What It’s Like To Love Someone With Depression

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We were truly, madly, deeply, head-over-heels in love. But she was stolen from me in an instant by a terrible, sinister plague; her mind has been overcast by blackness. I now fully understand how thoughts can be detrimental to someone’s happiness. I’d never considered the complexities of over thinking before, but by having to teach someone how life isn’t such a scary nightmare, it is much easier to live life with a simplistic view. Be honest. I tell her I love her, even though I know she doesn’t believe me, if I’m lucky she will say it back half-heartedly. Since depression is so subjective, it is difficult to confide in others, besides, I’d feel like I was betraying her if I opened up about her deep, dark secrets. It’s strange how such ugly feelings and anxiety can be present inside such a beautiful person from the outside.

It has been tough, I answer phone calls at ridiculous o’clock just listening to her sobbing and wailing, trying my best to listen, helping her breathe and calm down. Personally, I feel if we went to bed together at night and I held her in my arms she’d feel love in her heart, the warm and fuzzy kind. But she feels distant from the person she used to be, I think she sees herself as two different people, happy-go-lucky and then a morbid and evil nobody. She thinks she can save herself all by her own strength, but what superhero has defeated the villain without help from a sidekick?

She goes from manic rage and anger and hatred towards anything and everything, to a hopeless, if not desperate, romantic. I want to give her the world. I want to show her the world. I want her to love the world. She always asks me questions about what my favourite memories are with her, why I love her, why I haven’t slept with someone else by now; she asks me in such an inconsolable manner as if we are running out of time. I know it’s easy to look back through rose-tinted glasses, but I think it helps to cheer her up by reminding her of happier times we spent together and letting her know there will be plenty more to come, for instance the night we first met, she was totaled and asked me over and over to marry her, I promised we will when we’re forty. I want her to realise I love all of her unconditionally- the light-hearted, kooky version, just as much as the (admittedly) odd character who is neither here nor there. I have come to learn there is never any right answer; someone with depression is fragile and sensitive, so any glimmer of hope I can give her is enough for me, if it lifts her spirits and makes her feel even a tiny reason to keep living.

Depression is truly a serious, life- altering illness, but I honestly believe we will get over this hideous hurdle and be walking on air together again, sooner or later. I hope. I love her for all she is and all she is yet to be.

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image – kevin dooley