He texted me while I was home on lunch yesterday. “I’m sorry this is all so unfair to you. I really wish it were different.” I replied that as long as he doesn’t want to die every day, I’m fine. He says, “But that’s the problem. I want to die. I won’t event ell the truth to the doc, either.” The next text said, “I’m lying when I say that I’m stable. You should never trust me.” Then, “Know that I’m sorry. No words can ever make up for the lies I’ve told, but you should know that my heart breaks for the things I’ve done to you. When I splat, I’ll be thinking of you.”

I drove out there immediately. He wouldn’t tell me where he was. After 48 minutes, his phone died and I found the police in the ER and asked them for help.

Here’s what he said to me during the phone call and after seeing him at the ER.

That he’d been planning this for a month.

That he’d stopped taking his medicine 5 days ago…and lied to my face about it.

That he tells his doctors that he is afraid of the morbid OCD thoughts, but he actually likes them. He wants to hurt people. He wants to hurt me. He mouthed, “I will fucking kill you” to me in the ER. He wished he’d slit my throat last night because that would have made dying today a lot easier.

That he hates me.

That every day when he wakes up, he wishes he’d died in his sleep. He has nothing to look forward to except cold, dark death.

That I’m cruel to let him go on suffering like this. His life is misery. That if I loved him, I would let him die instead of forcing him to keep living.

That the only goal he has been able to hold on to and motivate him to keep living is finding a woman. Nothing else has worked, even music which he wanted to work most of all.

That I should never trust him.

I don’t even know what to do. Why can’t I help him? WHY DOESN’T HE WANT HELP?????????????

Things are still going…okay.

 

I almost feel like we’re in limbo as his moods are still up and down. They have been mostly up for the last month, but we’re obviously still getting the ECT treatments which should tell you there’s something still wrong. The treatments aren’t meant to be a permanent fix, but I’ve heard that they’re supposed to last longer than a week. His antidepressant still isn’t helping, and if it was going to then it should have kicked in by now.

 

Last week we cut ties with his therapist. I think that making the change was encouraging to my husband because he felt better after making that decision. He emailed a different therapist on Saturday but hasn’t heard back yet – at least he hasn’t emailed back (he may have called).

 

The constant ups and downs and starting to get to me. I know that he can’t help it and that I can’t hold it against him, and this makes me feel bad about saying anything period (I haven’t). But the constant neediness…is better than constant depression, but still makes me feel like I’m in limbo. Oh how I love stability. I almost want to go back to letting him have his moods and keeping myself distant from them, but I feel like he’s in a very unstable place right now and needs my help – needs to know that I care about his feelings and don’t want to let him keep them all to himself anymore. I guess I’m getting what I asked for then – he’s definitely opening up more now than he did before. I’m glad that he’s trying to communicate with me more – SO glad. It’s super selfish of me, but I’m balking against all the drama this is bringing into my life.

 

The inevitability of human drama………… I try so hard to avoid it.

 

I can see that my husband is making positive steps toward progress. This weekend, he told his parents about the abuse and I was very proud of him for doing it on his own. I don’t know that it’s necessarily helped anything yet, but I think that it’s one more step towards letting go of all that baggage and the false beliefs that go along with it.

 

I wish I could do more to help. I just want to fix it as fast as I can….but I can’t. I can just help. I think I’m going to need to find myself a therapist before all this is over – I don’t really think I can handle it by myself. Every day is a new day, but I don’t like my husband’s mood having to dictate my mood. It doesn’t necessarily work that way, but I still start to worry about him when I know he isn’t feeling well and he doesn’t text me often enough.  

Tomorrow will be three weeks since my husband was discharged from the hospital. 

Last Friday, he had to go back to get another treatment because they had started wearing off, he said, and I could tell that the demons were starting to come back. 

