QuietRock

Female
27 years old 

 

Where to start?

 

Starting is always so hard because you don’t know where to start or where to look at first. All I know is at the moment I am very much in love with a man that I feel I don’t really know. At the start of our relationship, everything was normal. We went out for dinner, enjoyed lazy nights in drinking wine and eating takeaway, the long phone calls each night and sometimes me calling during my lunch hour to say a quick hello. But 6 months into the relationship, I noticed something. I noticed that I was always being kept at arm's distance. So many parts of his life I didn’t know or would never be allowed access to. It was as if he kept every aspect of his life in top secret files, these files were kept in order and most definitely not mixed up, they all had to be kept separate at a distance he felt comfortable with. If I touched those files, he would snap.

 

I soon started to blame myself, I wondered if I ever did enough, what else I could do to let him let me in, I felt like I wasn’t reaching MY full potential as a partner. I had all this love to give him, while he accepted it I felt like I wasn’t bringing the best out of him or the best out of myself. I soon felt that my very best wasn’t good enough.

 

Soon, I was pushed well away for unknown reasons. I had no warning; I thought things were going well. Unfortunately, something was working beyond my control and I was left devastated, but something inside me told me to stick it out. It felt as though I knew I didn’t believe my partner when he told me to leave. I chose to stay with him. Despite all the horrible things that were said to me, and the confusing actions of my partner, I chose to stay. It took two weeks to prove that feeling right. Today I still have that feeling.

 

For months as a carer, I’ve had my highs when my partner would contact me, and I’ve had my devastating lows when I wouldn’t hear from him. The lows were the hardest times. They were hard because my decision to stay was being tested to its maximum and then some. I found myself just waking up and literally asking myself, “Do I still have it in me to stay with him today?” I soon grew to understand that I had to become ‘friends’ with my decision to stay with my partner. I had to grow with my decision and mature with it. I knew I couldn’t spit the dummy at my partner if I couldn’t get whatever I wanted then and there, because I realised something else was at work.

 

I soon gained confidence in my new ‘friendship’ with my decision to stay. I found when the times got tough, I was always rewarded with something – by what my partner said and sometimes what he did. It could be something small like a kiss on the shoulder when we are giving each our last goodbye cuddle before he left to go into his ‘cave’ – that is just enough to let me know that letting me go is probably ten times harder than what I’m going through leaving him, even though he would never tell me or let me see what he is really feeling on his face. It’s that one small thing that makes me stay and believe that he will return to me again. I will always search for that small something and appreciate it. I’ve come to understand it’s my partners VERY small way of reaching to me.

 

After understanding this, I soon had an urge to research depression. I will never ever forget the day I picked up my first book about depression and read its ‘symptoms’. A light bulb went off in my head after reading it and my heart was incredibly happy and light – I HAD AN ANSWER! I was so happy I started to cry! I finally had an answer and I continued to read more and more about Depression.

 

I stumbled across Depressionet randomly while looking for that information I craved, and read about what Depression was exactly like from the sufferers point of view. It brought tears to my eyes reading about all these experiences. It moved me so much that I looked at my behaviour towards my partner, finally starting to realise what he might be feeling and going through. Reading these experiences gave me confidence and equipped me with information of personal experiences to help me have some kind of a relationship with my partner without being hurt. It made me feel incredibly saddened knowing now how much loss he has experienced by pushing everyone away – friendships, relationships, family, he would have lost it all at some point. I became determined to not have him lose me. I knew that no matter how much he pushed me away and hurt me, I knew that I would stay. This was my decision and mine alone. And I decided to wear it, proudly.

 

I think of the information I got from Depressionet - let alone the support from feedback from other members on Depressionet - as my armour to protect me from my partner's Depression, as if his Depression was some type of King Arthur like Dragon I had to be protected from. I imagine these silver plates connected together on my legs, my arms, my head and my heart. I’m learning to live with and love this armour I’m in. It keeps me safe and level headed when at other times I would be so emotional when my partner goes into his ‘cave’. I realise now that my partner’s depression brings out the best and the worst in me. Previously it brought out the worst in me. But now it’s up to me to make sure that my partner’s depression will bring the best out of me. My armour will never ever be bullet proof, but the damage is less harmful to me when he starts inflicting it.

 

My partner may be complicated, but it’s a complication that I know I can easily live with. It’s an illness and one that will always have to be monitored. But most of all it’s a complication that made me fall in love with my partner in the first place. It’s my job to embrace it.

 

Just a bit of advice to carer’s out there, this analogy helps me a lot. I think of myself as a pretty rock that my partner picked up beside a pond. When he feels like everything is getting too much, he throws me back out into the pond if carrying me gets too heavy. He may have thrown me away but I still remain in that exact same pond where he threw me. It may take some time but I know he will come back to that same pond, looking for me, and I know if I’m there he will pick me up again and clean me off and keep me close again.

 

Arm yourselves with information, screw the mental illness stigma and bring on the love, faith and belief that these people want and need. They have been let down way too many times before. But also remember they will come back. 

 

January 2011