How can I cope?

Depression
#1

I don’t know where to begin.

I have up and downs and everyone around me thinks I’m self-consumed. Maybe I am to a point but I live in a constant hell within my mind. I have fought depression for somewhat close to twelve years.

So many nights I don’t sleep at all because my mind just refuses to give in and rest and then other days I never even make it out of the bed. I have been on seven different anti depressants in the last 4 years, none of which seem to cure me. The more meds that fail the more anger and less hope I have. So many people confuse depression with being suicidal, I’d rather say I feel like my heart is being ripped out piece by piece and sometimes (not all the time) I feel like ending my life.

I get sick and tired of being told I need “thicker skin” or that I “wear my heart on my sleeve”. I have no understanding or compassion for people that don’t consider how what they say may make the other person feel, or more so just flat out not care what they are doing to someone else. I have the sister in law from hell and she does everything within her power to destroy me.

So much in fact that she went out of her way to buy a house across the street from me and my husband knowing that we didn’t want them living so close. It’s been this way for close to four years, she has come over and started fights, even once banged on my front door for thirty minutes scaring my three year old to death and wouldn’t go away until I let her in. Well now she has had her first child, which I am thrilled about but When my daughter was born she was premature and spent a month in the nicu (neonative intensive care) my mother and father in law refused to hold her for the first two and a half months of her life, but with this baby (who is also in the nicu) haven’t missed a day yet.

I’m not so much jealous as I see now what is to come. Everything will be different and my almost six year old is not going to understand why grandma spends so much time with the new baby and has never spent that kind of time with her. I guess all these years I figured the reason they didn’t seem to want to be around us was because they were busy with their on lives, now I realize maybe they just don’t want us in their lives because they are certainly emptying schedules and pocket books on the new baby. What hurts most is I try so hard to be nice and do everything they ask of me, my mother in law is going to drive across town to baby-sit for a few hours each day because the parents work different shifts, I live across the street and I’m a stay at home mom with a child that just started school. It would have been so easy for me to walk across the street and watch her. Am I crazy to think that is huge sign saying we don’t want you around?

I mean I volunteered and have basically even begged to keep her so the know I want to and yet they would rather have their mother drive across town. That’s saying something. The thing is I love all of them so much and I feel like they all just died because I know that we as a family have just lost them in our lives. So I call and I’m nice and use words like sweetie and honey is there anything I can do but inside I’m dying and screaming because every time a turn around I’m being told off by my sister in law for God only knows what even to the point I have to not say anything at all many times when she is around for fear of what she might say.

I don’t want to live with this kind of fear; I don’t want to hurt anymore because I care too much. I want to be one of those people that truly believe “its as easy to get glad as it was to get mad” (my sister in laws way of life) I don’t want to care if I hurt someone or offend someone but as much as I want that, when It’s all said and done I am still I nice person and I can’t be mean. So what do I do, I stay at home and cry because they wont let me see my niece out of spite because she wasn’t aloud in the room before my emergency c-section due to high blood pressure and pre clampsia.

I almost died on the table with a blood pressure where both numbers were in the 20’s and she wants to hold it against me, because before hand they didn’t want to add to my stress and the doctors asked her to wait outside. I have a long painful road ahead of me and I don’t know if I will make it.

I just need someone to care.

#2

I have been on wellbrutrin, effexor, paxil, celexa, lexapro and am currently taking zoloft. I appreciate the reply and have no intention on spending time with my sister in law, or at least as little time as possible. The zoloft isnt working and I have an appointment with my doctor next week. I just want all the heart ache to stop, I want to feel nothing, It just seems like it would be so much better that way. Thanks again for the advice.

#3

If meds are’nt working have you tried herbal methods. I hear St. Johns wort is kind of like natures prozac.My daughter looked into it, some of these health stores might be able to suggest something.Also to hell with your sister in law! Focus on your child/your family. The best way to get at someone like that is to be happy.They thrive on your unhappiness.Don’t let her kind win.You are better than she will ever be. She is petty and hurtfull. Let Karma kick her in the butt…and it will. It always does.Show them that you are the better person.You don’t need to stoop to her level.

#4

Thats excatly what I’m going through. A fewe minutes ago I recieved news that my niece will be coming home Monday but that we will not be aloud to see her for another week. I think it hurts so bad because this doesn’t just effect me it also hurts my five year old little girl a great deal. It is so hard to explain why we are the only ones not aloud to see the new baby. My little girl has been so excited, in fact a couple of days ago we went to the store and Abigail (my daughter) had been feeling a little left out so I asked my husband if we could get her a little something specail. He said yes and so we told Abigail. The first thing she said was I want to get something for the baby too. Well we couldn’t afford to do both so we asked her if she wanted to get herself something or something for the baby and in the sweetest voice she said" I can wait and get something for my birthday I would really like to give the baby something now." All she has cared about has been this baby and now after telling her how much she could be involved they are now saying forget it, we dont want you around. My family lives in the next town away, which isnt that far but we can’t drive an hour everyday to see them. I feel like my walls are closing in around me and I cant breathe. I wish I could move. I wish I could run so far away that I never had to think about or see any of them ever again but it just isn’t going to happen. We are in the worst finacail position we have ever been in, and everyday seems to get worse. We are planning to move when things get better in five years (which is how long it is going to take us to pay out some of our debt.) I dont know how I will survive the next five years. Maybe it would be easier if my husband was any kind of help but he is a very controlling person and insist on playing mind games so often that I often feel like if I even hear his voice my head will explode. I can’t leave him because his family would try very hard to take my child and without her there is no point in living life at all. Hinde sight is 20/20 but you cant change the past. Knowing that; what do I do with this nightmare of a future.

#5

Get out of the house! Now that your daughter is in school, get involved at her school. Volunteering is a great way to take the focus off of what is bothering you. Join the PTA, offer to help in the office. It might be best to not be in your daughter’s classroom, but there are many places in every school that could use some help. It will be easier on you if you are not sitting home and watching the house across the street.
Since the baby is coming from the nicu, maybe they are afraid of germs. Schools are known to be breeding grounds for germs and they may be afraid Abigail might bring home a bug.
Would you be able to get a part time job while Abigail is in school? That could help with the finances. I was a stay at home mom and baby sat to make some money. I always kept children the same ages as my kids so that they could play. Is there a child in Abigail’s class that needs a place to go after school and days there is no school?
These are just some ideas, there are people who care,
Rachel