Don't even know if I'm Depressed

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Don't even know if I'm Depressed
Wed, 09-16-2009 - 10:22pm

I'm new to posting on this board...and I'm not even sure whether this is the right place for me.


To a certain extent I've never been one to discuss my problems with everyone in my life. Different friends, family members etc know bits and pieces of whats going on in my life but not usually everything...One may know something another doesn't and it could be that I edit versions according to what is going on in their life at the time.


But I have come to a point in my life that there is just way too much going on and I do not know whether I am coming or going anymore - I don't even know what I feel.


I have made mistakes in my past that have brought me to the love of my life after 18 yrs of a finally finished marriage while being on this earth 39. Married to a man I never really loved for reasons of children can be hard and trying to be happy for everyone including yourself becomes painful when you can fake it no longer.


So I left, he would not leave, we fought for a year, I went to a therapist for one session and I knew when I walked out of her office that I had already made the decision before I walked in...I just needed the strength. What hurts is because of my job I could not be there for my daughters 16 and 10 and without that would not be able to support myself. So they stayed with their dad and I got a house around the corner and the plan was every other week between their dads and my house. He is cleverly self employed and if I tried to take him to court for support, because of his claim of income to the govt, I wouldn't have received enough to carry the home we owned on my own...he was able to force me out and I didn't want to move our girls again...we had just bought our second home in a different town 2 yrs before.


I was able to financially rent a house because my dad had put away some money for me when my mom passed less than a yr before. I watched her die of cancer in 3 short weeks, we knew nothing, she knew nothing til it was too late and it had spread to her liver...she was 72. Of course I had grand ideas I would live single - I had been married since I was 19, had an affair while married looking for love in all the wrong places so I thought I needed to get to know me a little better...Didn't happen thank god...I met the love of my life who was a friend for 15 yrs...married to one of my best friends (back then...we lost touch when she re-married) ...heck he was my neighbour at our cottage up north after they split up but even though I thought he was funny etc he was my gf's hubby & ex and never thought of him that way...but I knew he liked me over the years, he never showed it outwardly by being out of line, it was just something I sensed.


Well I was right, series of events led me to call him one day looking for a ph # of a guy I had used yrs before to replace a windshield and you get talking and turns out he also had recently left his fiance, the one he met after my gf (they had been married 20 yrs) and we made a lunch date to get together after I had a drs appt in his area the next week...it was to check on a lump I had and I had told him about the appt but I really wasn't too concerned at the time.


Well these tests take time and next thing I know he's courting me and I saw a side of him I never knew existed. He is the most caring, supportive, loving, considerate man - he is my best friend...I know this because I was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 months into our relationship. He had the same plans as me, he was going to take it easy in the relationship world but by the time we found out he says he already knew he was in love with me and there was never any doubt in his mind he was going to take care of me.


So my poor girls are not only dealing with me leaving their dad, now 2 months later their mom is diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer that has spread to 17 lymph nodes and there is surgery and chemo and radiation coming one after another and then a yr of treatment with iv infusions every 3 wks with side effects. They too have known my fiance their whole lives, not very closely but knew him and all his actions showed them he is someone they can trust, they have seen how caring he is toward me and them and has earned their respect. Thankfully the last 18 months have been pretty smooth where they are concerned, my 16 yr old managed to stay clean and not turn to drugs, boys etc in acting out and my sweet 10 yr old just is a pleaser period...she has her moments but she cares alot for others.


So now I'm going through cancer treatment after surgery, trying to get my life back in order and my fiance is there with me...he took vacation time for my surgery and never missed a chemo every three weeks and would always book the day off after to make sure I was ok. The week of my last chemo, I had a dizzy spell while he was home. I had said I wasn't feeling well and he went to make me a bagel, I got up to use the bathroom, felt dizzy and fainted. When I fainted, I fell the wrong way and broke my ankle so badly it needed 7 pins and plate on one side and 2 pins and a plate on the other...I was supposed to start radiation in the next month but it got backed up 8 wks from the surgery on my ankle. I coulldn't drive anywhere, I was caged for all of Nov and Dec...my fiance is in construction in the summer and snow removal in the winter so he was in mid season and thankfully was able to stay home with me for most of it. Even in winter he was able to go to my radiation with me which was everyday for 6 wks as he does snow removal at night and he never worked more than two days in a row and it would be days between each storm.


While I was still in my cast, my father had a stroke that caused the onset of dementia and he was in hospital for 2 months, I was going to have to put him in a nursing home...there was no way I could look after him but he miracuously recovered and was able to go home but he is still not quite the same...again my fiance was the one who wheeled us both into the hospital in chairs when we admitted my dad and drove me to see him everyday until my radiation treatments started, then it was every 2 or 3 days, I felt bad but I couldn't do it all.


I have been off work since june of last year, I have excellent disability benefits so did not have to worry too much about money although my fiance obviously lost missing time for me but I am due to go back some time late oct/early nov. and I really really don't want to. I am not anxious to go back in a good way at all. I don't know why exactly, I think part of it is the fact that I work shifts and wonder how it will affect our relationship...he knows it too and is always reassuring me it will all work out. He has to because he has taken a job 4 wks ago that keeps him away from 7 at night til 6 in the am and he knows I really am not to happy about it but we need the money and he needs to feel that he is back contributing for his own self esteem and I think it is affecting me negatively but it really is not his fault. He is doing what he has to do just like he did for me and I really feel lost with his absence.


Tomorrow I take my dad for tests, they found he has an anyeurism in his abdomen and requires surgery and I know i'm going back to work and I'm worried who will take care of him...I am the only sibling, the rest are step siblings  and they don't bother with him.


I just feel so down sometimes, I've been through alot and I always try and cut myself some slack but I've always been the strong one - that is my weakness. In my marriage I was independant, I had to be. If I were still with my ex during the whole cancer ordeal, I would not come out of this as healed as I am and I truly believe with all my heart if it had not been for the love of my life I know there would have been days I would have skipped treatment or not gone to see my dad because I was just so overwhelmed but he helped me through it all.


When he is not here, I am lonely and I miss him. I actually think I have had panic or anxiety attacks, I'm not even sure. I can't explain exactly but it seems as though since he has come into my life I have changed. I don't know if its because of having the thought of dying to think about that did it or him or a combination of both but I feel things now I never felt before. I used to love being home alone, a bed to myself, reading a book, watching a movie, now I don't feel like doing anything. I go up and down, I can go a few days not wanting to do anything when I'm alone and then I say to myself - snap out of it! and I ended up here...and now doing laundry lol.


I guess maybe I know now what true love is and it is scaring me...I feel out of control, why does my happiness depend so much on him? I want to kiss him goodbye and be happy for him and await his return but I hate when he's not here, I hate the way it makes me feel....I have thought of it almost as though I have lost myself in this whole process. Why does it make me so damn sad and how the heck do I get back? There have been times (and he knows nothing of this) where I have been alone and I'm angry with him, angry for babying me so much that now I feel as though the rug has been yanked out from under me. How can you be mad at someone who cares about you unconditionally? When he is home on weekends, he gives me his undivided attention. He gives me all the emotional, physical and intellectual support I need but it never seems to be enough for me.


Has anyone been through anything like this? Sorry it was so long - it made me feel better to get some of it off my chest.


 


Thanks :)