I described them as “demons” to someone in the hospital on the day I took him to the ER, and she was very interested in that word choice, asking if it was my wording or his.  I’m pretty sure that it’s not his word choice, but I think it’s an apt description because it almost feels like someone else is inside his brain sometimes, making him want to do bad things to himself – and other people sometimes.  He says he doesn’t know why it comes, how to get rid of it, or how to describe it.  But it can be frightening to look into his eyes and be near him while he’s like this.  He has never hurt me before (physically, anyway), and I want to keep it that way. 

Noticing the demons popping up again was a huge motivation to get him back to the hospital for another ECT treatment.  His doctors were very accommodating and were able to see him within about 2-3 days after I contacted them.  He felt markedly better when I picked him up after the treatment, and has another one scheduled for this coming Friday.  I hope that this won’t be a weekly occurrence for the rest of our lives, but his antidepressant doesn’t seem to be helping still, and his therapist doesn’t either. 

And how am I?  I’m taking it a day at a time, I suppose.  I’m not relaxed yet.  I’m ready for his mood to change at any time.  I’m very hopeful about the future and very glad that the ECT is working, though.  Overall my mood is good, though I’m not exercising or being as organized as I would like to be.  In an ideal world, I would keep the house spotless all the time, exercise daily, and make all three meals at home.  Right now I’m happy when I do one of those things in a day. 

Even though things aren’t perfect, they’re so much better than last month that I’m very happy with our lives at the moment.  We’re making good progress and I’m determined to never let it get that bad again. 

It’s his second night at home. I should be happy, I know – I was last night. But I’m actually still feeling neglected. Why? I’m not 100% sure, but I think mostly it’s because I feel like I care more about him than he cares about me. We’re both very selfish people of course, but I just feel like he should be more interested in ME to the exclusion of other things. As I think I am. But then there’s the question of how rational that is. Because he does pay attention to me and care about me – just not to the extent that I want him to. He’s over there asleep right now. It really makes me sad but I don’t think it should. Uggggggggh. How am I supposed to be rational but not apologize for my feelings at the same time???

Fuck.

I’m sitting here on the couch, having gotten home from work about 15 minutes ago, and I feel like shit.

I don’t want to feel like shit.  But I don’t know how to help it.

Maybe there is some resentment in there.  Why can’t my husband want to live? — it’s really not asking all that much!  Why can’t he appreciate me?  I do so fucking much for him.  Why can’t he be here for me when I need comfort, a hug, to have sex, a back rub, someone else to make dinner – really, when I need anything?

I need my husband.  I need him to tell me that he loves me.  Tell me that I’m doing an amazing job and that he’s proud that I’m his wife.  It’s not fair that I’ve been the strong one for the last year, and he’s been the one who’s focused on himself and only talks to me when I make him.

I know, I know.  Life isn’t fair.  Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.  (Goes for life being pain, too.)

But why does it have to be this way?  For my part, I feel like I’m doing a ridiculously good job of holding up the marriage bargain and that if I was married to me, we’d have a great relationship.  Sure, there would be fights and misunderstandings sometimes – there always are.  But there wouldn’t be attempted suicides and abandonment.

Fuck.

He’s not feeling any better today. He asked me if I will cry a lot when he kills himself. He told me that I never should have taken him to the hospital. He told me that if I had just left him alone, it would have reduced my grief (since now I’ll have to deal with this again when he does die, was his implication).

He did call me tonight to tell me goodnight. I’m not sure what to take from that, but I want to believe that it’s a good thing.

I’m trying to be hopeful and look forward to his second and third treatments on Monday and Wednesday. I feel like I’m trying so hard to be as encouraging and positive and loving as I can, but it’s not making any difference. It’s upsetting.

I spent some time with his brother last night, who is also missing his spouse – but his situation is a divorce. He said that I should be angry at my husband for treating me like this. I agree that I don’t deserve to be treated like this; I think I do a pretty fair job of being the kind of wife I would want to have. I’m not angry at him… at least as long as he is not talking about how he still is planning to kill himself. Tonight after seeing him, I did want to hit something. I don’t understand how he could feel that way. It’s offensive. It’s like a slap in the face, only much worse.

