All alone

In times when I'm feeling particularly hurt instead of arguing or voicing my anger or disappointment, I prefer to write.  It allows me to sort out my feelings and sometimes if I'm lucky I actually find the solutions without uttering a word.  Those times are rare but worth the effort.

As of late I've been dealing with my partner's depression.  It's not an easy life when you live with someone who suffers from chronic depression.  There is such pressure on you to be...well, everything.  You are his support, provider, comforter, and link to the world.  You know that you hold his life...literally, in your hands.  Yes there are professionals who deal with his medications and his current dilemmas but they are only with him for a very small portion of the time.  You are with him always.  Even though you may be out of the house and away, you are never really away.  Your mind is always with him, wondering how he is, what he is doing, how is feeling, what can I do to help, how can I be supportive, what could I cook to make him at least feel good for a minute?  It never stops, and the list of questions circling in my head is incessant.

My normal nature is to be a fixer.  I see issues, and I immediately go to finding a solution.  I plan, I organize and I solve.  But I can't solve this, all I can do is mitigate or manage.  It is so frustrating and exhausting.

And to cap off all this frustration, your partner, the love of your life seems to have lost sight of you.  It feels as if his needs are all that matters and you have become invisible.  I swear I could be bleeding to death on the floor in front of him and he wouldn't be able to reach for the phone and dial 911.  How does one remain in love with someone during this crisis?  How do you not feel resentment?  How much strength do you have to maintain both sides of the relationship?

I hate depression!!  I'm angry at depression!!  I want to beat it to death!!  I want to yell and scream at it!!!  Kick it as hard as I can until I'm exhausted!!!  It has stolen my everything.  I has been sneaking around and trying to squeeze it's way between us for years and I've managed to keep it at bay, but one night while I wasn't looking it crept in and took over my love.  It has stolen everything that is important to me and it won't give it back.

Yes, there are medications to help but in the last but not the least stab at my heart we have discovered that one of the drugs to 'help' has taken away every last bit of his libido. So, just like Sophie's Choice, we have to choose between him being able to hopefully get over his depression or have a sex life.  There is no choice really, it's already been made for us.  Our sex life is over before it ever really began...and I have to accept that the ONE thing that I have been looking for my entire life is gone forever.

I'm struggling from deep within my soul to accept this.  My 'fixer' nature can't repair this and I have no choice but to give up my dream.  And it hurts to the centre of my being and permeates every aspect of my life.  But I am not able to voice my hurt or disappointment so....here I am...all alone.