Obviously, we are a family in crisis...thank you for your thoughts and support. As many of you suggested, we are going to try therapy. I am not sure where this will lead. Maybe it is divorce therapy...or maybe it's a place for my feelings to hold equal floor to Stinky's overwhelming depression. I have been stuck feeling angry and angry, and angrier for so long...I let myself get swept up in the undertow of Stinky's depression, even as I thought I could inure myself from it. If we are to move on, we have to restore the emotional equilibrium in our relationship. We have to face the real damage that we've both done to one another. And after all that, we have to find a way to heal.
It's very good for me to hear the other side-- it seems depression has touched many of us in one way or another. It is good to have the perspective from others who are dealing with it on either side. I don't know how not to be controlled by it... or is being in a relationship with a depressed person like being with an alcoholic: you automatically are drawn into the disease?
Let me be perfectly clear: The following is only my emotional reality and mine alone. I am in no way am I trying to portray Stinky as a villain -- she is a fundamentally good person, but we have some serious problems in our relationship.
This is the cycle: The depression hits-- Stinky gets angry/sad/snarky about something; I push back; we argue; we go to bed angry. The next day (or two days later) Stinky says, "I'm sorry, I was being a jerk. Thank you for putting up with me. I'm so messed up..." Then she puts on a sad face and asks if I still love her, at which point it is my role to care-take for her and reassure her with hugs and profess my undying love-- and then Stinky is reassured and redeemed, and the whole exchange (in part because I know the script by heart) leaves me feeling manipulated and exhausted-- I have once again been played by her depression. In Stinky's depressed world, any action is justified or redeemed by love, any emotion is trumped by sadness.
Stinky's father is a Holocaust survivor. Her mother fled North Korea as a child during the Japanese invasion. Family du Stink have perfected the art of invalidating anyone else's emotions by trumping them with the weight of their own tragedy. I am not diminishing the unfathomable suffering of living through war and the Holocaust, but the residual effects of those things is that sadness is wielded like an emotional cudgel, and the person with the biggest one wins. True story: Stinky's nephew needed some extensive and painful dental work. When another family member expressed sympathy, he replied "It's ok, [Grampa] lived through the Holocaust." There's perspective, and then there's self-erasure. I feel like I have been living with the latter for far too long.
More soon. Therapy tomorrow. Thank you again for all your thoughts.
Wow re: the Holocaust comment.
ReplyDeleteDoes the therapist ever suggest that you try to make yourself happy while Stinky's dealing with her depression? I mean, your happiness is just as important as hers, so can you continue to do the things you love while she's working on it? Find time to see your friends, do the hobbies you like, meet new people even. Maybe even discuss the possibility of opening your marriage if sex is a huge issue as I read in the comments of the last post. As much as it sucks that Stinky is dealing with this disease, it's also not right for you deal with being miserable day in and day out. Your happiness matters, too. Perhaps a discussion to have in the near future?
I as raved about therapy in my last comment, Ill save the cheering, but I really do think giving yourself a voice (a seat at the table, as it were) will really help. Having an outside perspective on the situation as well as another witness can be helpful. I find it easier, at times, to explain to someone other than W, why her actions are hard or hurtful. We both hate conflict and so somehow bringing in a mediator to instigate the discussion makes it feel less personal/aggressive. I hope you find the support you need, and that the process of talking helps connect you two. Now that summer is in the air, let us know if you are ever boston-bound and we can try another play date!
ReplyDeleteI'm speaking as the child of parents who split in no small part due to one parent's depression and as an adult who experiences recurrent major depression.
ReplyDeleteIt is critical that you get the self-care and support that you need as the partner of someone experiencing depression. It is fair to clearly articulate your needs and seek their fulfillment. It is important to find ways to let Stinky's depression be hers and not control your emotional life so much.
In addition to helping you through this, self-care and support for you will help you respond to Stinky and her depression with compassion while respecting your own emotional/spiritual/physical/mental needs and dreams. Your child will see much of this. If your child experiences mental illness later in life (as I have), he will have the memory of how you responded to Stinky’s depression and may expect you to respond to him the same way. If your child’s future partner experiences mental illness, he will have a model from you for how to respond.
