May 31st was the 2 year anniversary of my having to take Matt to the ER for the first time. I was going to blog about it, but ended up staying busy all day and it slipped my mind. This is an entry from June 4th 2012, though.
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My husband, the man who has been sharing my bed and home and life for the past five years, is in a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill himself four days ago.
I need an outlet for my thoughts and feelings – one that can handle more honesty than my in-laws or parents or friends can or should. Not that I necessarily want to even have to face all that honesty by myself, but I feel like I shouldn’t deny or ignore the realities of my thoughts and feelings.
I don’t feel like going over all the details of what happened on Thursday, and I don’t think all the details are important anyway.
I’m crying less. I guess that’s good, though it doesn’t mean that I feel any less sad, lonely, desperate, or depressed than before. It just means that sobbing so much gives me a headache and dehydrates me. And there’s no one around to rub my back and neck anymore when they hurt, so I might as well try to avoid things that make them ache more.
My biggest, biggest, biggest fear is that he’ll feel the same when he comes home, and try to kill himself again like he promised he would over and over on the day I drove him to the ER. I don’t think he’ll make his goal of 10 days since I doubt they’ll release him from the hospital before then, but I’m sure he can lengthen the deadline as needed. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to tell when he starts feeling this way again, since he’s so adept at pretending that he’s fine when he’s anything but. And I, in my utter foolishness, pretend that he actually is fine, since I don’t want to face the reality of the pain and horror that’s underneath his façade. But my oblivion doesn’t help anything. I keep telling myself that none of this is my fault………but a little voice in the back of my head also keeps whispering that maybe if I had been more dedicated to helping him stay focused on being healthy, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now.
I can’t imagine losing my husband. That’s a lie – I can imagine it, and it’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever imagined. So much worse than giving up my baby for adoption. At least she’s alive and happy and I can feel good about that decision. If I was to lose my husband…. How do people cope with that kind of loss??? I’m having a hard time motivating myself to do the mundane but necessary things in life as it is – how much worse would it be if I didn’t have the hope of getting my husband back???
Surprisingly, I’m doing a pretty good job of not taking his suicide attempt personally. I know that it’s the abuse that is making him hopelessly depressed, and the drugs his psychiatrist has been randomly prescribing haven’t helped. I know that it’s not me. But this also makes me feel helpless to help him at all. All I can do is go visit him every day, as much as he will let me, and let him know that I love him and will not abandon him (as he has expected me to do ever since we got together). I can prove him wrong. But I can’t make that help him feel better. I hope that it will…but I have no control over his brain chemistry.
I feel pretty useless overall right now. I don’t even know how to make myself feel better – let alone him. Everything that I do, everywhere that I go, something reminds me of him and makes my heart ache with missing him. I’ve been trying to avoid being home by myself, but I can’t get away from missing him.
No Promises This Time 