Has anyone seen my get-up-and-go?

[beatrice]

Hi, I am so sorry that you feel so depressed and down. This takes a very long time to come to terms with. I do relate strongly to everything you wrote, and all I can say is that thankfully I no longer feel that way.

The only advice I can give you is to go for a financial separation from your husband. I imagine, from what you wrote, that like me, divorce runs absolutely counter to what you believe, [although finally after a long time and then a very long drawn out process my h divorced me]. However protecting ourselves is important too, and it takes two committed people to make a marriage.

I am not doubting your belief in God's plan, but if you read the OT carefully you will see that He accomplishes His plan in some very strange and indirect ways, as well as some startlingly direct ones at times. Your husband does have financial obligations to you, and at the very least you need a separation order to protect your interests. The Bible view of marriage is very clear that husbands have obligations to their wives. It is a convenant, as well as a legal contract.

The second thing is to procure a copy of the book The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson. That book helped to heal me and restore my enjoyment in life, more than any other I read. It is written by a psychotherapist who was herself abandoned by her long term partner, and realised that the perspective of the abandoned person, and the wounds they feel, is poorly understood. The exercises seem strange but it worked for me and others I know who that have used it I resisted for along time, thinking I did not need to read another book on the subject.

It helped me to break my cycle of going round and round and not getting better emotionally. I really relate to the loss of get up and go, but it comes back. And then you start to enjoy things again, slowly, slowly.

Like you, I experienced a lot of death of friends and family, and I remember thinking how cruel it was that they should die and I go on living. Please believe me when I say that it will pass, and you will feel better. My husband and family were central to my life, as they were to all of the good people here. We wouldn't be here if we didn't care. I was married for well over 30 years when this happened, which is quite late to start over! But I have, and I am living my life fully again.

[Dawn of Hope]

Beatrice, thanks so much for posting to me. I do appreciate it, even if it has taken me 3 months to respond ... I find that it's not healthy for me to be here on the boards all the time the way I was in the beginning, but I am still grateful for anyone who wants to respond to me. I'll have to add that book to the list. (I read probably 100 fictional books for every nonfiction one, but I haven't completely given up hope on getting myself to read nonfiction.) I am so glad to hear that you are living your life fully again, as you put it. It's a bit different for me, since I don't think I've been living my life fully since the age of 13 (when the depression started), so for me it's not just a matter of finding my way back to a modified version of what I was enjoying before the bomb; it's basically going to involve a complete makeover of my psyche.

The whole matter of H's having financial obligations to W's is a thorny one. I'll just say that H's also have a clear (even Biblical) obligation to be faithful to their W's, and I'm not making an issue of that at present either, because it would be like spitting into the wind.

My house finally went on the market about six weeks ago, and there have been about a dozen showings, and we've dropped the price once already. I've gotten burned out to the point where I'll vacuum and such before a showing, but I figure that whatever I don't get to (like vacuuming the pool) before the showing, they can just lump it. This house is 30 years old and wasn't built with top-quality materials and workmanship, but it has a good-sized in-ground pool, a hot tub in the (fully finished) basement, three bedrooms, three full baths, a wet bar, a dance floor, a pool room, a yard with some truly hideous and overgrown bushes, and a fence that is overdue for replacement (part of it fell down 2 weeks after going on the market). This is far too much house for one person to take care of alone, at least unless that person has a lot more energy or time or money than I do. Especially since I also have three cats, two of whom are seniors, one of whom has been refusing to use the litterbox at all for the last several years, and the other of whom has been very sick, sometimes to the point of making an average of four messes on the floor or bed every day, and who needs three or four medications every day. And I'm running my own business and trying to keep from drowning financially, with minimal success. And this doesn't even mention that I am fighting the overwhelmingly life-sucking effects of depression with no medication, no therapy, and a minimum of societal support in my life. So if a potential buyer is bothered because the pool is green on the bottom, fine, but I'm not going to feel guilty about it. I am DONE feeling guilty about things which are beyond what a reasonable person could be expected to handle, or are not my fault. Okay, rant over.

I was just reading through the rest of this thread, which I started almost 2 years ago. One of the things which struck me was how little I have progressed in that time. I'm still feeling and thinking and acting in similar ways. I think I have changed in that time, but not as much as some do under similar circumstances. I was doing reasonably well with detachment two years ago, but I'm doing better now. I had hoped to be a lot farther along by now in releasing anger and unforgiveness, but I feel pretty stuck there.

[Dawn of Hope]

I got notified today that my house is going into foreclosure on August 2. I thought H had arranged with the mortgage company that this wouldn't happen, but I guess not. I am too tired and too beaten down to really panic about this, although it is quite disturbing.

In some ways I am much better than I was when all this M nightmare started, almost 4 years ago now. My emotions aren't constantly jerked around by every little thing or fresh horror. The price is that I am pretty jaded about the whole thing, and the way I protect myself from falling apart every five minutes is that I have built a huge wall against feeling much of anything if I can avoid it. The fact that I'm constantly running on far less sleep than I need doesn't really do me any favors.

