One Sunday afternoon when things were really good, I had a light bulb/inner voice moment. Share your story Kathy. What if there’s women out there like you, who went through or are going through, or will go through what you did.  You could help them.

So I listened and started to write.

Before 2011 I thought depression was something that happened to other people.

And it did. My fiancé. My daughters daddy. My best friend.

Sadly my fiancés mother passed away some years ago and this haunted him. Especially now we had our own child. The birth or our daughter was a beautiful and blessed experience. I couldn’t have been happier.

Maybe that’s was the start – the birth of our daughter. I secretly knew he was mortified that his Mother wasn’t here to see our new baby and was struggling with this, but I had no idea what to do. The first 8 weeks was the norm, endless sleepless nights and breastfeeding woes, my fiancé (let’s name him Bill) moved out of our shared bed during this time as he couldn’t cope with being woken up. (Should I have noticed sooner?) I felt alone and sad, but accepted his decision. Apart from this everything was ‘normal’.

Then his father died. Out of the blue. In an instant – gone.

I still remember the moment I got the call from Bill. Looking back, I naively had NO idea how this was going to affect our lives.

None at all.

Everyone was sad. I remember quite brightly thinking “all this will be over soon. Everyone will laugh and play and smile and talk and be normal again soon. I’m sure they will.”

Have I mentioned how naive I was?

I was totally wrong.  Nothing was ever the same again. Our little family was rocked to breaking point. Everyone was affected in ways I never imagined possible.

I had this beautiful new baby, I’d never felt love like it. She was my world. A game changer. She was everything. But we shared our home with this total stranger. Who had no interest in anything. Who moped about and slept every hour he could. He went from being Mr caring, attentive, practical, domesticated and loving, to Mr I have no space in my heart for any love, Mr sleepy, Mr I have no clue what’s going on around me, Mr depressed.

We went on for a year like this before he sought medical help. That year was hell. (The second year under medical help wasn’t much better either) I constantly battled with myself: “how could I go on like this?” Receiving very little love, support, no communication, no nothing.

I was pushed to question everything. I can, hand on heart say, it was the most horrific and lonely times of my life.  No one understood my situation. (Apart from my amazing sister in law – but the pressure and changes even caused strains and issues in OUR relationship; we had to work so hard together, with each other, without her, I don’t think I’d be here now and our relationship is the main inspiration for writing this) And why would they? I wasn’t depressed, I hadn’t lost my father, surely in was ok?!

Well I should have been. But I wasn’t.
In all of this, I was only thinking about myself. How I was the victim. How THIS had happened to me and how unfair it was to have a depressed fiancé when we just had my fist child. My new baby experience had been ruined by this. I grieved for the loss of my father in law – for all his flaws I still missed him. I grieved for my daughter too – growing up without ever meeting her Granddad. But I never once considered how Bill was feeling, because I had no idea. Partly because he’d shut down and wasn’t talking, but partly because I was in victim mode and living in an ‘ego’ state.

Someone one day asked me about depression and I was ashamed not to know any of the answers to their questions.

This promoted me enough to get out of victim mode and do some research.

Fuck. What a bitch. I’d been letting him deal with all this on his own. Shit.

All I cared about was myself.  What an absolute selfish cow. I couldn’t believe it.

I knew nothing about depression. Yet the love of my life and the father of my child had it.