I'm in constant pain, depression, it won't lift. I a wandering through life, and I can't put it back together. I can't process it. I don't come out of it. The depression keeps me from putting anything in context. Through life, I was always being moved from school to school, lack of making solid associations led to easily becoming "disassociated". When I married, the joy of belonging was intense, I (we) welcomed children (8), and then my wife met a woman friend, and it became clear, she had been unhappy, and escaped into this friendship. The ugly feeling of being lost, alone came back, and I fought back, deeply hurt, offended, I was left as if I had died, no need to call, she went on to celebrate her new life, which stung deeper. My connection to my kids keeps me wired to the pain, I see her attitude in them, that no one should be obligated to me, it's preferable to exercise your own perogative, anything is better than association with me.
Truth is, I was a good and attentive father, and had come to love and apprectiate my wife. Her interpretation was I was controlling and self absorbed. She has surrounded herself with woman friends, I felt strongly, she had lesbian inclinations. But I can't be sure, just the contrast in interest.
I thought I could build a life apart, but the exhaustion doesnt end. I have nothing to work with, no energy, no hope, the picture of a single father doesnn't make sense to me, I'm not getting it. I don't understand the way I've been treated, a marriage traded for having your own perogitive, with no specific idea of what that is, just not involving me. I felt the scope of marriage was infinite, what you could believe and hope for, in the other, in yourself, In you kids, in you work, etc... I've been killed, a super computer of intertwining emotions and thoughts ripped from my chest, I don't think I can be fixed, or work again. It's been over five years, and I'm getting worse, more worn out, more lost and alone. I don't expect any other relationship to work, or be sincere. When I see insincerety, I burn the bridge. There is no one that cares about me in any real way, my younger children share their child like love, but we all know that is temporary, I have teens that reflect there mother's attitude.
Like I said , I have depression, am not interested in drugs, this is life, I have a lot of resilience, but it doesn't matter, I cannot change this, I spend all my energy just doing very basic things. I am too tire to try to explain any more.

healing-

I'm sorry to be blunt, but there really isn't any other way around it-you have a deep chronic depression and just one of your life experiences is enough to sap someone's serotonin and make it almost impossible to function. So why are you "not interested in drugs" as you put it?

It's like a diabetic saying "I'm not interested in insulin."

Let me explain a bit. When we go through tough times, stress drains our natural chemical balance. Long term stress, like a difficult childhood, divorce, having teen agers in the house etc can knock that balance out of whack. Long term stress and completely drain it. Medication that help with this lack of seratonin are simply trying to help restore the balance your brain would have had before all the stress causing experiences.

You didn't make this happen but you can do something about it. You will continue to feel like things can't be fixed unless you are willing to have some help getting that balance again. And it isn't forever.

I understand what you feel, about the scope of M being infinite-I thought that too. As a covenant from God, M has the potential of illustrating Christ's great love for us. In the intimacy and vulnerability that we have in a M relationship, we also learn about stripping ourselves bare before God. The problem with M is that it takes two to make it work, but only one to kill it.

Please see your Dr. and get on some good AD's. It's only for a time-to get an even keel. Also, get into IC to help sort out some of the things in your past that are clinging to you like barnacles on an old ship.

Your teens are just being teens (I teach high school and have raised two-one to go...). Surly and unappreciative is just part of their nature.

I ditto Johnstwin. And I would like to add this: The depression makes you unable to be in a relationship. The depression is so overwhelming that one becomes self-absorbed, sucked into the vortex of the depression, and then the depressed one cannot maintain a relationship. How do I know? I’ve suffered depression myself, the first time I was 9.

Your relationships won’t improve until you get better. And when you get better, I bet you’ll find that there are people who care about you, your depression just got in the way of you seeing it, and being able to care back.

Finally, I’ll end on this note: If you continue to refuse to treat your condition, you are NOT a good father at all. If you had a treatable cancer, say prostate, and refused treatment, and thus died leaving behind your children to get along without you, you would be wrong. You’d be negligent.

