Relationships: state of your status

Do you know how difficult it is to be in a relationship with someone you love and know that at some point your depression is going to hurt them or make them leave? And it doesn’t matter how many times she tells you that she loves you despite your illness, it doesn’t change that feeling and thought process.

To know in your heart; because of it, you aren’t right for them. And you start to notice that your depression is starting to become the unstable foundation for strange changes in the relationship.

The reason for this post is: last night I picked my partner up from work. She began to tell me about her day. She talked about a man at work who makes her laugh and that triggered a depressive episode.

All I could think was that she must come home to me and the monkeys in my head. I try to make her laugh, but sometimes I can’t even raise the corners of my mouth.

I have always used humour as a coping mechanism and to hear that someone else can have that effect on her stirred my monkeys. It got wild in my head, very quickly.

I spent the whole journey in silence. Hardly moving a muscle on my face. I couldn’t physically interact. All the time thinking about how my silence was affecting the way she was telling the story and how I looked like I was being moody because she was talking about a man at work.

The funny thing about relationships is: you spend more time away from each other, because of work, friends, family commitments, than in each other’s company – most of the time. So it’s begs the question, Why be in a relationship in the first place and especially when you’ve got depression?

I was completely honest with my partner about my depression from the start and I remember saying to her, “I am better on my own, that way I don’t affect anyone negatively!”. I still feel that way. So again, how difficult it is to be in a relationship with someone you love and know that at some point your depression is going to hurt them or make them leave?

Well the answer may be that it is impossible!

You see, my depression will never go away. I will always have moments of just wanting to be on my own away from everyone, so I don’t affect anyone in a negative way. I often ask my partner about wanting to be in a relationship with someone with depression and why she would want to do it, given there are so many other men in the world who don’t have it.

It’s a constant question in my head.

She always tells me that I’d be surprised at how many people do suffer from it and that she has never met anyone who deals with it in the away that I do. She always says that I am amazing and that she doesn’t want to be with anyone else …. Ever.

Unfortunately, the monkeys won’t let me believe her. They keep trying to convince me that she’s as mad as me and that she would be better off without me.

Relationships are hard enough sometimes, but spread an unhealthy amount of mad monkeys on top and all hell breaks loose. I am not sure where this post I going or whether there is a solution but I thought It was worth mentioning.

I am 100% positive that there are many people out there with similar questions or thought processes. I just wanted to share mine.