I have to get some sleep now so that I can prepare for a showing of my house in less than 5 hours, and I have a grossly overdue work project to finish, and then I am supposed to be in a piano recital this afternoon (which always makes me more nervous than anything else I've ever done in my life), and I am behind on practicing my performance piece.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

[Dawn of Hope]

Not sure if anyone is still out there paying attention, but here's an update.

H says he will borrow money to halt the foreclosure if necessary. We thought we were going to get an offer on the house a week ago, but it fell through due to a credit problem with the potential buyers. So I keep slogging along, trying to keep things in shape for showings and trying not to take it personally when they say mean (and sometimes untrue) things about the house.

I've had a fair amount of work coming in (this is part of my busy season), which is very good because it means more income.

On the negative side, my sleep schedule is completely out of whack and I'm procrastinating on a lot of things, some with serious negative consequences. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make the depression and all of its wonderful effects go away, although I know perfectly well that's not going to happen. The trouble is that for anything to improve, _I_ have to break the inertia and change it, which is one of the most difficult things on earth for a person with depression.

As I have said many times, one of the insidious traps of depression is that the disease seriously diminishes one's ability and interest regarding fighting the disease. It's something like an AIDS patient who requires a shot of medication but is too weak to give themselves the injection, and other people are too afraid of contracting the disease to come near the patient (like in the bad old days when AIDS was first discovered; if you remember, AIDS sufferers were "untouchable," on top of all the other horrors they endured). Depression makes other people not want to be around you, and yet in a lot of cases, it's almost impossible to do what it takes to lessen the effects of depression by yourself, so you just get worse ... vicious spiral. I can't tell you the number of times I have wondered if H would still have walked if my disease had been cancer or something else that there are clear tests for, rather than depression. So much for "in sickness and in health," eh? Okay, enough of that.

I just had a birthday at the beginning of the month, and it was nice to get some good wishes. Gotta love FaceBook and their birthday reminder feature.

Someone I never met before yesterday (at a recital for a mutual acquaintance) wants me to teach a calligraphy class for her little arts organization, which is close to home for me. It's a small thing, but I'm choosing to look at it as a divine push forward, and as a sign that I haven't been totally forgotten by God.

My sick cat is doing better. She will have to be medicated forever, but for the moment her ailments are being managed. She was even running around the house and playing last week, which I haven't seen her do for the better part of a year! Thank you, God.

[Queen_of_Swords]

Dawn I have been clinically depressed in my past.
I understand exactly what you're saying.
When it's so hard to even get out of bed to do basic self maintenence, it's like climbing a freaking mountain to do anything more.

(((Dawn)))

[Dawn of Hope]

Thanks for the support and hugs, SC! (I was starting to wonder a bit if I had put everyone off, or to sleep!)

I never know how much of my bad attitude and difficulty getting things done are just a personal character failure and how much are due to legitimate depression. <sigh> People say, "Try doing x/y/z," and sometimes I manage the attempt, but so far either what I've done hasn't made a permanent difference, or I haven't even gotten as far as taking the action to try. Having been through this cycle more times than I like to think about, the next thought which follows is, "Well, I wouldn't want to hang out with someone that negative either, so I can't blame H or any of the other people who have dropped out of my life."

If anyone has any idea what I can do to actually change things--something that won't get lost in the inertia of depression--I'd like to hear about it.

[Queen_of_Swords]

For myself Dawn, intially I used a course of antidepressants and cognitive/stress management therapy to pull me out of the suicidal pit I was in that lasted a year.

Things were if not great, manageable for a long while.

During this last couple years I stumbled across the work of Dr. Daniel Amen.
I read his books "This Is Your Brain on Love" and "This Is Your Brain on Joy." and after reading them decided on my own to use the recommended supplementation regimen for my particular challenge. IMO, it has helped me along with the personal development work I'm doing.

I don't hit the pit of despair often or for too long where it's affecting my day to day motivation.

You can find short descriptors of what's going on at Becky's Joy Bistro ( a blog) look down the right side for articles of a particular nature or you'll get bogged down in recipes.

What has also helped is taking up meditation.
Your milage may vary.

I hope my experience can help you in some way.

[Dawn of Hope]

Hey, SC, thanks for the info. I will see about getting those books from the library. Is the first one you mentioned going to be useful for a DBer who rarely sees their WAS, or is it likely to just be a painful reminder of everything one no longer has?

So is that your blog? I looked it up, and there is some interesting stuff there, so I need to go back and spend more time.

Thanks again for the suggestions. It would be so nice to not feel like every blinking thing was like lifting boulders, you know?

[Queen_of_Swords]

Is the first one you mentioned going to be useful for a DBer who rarely sees their WAS, or is it likely to just be a painful reminder of everything one no longer has?

It's more a clinical analysis of what's going on biochemically in the brain so it's not likely to remind you much of what you've lost. At least it didn't do that for me, as I was more interested in the why and how of it and how it pertained to my function, not my situation.

No, it's not my blog.

I know what you mean by lifting boulders. See if you can break them down into pebbles, that way hauling them is easier.