10th Anniversary Countdown: Day 2

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I have suffered from depression and anxiety for the majority of my adult life. There were a couple of short, severe episodes, but, for the most part, I was able to manage it on my own early on. As I said in a previous post, I tried hard to be honest with Mark while we were dating. However, when we were dating, I was happy and didn't really have a mental health flare up...at least not in front of him. That's one of those things that you can kind of keep to yourself until you live with someone. If I was feeling down, I'd just deal with it on my own time. I wasn't consciously trying to hide it from him, I'd just never had to share the day to day struggles of mental illness with a man. It came up in our premarital counseling, but he didn't really have any first hand experience with my depression and anxiety.

After we married and I went into the worst year of teaching I'd ever had, he was kind of blindsided by my obsessive thoughts and fits of anger and weeping. We both made the (incorrect) assumption that I would feel much better if I changed jobs. It was better, for a while...then I had my first baby. He and I discovered that my depression and anxiety weren't circumstantial, they were part of the fabric of my being.

Becoming a mother opened the floodgates. Mark has walked with me through severe anxiety attacks, pregnancy induced neuroticism, the strange emotional fallout from a miscarriage, two bouts of serious postpartum depression and one nervous breakdown. He has endured dead-eyed stares instead of conversation. He has had to talk me down from neurotic frenzies. He has picked up the slack with our home and family when all I could do was lay in bed or stare at a computer screen. While I have suffered, this man has suffered alongside me...and he'll likely have to do it again under other circumstances.

Through all of my drama, he has been kind and gentle. Even though I've made his life harder, he has been (for the most part) a source of encouragement and support. He doesn't really understand what I go through, but he cares about me and does not make me feel ashamed or guilty for having a mental illness.

Again, I feel the need to state that he hasn't done this perfectly...living with a person who has depression is hard. Melancholy and discontent can be contagious. Everyone has limits and I've blown past his a time or two, leaving him frustrated and irritated by my constant needs.

In our wedding vows we promised each other our "tenderest care...no matter what may lie ahead". The past 10 years have, in many ways, been formidable. Yet, my husband has continued to honor his wedding day promise (to the best of his ability) with grace and love.