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First time mom fighting years of depression
I'm a 24/f wife & mother. I live with my husband and his side of the family, and my family is in another state. My husband and I work part-time on alternating schedules to take care of my now 8 month old daughter.
Ever since I had my daughter I have lost nearly all of my friends, and the ones I've kept always seem to be too busy to ever hang out so it's like I don't have any. Since my husband and I work alternating times we don't get much time to spend together, and when we do get time he just plays his videogames and doesn't really want to do anything else together. I'm always the one taking care of our daughters needs and I have to nag him for help and he makes a big deal out of it. We lost our place a little bit before my daughter was born and have been staying with his mother, and she doesn't help us at all, even when I could really use the break. Everyday I daydream about how much better it would be if I just disappeared, I feel so beaten down, I just want to give up.
My life is just too overwhelming for me and I feel like the only thing that keeps me here is my daughter, but even that just barely helps. I don't know what to do with myself anymore and I feel extremely alone. I could use some sort of help with dealing with all these dark thoughts (the Crisis hotlines never work for me.)
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This will be long but I promise I am trying to ex plain a lot to you as I have faced stuff similar in how it effected me. Your title says years of depression. If you were depressed before marriage, then I suggest seeing a psychologist who deals in CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. If so, and you need the link to a page on line, let me know. Otherwise by what you wrote of just the things going on now, If anyone else had to face what you are facing, they would be depressed too. I had a bad life with my ex, basically being the one to do it all and care of 3 kids with no help from and verbal abuse from the ex. This lasted about 30 years until the kids were out of the house. Now I wish I had left him earlier. What you have doesn't sound like clinical depression which is when your body is unable to create the hormones needed to help you deal with the stress. When we are low or have run out of what is called 'Feel Good” hormones, we become stressed and ongoing stress without any ammo so to speak of these hormones in store, you will end up feeling depressed. I will explain a bit more to be sure you are clear on what depression is, how to get rid of it and then you will know that you have to make some changes for sure in order to survive.
I said the hormones can run low or run out if you are using it up too fast due to lots of stress. The b ody naturally creates these hormones in most people. The receptors in our brains need them to be able to handle stress. Lets put it this way to imagine how important this is. Lets say you are dying of thirst and open the fridge but there is nothing left to drink. A quick fix is to grab a glass and turn on the faucet but no water comes out. Someone forgot to pay the long overdue water bill and it has been shut off.
You can't expect to have water to deal with your thirst if there simply isn't any. That is what is happening when people don't do one or both of the following:
One is simple actions you take to boost what creates these hormones in the first place and the result is instant. I know as I use these all the time daily or weekly to make sure I don't run low so I never run out anymore.
The other thing is to make bigger changes, like removing the biggest things causing your stress if shifting things around, getting willingness from partner and both getting counseling to start the process towards healing.
Right now, one thing I can see as easy to work on because it involves only you, is to sign yourself and child up for attending a Mommy and Child play group meet up in your area. This gives Moms and children a change for social interaction and its a great way for Moms to make new friends with new Moms who already have that very thing in common. Many of old friends may not have kids and not be able to relate to you since you are married and a Mom now. Try community boards to see if any are advertised, ask the pediatrician where you can learn of Mother Child circles in your area, or you can try the internet and look for Meet ups dot come. I won't put the actual dot here as it takes me straight to the site for my area. You will see what I mean when you bring it up. There is a place to put your city or zip code to get listings of different meet ups in your area. I once say one of Moms who met with babes in strollers to go walking all together and at the end as a group stopping by a juice bar for refreshment . This was a regular weekly meetup. If most these meetings are held mornings and you work mornings,, you may have to get approval to switch your hours at your job and also get the husband to agree to the change in his schedule.
The second big issue is not having time together. I understand that it is because of the choices you are making to be able to make budget ends meet. It is much tougher now for young parents than when I was raising my kids and even then, it was just starting to become an issue. My next idea comes from a couple I know of who are doing the thing I will mention next. The wife is a barista at Starbucks and her Husband as well at another location. They had a few little children and can't afford a rent on their own, so they rent a house they share with another family in the same position as them. I believe the other couple both work as well. However with four adults rather than just two, it was easier for the other couple to watch the kids some evening so the other couple can have a date night out and then trade to help each couple out. For an uninterrupted night in bed, consider a date night in, where the kids if old enough are told to not disturb Mom and Dad and I suggest a locking door knob or at least a latch on door jamb to lock from inside. So the other couple has theirs and your kid/kids to feed, entertain with a movie, and put to bed and take care of any needs that come up. You both would do the same for them. This will not work if your husband can't agree to any of this or leaves it all up to you to take care of both couples kids while he plays games.
