Fen, that's so heartbreaking, to be left in the dark in such a way. It can leave someone with so many questions. It can also leave someone in a grieving state. While unintended, the person who is struggling leaves another to struggle on their own. So important to have someone raise you during this time, a time where there are factors that can bring you down.
Depending on how deep a depression is, it can have a person thinking 'I don't care anymore'. To expand on that 'What's the point in caring when it only leads me to suffer. What's the point when I'm never going to get better'. While some people choose to not care to some degree, as a form of self preservation, others simply are unable to care based on the way the brain and chemistry are working while in a depression. In recalling my years in long term depression, I would have given just about anything to be able to feel what love feels like or pure joy and emotions along those lines. I can remember saying on more than one occasion 'If I won 5 million in lotto, I would give it all up in a heartbeat if I could pay my way out of depression'. That was the absolute truth. When both my babies were born, I still couldn't love, care deeply or feel joy in the ways I wanted to. It was about 8 weeks after my second child was born that I came out of that depression. The difference was like night and day.
In post natal depression group therapy, I remember all of us being asked to contribute to a list of traits or struggles we faced in life, regarding depression. While the list developed into quite a long one, I thought 'Oh my god, this is not me. All these traits are not me. These are the traits of depression. Who am I without depression?'. Suddenly, my mind blew wide open and my life changed dramatically, for the better. At the end of 15 or so years in depression, to tell you the truth I had absolutely no idea who I was without it. That was more than 19 years ago and I'm still discovering who I am. I believe we come to life bit by bit. It is a lifetime process of self discovery and hard work on occasion. I still experience periods in depression but none are long term.
Self isolation periods are not all that unusual in depression. It wasn't until a handful of years ago that I worked out what those periods can be about. While I once thought they were simply about feeling sorrow for myself (great sadness/grief), it is ultimately a time of reflection. How to do reflection constructively is the key to unlocking certain much needed revelations. A destructive form of reflection just adds to the depression. Sometimes it's vital we find people who can help us reflect in constructive or productive ways. Whether your partner has left for a period of reflection (weeks or months) or he's left the relationship for good, time will tell. It's important now that you manage you, how you feel, how you think, how you develop, how you see the way forward etc ❤️
