3 Years into Depression

[Jovanna]

Hi,
I am a 25 year old mother to a beautiful little girl. I have been suffering with depression for almost 3 years now. This is the first time I'm telling my story...
After earning my bachelors degree and graduating with honors, I moved away with my boyfriend of 4 years. I had a lot of opportunities I wanted to pursue that would have led me away from him. I let go of them because he did not want me to leave and I truly loved him. Within that first year of graduating we bought our first home, got married, and I gave birth to our daughter. His salary was decent enough so I was able to stay home with my baby. I should have been happy, and in a lot of ways I was. But there was this pervasive sense of sadness hanging over me almost immediately after returning home from the hospital. I felt guilty if I spent even a second away from my baby. I was overly emotional. I got almost no sleep because if I wasn't breastfeeding in the middle of the night I was caring for my home and child during the day. I thought it was just the baby blues, but it just got worse over time. My husband worked long hours and had to travel for work. I was always on my own. I was lonely and overwhelmed with all my new responsibilities. The depression never touched my daughter. I managed to drag myself out of bed every day and put on a happy face for her. I hid the depression so well no one besides my husband knew about it. He didn't know how to handle it. He was too focused on his career. I saw a family doctor who told me there was no magic pill to make me a better mother. She said I just needed to learn how to cope. I left her office in tears. I felt humiliated. Eventually I felt so hopeless I considered suicide regularly. This went on for 2 years. I had a nervous breakdown and asked my husband to take me to the hospital. I was committed for 5 days. It was my last ditch attempt to find out what was wrong with me. Turns out I had postpartum. Because it went untreated for so long it turned into major depression. I was so happy to have a diagnosis and options for treatment. I felt like I was finally going to reclaim my life. Then 3 days after getting out of the hospital my husband left me for another woman...
I put aside the oppressive amount of sadness I felt and decided I had to get along with him to coparent. It didn't work out. For months he took advantage of my kindness and used me like a doormat. He was coercive, cold and callous. He never made his daughter a priority after the separation. The divorce has been rough. I am left supporting my household and paying off major credit card debt he ran up all while being a single mom. I am paying for the divorce. My daughter is now almost 3, and I am still struggling to find happiness. I feel like I've robbed her of a lot. My depression is what caused our family to fall apart. I want so badly to find myself and start over fresh. I want to give my daughter the world. Will I ever beat this depression? Any support from other parents or long time sufferers is greatly appreciated.

[100footpole]

Will I ever beat this depression?

I hope so.

A good friend of mine married a woman in circumstances similar to yours. Her ex husband is a policeman and a sociopath. The husband was passive/agressively bullying my friend and his wife with custody of her daughter. He was always messing with the timing of pick up and drop off.

They had to talk to a lawyer and work out strategies for dealing with this ... long, miserable, expensive story.

The happy ending is that 8 years later they have another daughter, and their first daughter, s now 12 and is really a delightful person, and she manages the visits to her dad. She determines what actions will take place if her dad is early or late, and she makes sure that it is OK with her mom if she stays later.

Because she has turned out healthy, time has made the biological father more compliant ... hard to say if he is less of a sociopath, or if he just understands the boundaries.

Since you were an honor student, I think you understand my wish for you to find the sanest people possible to support you, and know that with their help YOU CAN MAKE IT!

[Jovanna]

Thank you for responding. I'm glad to hear the little girl turned out ok. After speaking to my therapist about the verbal, physical and emotional abuse I've endured during this separation, I found out he most likely has some type of high conflict personality disorder. It worries me because I don't think my daughter will be immune to his selfish impulses. My hope is that if I stay strong and continue to instill a strong sense of morals in her, it will counteract whatever bad behavior he brings into her life. If it worked for your friends it can work for me!

[100footpole]

I agree that we have a genetic dispostion to types of behavior ... my boy walks and talks like me. We had to go to speech therapy 30 years apart for the same speech defect (lisping).

On the other hand, my boy lives a completely different life than anything I would have picked for him. He made creative choices and they led him places I wouldn't have dreamed. Work with your therapist so you can love and understand yourself, and your relationship with your daughter will follow naturally. My son has disappointed me, sometimes to the point where I didn't think I could forgive him. But, now that he is 25 I am proud of him. It hurts when kids insist on learning from experience, and insist on making choices that we know are bad. It also hurts when your kid doesn't believe you that you understand why they are doing what they're doing, and know that it won't work. But, after they learn, you have that learning in common. And after you understand why you did what you did, it is easy to continue.

Unfortunately, there is no royal road to being an elder parent ... its a long tough slog, and after you've made it you'll know it is worthwhile.