only sleep for 2 hours of that time. Then he wakes me every couple of hours.

My husband doesn't seem to care. He shows no sympathy, empathy or compassion for how I feel. He's just angry and annoyed with all of us all the time. That makes it even harder for me to like him. It's really hard for me to like someone who doesn't like my kids, especially when it's their own father.

I have just posted a thread about chronic insomnia (sleep deprivation torture by any other name). I definitely think that not having quality sleep, very seriously effects mood and behaviour and feelings - far more than unaffected people and medical professionals might assume. In a very deep way. I've lost all joy for life myself from constant exhaustion. I find simple things difficult. Mood control and 'carrying on' are just soooo hard.

I wish you the best with your journey. Perhaps it might help to focus first on something you can do....something small to change in a positive way. Or something small to look forward to regularly (I find that a hard one myself)....and go forward slowly from there....?

[pek64]

Have you tried any of the suggestions? How is your child sleeping now? Has there been any improvement?

[abbylotus]

How goes it Mama?

[PrimordialMind]

Oops, double post.

[PrimordialMind]

This thread is a little old but i thought i'd add my two cents. You sound stuck emotionally. The only way out of that is to be willing to go outside of your comfort zone and shake up your foundation. You're in a shitty marriage with a man who doesnt know how to be a good father or spouse. You're not going to be able to change him and it sounds like hes living in denial about his own mental health. This shouldnt be acceptable to you and by allowing it go on you are giving silent permission. You need to pick a direction--keep doing what youre doing, make it clear to him that he needs to change because you and your children have needs that are going unmet by him, or leave the marriage. You may decide that if he refuses to change or get help for himself that its time to move on. Staying stuck in this rut is draining you and making you more and more miserable as time goes on. No amount of pills or sunshine is going to change that. I say this because i can almost feel the weight of your misery when you write about your husband. This is the focal point of your posts. I can guarantee that you will start to feel better once you start moving in a proactive direction.

I also can guarantee that you will feel challenged. There will be a big part of you that doesnt want change. This is normal. We all have our comfort zone and our routines and it feels scary and strange to shake them up and go outside of them. It will be challenging. Accepting this will get you through it. You're also probably going to have to work on your self-esteem during this process. You've gotten used to being treated a certain way and its easy to believe you deserve it. You dont, you deserve much more. Be gentle with yourself and focus on gaining confidence and a genuine sense of self-worth. Also, you said that you've been experiencing depression for a long time. You probably have some ghosts in your past that have caused the ongoing depression and made it easy to become attached to a man who isnt there for you. In other words, there is a deeper reason for how you're feeling than simply your marriage but the marriage is a by-product or an indicator of the deep source. So once you begin changing or forgoing the marriage, you will be starting the work of digging deeper into your pain and the source of it. Staying in this marriage has enabled you to stay hidden and stuck emotionally. It is comforting because it gives you a false sense of security. Emotionally you are not challenged, you dont need to change, you can stay hidden. I know personally how comforting this can be. It takes a good amount of resolve to break free of your attachment to this comfort. I hope this helped some.
Edited by PrimordialMind - 5/6/13 at 1:02am

[MarineWife]

Actually, things have gotten a lot better between my husband and me since we started going to counseling. It took only a few sessions for him to start changing his behavior. We've been laughing together and having more fun. He isn't as judgmental and defensive. I'm better able to let things roll off me. If I think about it too much, it bothers me that it took that to get him to start to change since I haven't been saying anything differently in counseling than I had been saying at home. But, as long as things are better, I guess it doesn't really matter how we got here.

It's been a long time since I posted. (I didn't get email notifications that there were responses for awhile.) Sleep has improved. My toddler now sleeps in 4-5 hour stretches and we are able to sleep late in the mornings if anyone keeps me up in the middle of the night. I'm still struggling some but feeling better about my family life, at least.

[PrimordialMind]

Thats so awesome, marinewife!! . I'm so happy to hear your husband has been willing to go to counseling and it has helped so much. I'm also glad you're getting better sleep now.