Your children need you. Your teens need you. And you sit and wallow in your depression, letting the depression convince you not to get treatment and end its reign.

Please, go get treatment. Get a good psychiatrist who still does therapy if you can at all afford it. The synergy that comes from having your therapist also be the one controlling the ADs is amazing. If you can’t, get the very best therapist around who works with the best psychiatrist. I do not recommend getting ADs from your general practitioner simply because they don’t have the depth of experience a psychiatrist has and you are experiencing a major depression. The good news is the modern drugs are so much better than they were 20 years ago. They work in about two weeks. For me, they work in about 3 days, but then, I also suffer all the common side effects.

Hi Healingroad,

I 3rd the recommendations of getting some help. Depression is a nasty thing and it makes us think and feel things that aren't always rational or true. The good news is there is help. Talk to your doctor, seek out some counseling. You DO NOT have to go through this alone and you DO NOT have to feel the way you do. You just have to ask for some help.

And meds, well, I hate the stuff too. What I can say is that taking some meds will help you get your focus and that will help you get some things straighted out. Things will fall into perspective. Once you get on that path you can stop taking the meds (with your docs supervision).

Remember that teenagers are teenagers. It's really not about you at all. They just hate ya cause your the dad. If you are feeling as hopeless and depressed as you have said here I would imagine you're not a bucket of fun to be around and you may be creating some of that distance yourself. And if you are seeing your W whom you seem to resent a bit in them, well, they wouldn't have a chance would they? Try to see everyone in your family as individuals and don't allow yourself to make your kids suffer for your wife's mistakes or mistreatment of you.

And again, remember, alot of what you are feeling is the depression talking. Get some help. You don't have to go through this alone and if you get help you will start to see what you do have and what kind of life awates you.

Best to you,
Symphony

It is ok to get help as suggested but you also need a recovery plan. Do you have a good MC familiar w/MB concepts? Have you read SAA, HNHN? Are you done with your plan A improvements?

It won't get better unless you take the initiative to make it better 4 u and your family.

L.

Thanks for the advice. I 'm concerned about side effects. About a year ago I realized I was having some kind of panic attacks, waking up shortly after going to sleep, and felt the need to be there for my kids, but I realized my anger was so intense I needed to chill, and internalized it all. It was better to trust God than act on my feelings, but there was no way to act, she just hangs up with insane reasoning, accusing me of attitudes I don't have, celebrating her life with this other woman. Later I stepped back and analyzed one sentence from her and realized she'd lied, implied things that weren't true, made some things up, compared me to some standard, all while I stood outside a house with my family in it. I challenge anyone to walk away from that with reasonable thougts, but it helped to realize she has this affair type thing going on with this woman, and she's justifying it. Problem is she's dragged everything from the entire history of our marriage, so there's some truth in it, but we'd gone beyond it, but now it's handy to justify her new perogitives. There's something I can't get a grip on, this is more about her desires than my faults.
I saw a movie that was my life, A feast of love. A woman stole my wife's affections from me. It also showed a woman that wouldn't leave her "alpha male" lover who was cheating on his wife with her, even when she'd found a good guy to marry. It seems people are involved in relationships with me on thier way somewhere else. Love is unreturned.
I think if I can come to grips somehow, I won't need AD. Just the thought that it's too much for anyone gives me a shot of wellbeing.
I need to seek at least part custody, so my kids know I didn't leave them. 80% of my grief is thinking they're being let down.
I realize today life often involves a tranferrence of pain. The lion has the pain of hunger, and tranfers it to the gazelle. The pain and discomfort of feeing trapped with me in a marriage compelled my wife to find release with a woman who was passionate about her, and made her feel alive. The pain of lonliness in me found relief in my own family and wife, I thought if she wanted to, anything in me that could be considered controlling would be understood if she knew the fear I had of losing that. In reality, I was not controlling, especially compared to people she did accept.
If we can't release our pain, we internalize it. What if there's no place for it to go?
Thanks for you input.

Hi Healing,

I'm glad you came back to check in.

