The title of this feels a little bit like dark humor, although it's not. If I were to say this out loud I would probably be saying this to someone with a little bit of a smirk on my face because what will become of us if we cannot make light of, just a little, of our own mental health struggles. However, in this context, I really do mean what I say. It is a luxury to be allowed to be and feel depressed when that is the emotional state we are in.
It is a luxury to have a spouse that allows you to feel depressed. I don't really like the use of the word "allow", but if I am being honest that is how I have experienced my depression in relation to other people. I never felt like those around me would allow it, would allow me to acknowledge and feel my depression. I spent my life masking & pretending to be someone completely different than who I really am. The people pleaser in me learned at a very young age that if I was happy, joyful, uplifting, and making sure the people around me were okay then I was accepted. I was good. I was not going to be abandoned. I was safe. Depression was that awful thing lurking in the background, in the shadows, that broke through every now & then when I let my guard down. The fight I had to fight to shove this giant monster back into the shadows was so exhausting, and not something I could handle doing very often, so I got good at just never letting my guard down. Never acknowledging what I was actually feeling. It's crazy that I put all of this effort and energy into never being abandoned, left, or unsafe, and this whole time I was abandoning and leaving myself on a daily basis. I was doing the very things to myself that I spent all of my time trying to prevent.
Back to that word "allowed". Why aren't we allowed to feel what we feel? To acknowledge what we are feeling & experiencing? I personally feel it's because it makes those around us uncomfortable. There was just no room in my life for anything that wasn't making everyone else happy and comfortable. It also makes us uncomfortable... to feel sad and alone in a world full of people. That feels like a problem that can never be solved. Like you are the problem and there is something so fundamentally wrong with you and you can never be fixed. In my eyes, the "fix" to the problem was all around me, I was always surrounded by people. I should have been able to be fine. But I wasn't. So if the perceived "cure" couldn't cure me, then there was no hope. There is also the acknowledgment of just how depressed we are when we allow ourselves to really feel what we are feeling. I don't like that version of myself. I don't like looking in the mirror and seeing her. Allowing myself to really see my depression is like looking into the eyes of my "shadow self" and really seeing her. Telling myself that if I am going to heal, I have to learn to love her too. Learning to love this shell of a person who hasn't showered or washed her hair in days, has bags under her eyes, can't get out of her sweats, and has no willpower to exercise or eat healthy. She is exhausted all of the time, she can't stop crying and it's a real struggle to get out of bed. I look at myself in the mirror in this state and I usually can't stand myself. Having someone who will stick with you in this state, someone who can stand to be around you even when you can't is a luxury!!
What happens when you lose the ability to keep that monster in the shadows? Because it will happen. I don't care who you are. It doesn't matter how much money you make or don't make. How much education you have, or don't have. How much time you have spent making all the right decisions, ect. Life will eventually pummel you to the ground. There is no escaping it. If you are lucky it will leave some shreds of who you used to be as a person, but you will come out of that pummeling unrecognizable. It is not sustainable to be masking & pretending all of the time. At least for me, it wasn't. I just couldn't do it.
I have a spouse that allows me to acknowledge and feel my depression. It is hard to put into words what this does for me. To be able to say to the person who I am the most worried about abandoning me that "I'm depressed and I'm just not handling life great right now", It's like I've been buried alive and he's digging me out. To be able to have this side of me seen and acknowledged is like being alone in suffocating darkness, and they shine a light on you. When you have a spouse who can say to you in these moments "What can I do today to make your day better" or "Thank you for letting me know what is going on" or "It's completely reasonable for you to be feeling this way". For me, these are some of the most healing things that he can do to help me pull through. I no longer have to work at belonging, I am accepted. There is a difference between belonging and acceptance. I spent most of my life masking, aka trying to fit in and belong. Saying exactly how I am feeling when I am feeling it and having my spouse love and support me through it.... that = acceptance.
Allowing my depression to be someone in the room that is seen and acknowledged allows me to use less energy to manage my depression and to use less energy to recover. I recover faster. My episodes don't seem to be as low or last as long. There is not this mountain of anxiety lurking in the background wondering if he will notice I'm not okay, or if he will be annoyed that I am not my bubbly, happy self. I have openly acknowledged that I am not okay, and he has openly accepted that. We work together as a team to do what needs to be done for everyone to feel like their needs are being met. There is no judgment, resentment, or blame being thrown. Just acceptance of where I am at and where he is at. This also allows me to not be so defensive, and to be able to see outside of myself to understand and acknowledge just how much he does for me, and for my kids. It's easier for me to be able to see how I can help him, even through a lens of depression. I don't have to be 100% okay in order to be helpful, and he is willing to accept what I can give. He is grateful for what I can give him in these moments, and it helps heal me when I have something to give that is accepted.
I will forever be grateful that we have made it to this point in our relationship. He lifts me up and helps me to want to be a better person.
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