https://publichealth.yale.edu/article.aspx?id=18115
An interesting study out of the Yale School for Public Health. I’ve often assumed that living with a spouse with depression was sure to take its toll on a partner. As my marriage waned I’m sure my ex-wife felt that I was damaging her emotionally and mentally.
The article got me thinking however that amid my own anxiety and depression there’s a paradox. You want to be able to rely on someone close but as mentioned here, there is a cost to be paid for that. In some sense that kind of correlation makes me accept my divorce as something that had to be done not simply because of one spouse’s unhappiness but as a decision made to protect her own mental health. Doesn’t exactly help me feel any better about it but I understand where she may have come from.
Throughout my blog I’ve often noted that there’s never a one size fits all solution to depression, it’s multilayered and varied by person. This additional factor of the toll it can take on your partner is yet another facet which makes treating it such a difficult and complex task. I’d be lying if I said that between depression and divorce the prospect of getting back out there doesn’t scare me. Self-doubt and not really feeling like a whole person makes the idea of sharing, or joining my life to anybody that close seem almost a bit cruel. Little by little I try to get back what I was and find a new way to be me. I know it isn’t going to be a short turn around, I’m in it for the long haul.
