Don't Give Up

One thing I hate the most about depression is how it not only mess up the person with it, but it can and usually does mess up the entire family. Due to my situation, I have had a lot of people talk to me about depression. I have had people suffering from depression as well as family members of those suffering talk to me. I am not an expert or a doctor but I know what I see and what I lived with.
I think that it should be mandatory for a patient suffering with depression to have a healthy person close to the patient designated to attend appointments with them. Patients don't seem to always give the doctor all the information, or they see the doctor on a day they are feeling a bit better. I think I could have given Mike's doctors better information on what was happening and how he sometimes acted. Mike didn't even realize some of the things he was doing, how on earth would he be able to tell a doctor what was going on?
Depression can get so bad for a person they truly don't think straight. All they see surrounds themselves. How the world would be better off without them, how no one really cares about them, or how their friends and family could get along much better without them. In all cases these are incorrect assumptions.
My husband truly felt we would be happier and survive just fine without him. The pain he was suffering was way more then what we would ever suffer with him gone. Some people might even see how well my family is doing and think that this might be true. But it is not. I have a 16 year old that cries when she thinks about the fact that her dad won't be here for her first date let alone her wedding. She has separation anxiety from me because she is afraid I will die and she will be left without a parent. Mike wasn't here to teach her to drive, help her with her math and won't be here to see his grandchildren. There is the pain that it causes my older daughter who suffers from the awful disease of depression. She has seen what it does and doesn't want that to happen to her. There is the scare for my two younger children wonder if they will ever have symptoms of it someday. So I have to be strong, I have to be stable and I have to be a constant study person in their lives.
I have always been a strong independent woman. So I do cope better then most. Mike also made sure that we wouldn't have to struggle too much financially. Most families who lose a loved one from death due to depression aren't as fortunate as I was financially. But who really cares about the money? I would rather have Mike alive then all the money in the world, but even he couldn't see that.
Our marriage wasn't perfect and some times there was a lot of distance between us, but at least we were there for each other most of the time. Now I am alone and I have never felt so lonely in my life. When a marriage is ended like this there is a void that we try to fill with our children, friends or work. I have done that well. My children mean the world to me and I would do anything for them, but there is still void. There is something about a partner that you can't replace with those things.
So no matter how much pain the sufferer of depression is in, it is a false assumption to think the lives of those around you will be better with you gone. A patient diagnosed with cancer will usually fight a hard battle, but for some reason a patient with depression will want to give up. Don't give up. Fight hard and keep looking until you find what will work for you. Don't wait until you are so down you can't hardly get up again. And most of all pray we find a cure. I know I am.