(part two)

I’m definitely not adjusting to sleeping without my husband.  That has been the hardest thing to get used to – and obviously I haven’t.  

So since I can’t go to sleep and am thinking about it anyway, maybe it will help to get the thoughts into actual words and sentences.  

First: when I visited tonight, he said that his doctor had told him that the best case scenario for his release from the hospital is that the first three ECT treatments will go perfectly and he’ll see such a marked improvement by next Wednesday (that’s right, a week from today) that he’ll be able to discharge him.  Apparently the doctor suspects that it will take more like 6 treatments until he feels comfortable enough with my husband’s improvement to let him come home.  This means that we’ll most likely move into his unpaid leave at work, which in turn means that we’ll be responsible for paying his insurance premiums.

Second: We talked a little about the day that he tried to kill himself.  He told me that he’d been in the attic while I was home on my lunch break.  

He went up to the attic right before I should have come home for lunch, which he knew because he’d asked me what time I take lunch a few days before.  I wondered why he had asked, but never suspected anything like this.  Did not enter my mind at all.  It scares me now to realize that he’d been thinking about doing this for a few days.  

My husband has some severe depression.  I didn’t realize – never wanted to realize, probably – how severe it is until all this happened.  I can’t imagine depression that deep; I suppose I should count myself lucky.  I feel more ineffectual.  

Third: and I have to keep reminding myself of this, but he reiterated tonight that none of this is my fault or about me at all.  He said that I have been nothing but wonderful this whole time.  I know that, but it’s good to hear him say it again.  No matter how hard I try to control my illogical emotions, they’re always bound to pop up anyway.  When I think – as I always do – that I wish I could do more to help him…well, I need to remember that I’m doing all that I’m capable of doing.  I’m being the kind of person who I would want to be married to, and I don’t know what else anyone wants.  

It’s been almost 2 weeks now.  He’s scheduled to receive his first ECT treatment tomorrow at some point – I don’t know what time.  This has left me hopeful but somewhat nervous, though I’m trying to focus on the first and dismiss the latter.  No amount of nervousness on my part (or anyone else’s) is going to help – if anything, it could cause harm.  So I’m trying not to imagine the procedure or the worst case scenarios.  I know they exist, and I’m content to leave it at that for now.  If they happen, I’ll deal with things at that point.  

I’m feeling more normal since he is feeling better.  I’m even hopeful that he’ll be able to come home soon — maybe even by the weekend.  I suspect that it will be more like Monday or Wednesday, though.  He’ll have about 3 days of leave left at the beginning of next week, which is also making me nervous since not only would it mean that we’d have to get by on only  my paycheck, but also that we’d have to pay his insurance premium until he could go back to work.  I’m really hoping that it doesn’t come to that, but I also don’t want to pressure him into going back to work before he is ready.  Just another thing that we’ll have to see about.

Funny how you never appreciate being healthy until something happens.  

Just woke up.  Feeling fairly depressed.  Mom and Dad came over yesterday to take me to breakfast and help clean up the house and everything looks great now.  I wish they were still here though.  It was comforting to be around them.  Not a whole lot of other stuff has been comforting.  One of my friends wants to hang out later today, but I don’t know – I feel too blah to be around other people (besides my husband, who I’ll obviously be visiting).

Yesterday he wasn’t feeling good at all.  When I got there, he was obviously not trying to pretend to be doing okay, and when I left he said that he was basically too depressed to have any visitors.  I hope that’s a little different today.  At least tomorrow is Monday and he’ll be able to consult with the doctor on the possibility of ECT treatments.

I want this week to be over already.  I wouldn’t be sorry if the month was over too.  I know that time passes quickly … but not quickly enough when you want it to.

It’s been over a week now that he’s been in the hospital.  I feel so terrible for him – I know he hates being there about as much as I hate him being there.  Ultimately, I’m sure he hates it more.  I’m very proud of him though, for signing himself in voluntarily – apparently you have to go to court if you are in a hospital involuntarily.  To avoid that, he signed himself in.