The first relationship before the child is a wee bit more important than the children because if things aren't right and the relationship not nurtured, it will fall apart. Perhaps yours can still be saved. I am sure you are willing to try anything but it takes some times an outside person to hear both sides and offer the logical solutions or help you to find your own solutions. You made a step in writing here but none of us are marriage counselors or counselors of any kind. You say your in law is I to help. So I see this as something to shoot for, sharing rent with another couple, and it will take both couples searching for the perfect house, one where the upstairs and downstairs are two complete living quarters with own bath, kitchen bedrooms and general area. My grand daughter and her remarried Dad with new wife and three other kids share such a house with his married brother and it is working for them. Also, with four kids, his wife is creative in finding alone time. She contacted every relative not living with them, to let her know who wants to take which child for which days of school spring break and that way got all of them scheduled out for the whole week. Of course, that means having plenty enough relatives close by to do that.
I would like to mention something just in case your hubby is as miserable as you. He just may not show it the same way. I believe I understand men fairly well. One big thing to them is having time to be spontaneous with his woman, enjoy kisses and cuddles and touches whenever together and having sex as regularly as their libido needs it. Some people do okay with once every week, every other week and others desire it as much as every day or every other day. If this part of his life is not going well, it will disrupt their wellbeing. Men can get depressed too, but that level before of just stress, no matter what the stress is, outside of his relationship with the wife, if he's getting the love, attention and sex he needs, it will help him be able to handle all the rest, and even find the want to help and take equal parts in the rest, helping with chores, cooking, helping raise his kids. I met my second husband after my kids were grown but I know he is the kind who would help with kids because he does everything else like cooking, the wash, cleaning, running errands for me and when he knows something is important to me, he will rearrange our budget so I can go ahead with whatever I need to purchase like a Birthday gift for grand daughter recently which meant we had to cut the budget in other areas but he insisted it was important even though I was willing to say an IOU in a birthday card. This is the kind of husband every woman meets. Money is tight and there is a lot on his plate, things I just can't do to help but all that stress melts away in bed with him. I don't lay there like a cold fish, but am very active in the participation and all is well.
So as far as the husband not helping, he may not really know what to do, other than drown out the focus of his miserable life that he figures there are no solutions to and video games is his choice, others take drugs, or drink to forget a miserable life. He, like you do not see any way out of your not so good living situation, tight budget etc. This is where it helps to go for counseling until you have learned to have some good communication tools and have figured out how to talk out situations and do some problem solving. Once you've got it down, you won't need a lifetime of seeing a counselor. But I highly recommend that, not just you going for therapy because you tell a psychologist that you feel depressed. If a counselor hasn't been trained to use CBT cognitive behavioral therapy which looks for ways to help a patient first that do not include medicine since 90% of people actually do not require meds and that is why they aren't getting the help they need. You don't need a personal depression counselor, you both need a regular counselor or marriage counselor to help you see a way out of the mess your lives are in right now.
If the husband is totally against reaching out for help or willing to work with you to make some changes, and switch thing s, then you are going to be always miserable and since kids learn by observing their parents, your child will learn a very distorted outlook on life. I did say I wish I had left the ex earlier and its because of the kids growing up watching him verbally abuse me. He yelled at them sometimes but his issue wasn't mentally with kids, he has some mental illness where he believed that any woman in his life would eventually leave him and so if one wasn't leaving him, he would treat them so bad that they would and he could self fulfill his prophecides. You can't change a person and if they are unwilling to recognize they have the issue and need to change, then sometimes the best thing is to separate and then divorce if he doesn't get serious about helping and getting professional help once you separate.
Having to take that step will involve a whole slew of other advice best gotten again from a therapist and your side of the family.
I hope its not too late for him. And don't be afraid to do what you have to do. This is not a failure on your part. I was 20 when I married and compared to what I know now, I really knew little back then. You are doing a step better than me, recognizing this can't go on, whereas I tried to find ways to muddle through and took the stress along with the physical problems. It wasn't until later in life when I asked myself if I could take the same without any improvement for another few months, I knew I could, for a year, well, I don't like it but I could, for 5 years, 10 or rest of my life? At that thought, I began to cry which answered it for me. If I had a partner unwilling to be the other half and take his equal share of responsibily for his own marriage, me and the kids, then he broke his marriage vows and would continue to do so and I was off the hook as far as vows and God are concerned, so I was told.
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