i think i might be depressed

4/13/2022

I think I might be depressed.

It didn’t come out that way. Those loaded little words spewed from the middle of a scattered rant about how I keep thinking I’m clearing but then I cloud again, I didn’t have postpartum depression like some moms, I was fine until he was, like, four or five—six?—months old, but I’ve been spiraling ever since then, and I’m always frayed, and then I think about weaning and potty training and I’m just so tired, how am I ever supposed to do those things, I know I just have to buckle down and do them, but I don’t want to talk to anyone about it because I don’t want to be a burden, and would anyone understand, parenting is so lonely, no one tells you that, you’re never alone but you’re always lonely, how fucked up is that, I just want to feel important and feel like I’m breathing, I can’t keep my head above water, every time I think I’m getting better something happens and I fall right back in, I think I might be depressed because I have some good days and then I think I’m OK, but then I’m really not OK, and I don’t know what to do, there must be something wrong with me, what is it.

I think I might be depressed.

I am depressed.

Even though I have everything in the world to be grateful for, I can’t seem to feel joy. I smile for my son so he knows I love him. I smile even less for my husband just to keep him hanging on. I hate it when I yell. I tell him it’s not him. I finally break down and tell him I AM DEPRESSED.

It’s like a weight has been lifted off our marriage, our lives.

After unloading my depression baggage, I’m outside playing with my son, still in my pajamas at two in the afternoon, no bra, no make-up, hair a greasy mess—who cares?—and my husband runs out across the yard and plants an open-mouthed kiss on my lips. Whoa. I wasn’t expecting that. It literally takes my breath away. Also, I have terrible situational awareness since I didn’t even hear him until he was right behind me. Also…where the heck did that kiss come from?

“I just wanted to say we have each other. When it feels like we don’t have anyone else, I have you and you have me. I love you.”

He goes back inside to work and a little more of the burden I’ve been carrying sloughs off my back. I’m nothing if not the luckiest woman alive.

I’m depressed, but I’m fortunate. And I’m not hiding from or denying that truth anymore. I don’t want pity and I don’t want pills. I just want to live and breathe and feel alive again. I want the clouds to part on a clear day. I want to break the surface of the water and take a lung-full of fresh air, then I want to keep going, out of the water and the muck at the bottom, into the sky where it’s light. And I want to feel like I deserve to be there and like I don’t ever have to go back to the darkness where I can’t see or breathe.  I want to enjoy my husband and my son and myself. I want to be free.