Most
of you know that I suffer depression and anxiety on a daily basis. Even with medication, it isn’t always easy to
get through a day. This changes a lot
when there are things around me in my life that are difficult. Could be something big or small that sets me
off and I am either ready to crawl out of my skin because I cannot sit still,
or I am numb and can barely move.
When
I lived alone, it didn’t matter what was happening to me, because there was no
one around that it affected. Now that I
have a family, I cannot help but feel like I am a complete disappointment. I feel like I make everyone unhappy and at
times, I am just a complete drag. I have
nightmares about it and they manifest into my daily life, leaving me feeling
scared and alone in my fears. A lot of
times I have to try to reconcile how I feel with how they are really feeling
and at the end of the day, there is more my fears than their actual feelings.
Right
now my boyfriend and I are trying to make it together, trying to pay bills with
the looming end of the month when his seasonal job ends and he is back to
looking for work, again. We balance
work, home, kids, each other - - well not much time for each other. By the end of the day we are both so
exhausted, it just feels like we coexist, anymore. On top of that we are
dealing with our 15 year old who got in trouble with the police, ran away from
home and dropped out of school. My
boyfriend is a mess in his own way, our other two daughters are dealing, but it
is hard on them. We don’t know what to
do about everything and live in a constant state of limbo wondering if she will
ever come home again. Her selfishness is
both annoying and heartbreaking. I love
my daughter and I want her to come home, but she has changed so much and she
doesn’t care about anyone else but herself right now. That isn’t how it works in a family. I hate what she has done to her father and
her sisters more than anything. She has
no idea how much she has completely decimated this family. We do not function as a whole anymore. We all feel the loss and miss the best parts
of her, daily.
I
feel like I have to be at my best right now for them, but deep inside, I am at
my worst. I don’t want my boyfriend to
feel like with everything going on he needs to worry about or take care of me,
but I am a mess inside. I am stuck in a loop of worry about our daughter, anger
over the whole situation, sadness over what it is doing to everyone and all of
these things added to my normal depression and anxiety have me feeling like I
can barely function anymore. Which is
hard with a full time job at a very busy law office.
I
feel like a complete failure as a girlfriend, friend, mother and human being in
general. I pray and pray and feel like
it is just empty. I know God is there,
He has never failed me, but my depression isolates me and I feel so alone. My boyfriend doesn’t even know how to deal
with me anymore, because one minute I am angry and arguing, the next I am
defeated and don’t care. I am just as
sick of it as he is; though his patience with me is the most beautiful gift.
I
think the hardest part is that I have lived this before. I know what it is like when one or more of
your siblings runs away and you are left with your parents who don’t know what
to do or how to keep everyone moving.
God was with me as that young child.
I did not understand what was happening.
So I try to explain it to my girls, and to my boyfriend. It is hard for me to have hope of change,
because in my life, they never changed, not until they were adults anyway. We try so hard to keep moving and keep having
fun and do things together as a family because we do not want them to be stuck
in this endless cycle of worry and fear, even though we ourselves are.
I
keep praying for all our girls. I keep
praying for my boyfriend, for us as a family.
I may not always be at my best, but I pray daily that God protects us
and keeps us together. That He will take
away all my fears and help me feel better, help my boyfriend and our girls feel
better. I just want to feel better so I
can be at my best for the people I love the most.
I
need some hope.
