January blue sky

January has been hard on the depressed people in my household. I find it difficult to comprehend, because we live in a part of the country where the sky stays blue all winter long, unlike where I grew up, where it really is gray all the time for months at a stretch. So when my depressed people tell me that the lack of "light" is why they are struggling, I find it hard to understand, since we already live where other people come in the winter to get light.

My incomprehension aside, this has been a tough winter for my family. My husband finally got so lost in his depression that he could no longer cope with it by himself, so I spent several days last week hunting down low-cost mental health services. My husband and I have no health insurance (our kids do, though), and while we could swing a visit to the doctor and even some medication, treatment for depression is certainly going to require multiple visits and we won't be able to swing that. So I did finally find a source that will allow us quite a few visits to both a doctor and therapist at significantly reduced cost. The earliest appointments were about a week out, so we won't start visiting providers until the end of this week.

The interesting thing, though, is that as soon as my husband learned that help was coming, even though it was a week away, he started to feel better. It's almost like once he committed to leaning on someone else, the pain began to lessen. I'm mighty glad, and can't wait to get him to the help he needs so that he can relax even more. It was painful for me to watch him.

It was also painful to be the one on the other side. All the household responsibility falls to me when he sinks so low, and although he can still get up and do certain tasks, he can only do them if I specifically assign him to do them and there are only certain ones that he can do. And he cannot handle any real life problems, like our rapidly dwindling funds. I avoid talking to him about my own stresses, because so often it exacerbates the problem for me rather than helps, as he is likely to have a major anxiety, self-hating epsiode if I tell him we're having problems. When he is not depressed he is a wonderful partner. When he is depressed, he's not only not a help, he's an additional problem. So on behalf of myself, I am also glad he is going to see professional personnel this week.