I do understand about AD's and if you are very resistant to starting those then let me recommend some altrernatives.

St. Johns Wart is a natural mood stabilizer and many people have good luck with that. I tried it years ago and found it made me too sleepy so I took it at night. I slept really well.

Anxiety- NOT fun!! What are you doing to ease that? I use a breathing technique that has been really helpful. I can post more about that if you want. Cutting back on caffiene helps too. Excerize and eating well are big ones. It's important to take care of yourself and it seems it's harder when one is depressed.

Whether you take AD's or not, or try any "do it yourself" remedies they won't replace talking to someone who can help you. When your perspectives and reality are scewed because of depression it is hard to come out. Having a trusted person to walk you through it can be very beneficial.

Life has pain, yes it does. But that doesn't mean we have to accept feeling bad and we have lots of alternatives to healing ourselves.

" If we can't release our pain, we internalize it. What if there's no place for it to go?"

What I am hearing from you is you understand that you shouldn't internalize pain. It eats you alive right? But letting it go...well there is alot of uncertainty in that. You are used to getting through your day, sometimes moment by moment with this pain. It's become your life. If you let it go...what happens? Who are you and what do you do? What will happen to you?
Yes?

I can tell you from my own experience that you don't need to plan ahead for what will happen or what you need to do. You will naturally find your course. Letting go clears your mind of old thinking and reacting and allows you to start new thinking patterns and new ways you want to be. You can choose!!!!!

The problem with letting go is it's often not that easy. Again that is where some IC will help

Symphony

I've been trying yerba mate drink and ginko something, as long as I eat light and stay away from fast food, it clears my head some. I notice a link between allergies that seem attached to a flare in bronchitis and the depression getting bad, so I think theres other factors, as well as circumstances and a genetic history.

i just took my kids bowling. They had a great time. As I left them at their home, my one son, who my wife sort of abandoned us both at the same time, he was one,now he's 7. I felt the need to be there for him, more in a nurturing role. She would nurse him, and put him down, no interaction, no stimulation.
He gives me hug after hug, and hangs on me, come out to the porch, and jumps off into my arms a few time, climbs up with me holding his hands and flips, this long parting ritual. Something in my gut relates, my own mother didn't mother me. My father abandoned. As I drive off, he'd come out and was chasing me, for one last goodbye. As I drove off I wanted to puke. I worked so hard so she could be home with them, and they could have two parents. Now because of her "lesbianesque entitled it has to be about me return to adolescence, young children go to bed with the loose attention of teenagers. Their house is a mess. I'm afraid if I say anything, the dam will break, I'm pissed off as ******, so I drive off and feel myself sinking. Another ambiguous day. It was hard enough to understand life's purpose when things were going well, I don't know what to make of any day.

After writing the last post, about not knowing what to do with pain, something odd happened. I don't usually dream lately. I fell into a deep sleep, and dreamed a vivid dream about a girlfriend I had when I was 18. It was crytal clear, and I felt all this love for her, but I remembered she always seemed to be thinking of her last boyfriend, and then she did a musical duet with another guy, and fianlly when she went to college, she broke up with me. I was lost, and never could get closure on a sense of not being enough of something to someone. Is there really a way to do that. Some people think loving yourself is the solution. That's not it. I thought she loved me because I had such strong feeling for her, how could she not be experiencing what I was, but she had her mind on comparing.
The odd thing was I had the dream and woke up right after it, in the middle of the night. And I kept asking, God I guess, what do you do with the pain. It was startling how my clouded mind had dreamed such a vivid scene. Later that day, it occurred to me the only thing that can take away the pain is if someone loves you, as you love them. Not that you live some pathetic needy life, But the good book's advice to couples, be infatuated with the wife of your youth all the days of your life.

When my wife would compare me to some other guy, I'd feel the floor drop out from under my feet. I'm amazed she still thinks that's a good idea, and as little as I've spoken the last conversation involved her doing it.
I think I have a better idea of what fidelity might be.

Anyway, thanks again for the advice.

HR