This doesn't mean you and Stinky need to stay together or that you need to sacrifice your joy to the altar of Stinky's depression. One way to help your child is to show him healthy, loving, boundary-setting, and boundary-respecting ways of responding to people with mental illness.
Thank you so much for this. Part of my anger/fear/flight instinct is that I don't want to model this emotional dysfunction for The Boy. I told Stinky before we started TTC that she had to get stable because I did not want to put a child through the dark stuff. I never thought about the benefits of modeling compassion and boundary-setting as a healthy response in all situations...That's certainly better than my fight-or-flight mentality.
DeleteLove this advice.
DeleteThe Stinky family narrative is really powerful, in a very hard way. Thanks for providing that window, because I think that is huge. First, great step on the couples therapy. Second, what if Stinky could see how powerful it could be to break the cycle of minimizing ones own emotions (and yours as well) to demonstrate to the boy how to deal with struggle together, and overcome it. Only she can break that cycle. Yes, I agree that depression can be damaging to a little one. But, the flip side is that modeling how a couple navigates hard stuff like this, with boundaries and real care, could be equally as powerful for him. He will at some point struggle in life, so to have these tools in his toolbox from watching you two navigate this deep dark time could actually be really good for him. My hope for you is that the therapy will help you guys shift that dynamic you described, where Stinky asks for forgiveness and you provide it reflexively - because this doesn't allow you to have your hard feelings about the depression. Your experience is AS IMPORTANT as hers. Anyone who says otherwise has never truly lived with mental illness and its insidiousness. It is a disease that steals the people you love right out from under you. Congrats on taking this step, I really hope it helps.
ReplyDelete(First, an apology for not commenting more. Yours is one of the blogger blogs that hates the ipad, and I'm rarely at a real computer. I am thinking of you, all the same!)
ReplyDeleteA few scattered thoughts:
1. I miss you! Come visit and recharge your soul on quality bagels.
2. I am dead jealous that you don't do that thing Stinky (didn't she used to be Speedy around here?) does about how your whole life is a failure. Sugar and I sure do. It sucks, and it's hard to turn off.
3. The holocaust child thing is HUGE. In my classes that read Maus, we often end up talking about intergenerational PTSD, which is a real thing that happens to real people. (Children of Holocaust survivors, American Indians who are essentially survivor descendents of genocide, etc.) I am not saying that means S has no responsibility to work actively on her mental health, but perhaps some reading on I-PTSD might help with strategies/understanding? I don't know, but I know for me, knowing that what I am experiencing (mentally or physically) is a recognized thing that happens to other people is a huge relief.
4. All that said, I am nodding vigorously along with the people emphasizing the importance of taking care of YOU. You are doing a lot to take care of your family, and that's bound to wear a person out. Finding ways to make sure you are taken care of can only help, no matter what steps you and S take next.
5. xoxoxo
Oh, Schroe!
ReplyDeleteI am just catching up. First off, lots of support and good thoughts for you, for what it's worth. This is so hard.
You're very insightful re Stinky's family culture and how her illness manifests. I'm impressed by that. Terrible as its effect is, you are trying to understand it.
I hope that therapy helps. I hope that meds help. Bionic mentioned CBT, which has worked wonders for me re: anxiety, much better than traditional talk therapy, in fact. I hope, above all, that you take care of yourself and set the boundaries you have to set. As someone else mentioned, that's as important as anything and vital to model to the Boy. My wife suffers from depressive tendencies and I practically live with a mother-in-law who is bipolar, and my own mother has bouts of severe depression, so boy, I have been around it. The worst is the way that it can take over, as you describe here. Don't let it. Make the space you need to make. Maybe that's what Stinky needs to see: that you have to set limits, that you can't just keep reassuring her that everything's ok and she's lovable and so on. You mention that desire for external affirmation, and you're so right to zero in on it as an issue. I hope that she finds some equilibrium about that. Ultimately (as we all KNOW, but which is so hard to implement) she HAS to be able to affirm herself. Anyway, not sure I have much in the way of great advice, but thinking of you.