Depression – one persons story

“This morning I argued with my wife. I had asked her to do something and she had done it differently to how I asked. I got upset and asked her am I so unimportant to you that you have to do everything your way as if my feelings, thoughts and decisions don’t matter?

She was confused by my outburst, by the tears running done my face.

After ranting at her for another few minutes telling her how useless I felt and unworthy

she told me that she didn’t feel that way about me, that it was how my depression felt about me and nothing to do with the thing that I had asked her to do.

She stood up and held me in her arms.

She touched my face and said “It’s ok, I know you are struggling, I am too sometimes, and sometimes you just need to know I’m here the same as sometimes I need to ”. We stood there for several minutes, our tears making the others’ shoulders wet.

She held me and stroked my face and said “it’s ok, I know it hurts, I’m here” and I held her face in my hands and thanked her for not joining in with me to condemn and hurt myself with poisonous words and thoughts which I had cruelly fired at her hoping she would take from me because they hurt me so much.

She had refused to join in and instead let me own them by not reacting with anger and upset even though my words had hurt her. Instead she had dropped all her defences and connected with me in her raw, uncovered state. I told her how much I hated myself at times and she said it’s ok, sometimes we all feel like that and somehow our sobs eased and I realised that the peace I felt was because I had let my defences drop also, that what I thought was being vulnerable was really giving myself permission to be raw and emotionally open and together we had connected as two perfectly imperfect people struggling with anxieties and fears and that was all we needed to know.

No demands. No accusations. Acceptance that sometimes things just hurt”. Author: Anonymous.