YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

...you wish everyone who cares about you would tell you they wish you were dead, so that you could finally stop saying "no" to the suicidal thoughts that fill your head every day without feeling guilty about leaving behind a bunch of sad loved ones.

Oh hun

This is an awful hole to be in.

My heart goes out to you.

Suicidal thoughts are addictive and they are a coping mechanism a bad one but one none the less.

Im here and im listening

LeBlah,

Good afternoon

Yes, you might be.

But you're not responsible for keeping those loved ones happy. It was never your job.

Let them manage their own shit now. Tell them to fuck off if they're too suffocating. Or to grow a soul if they're too distant. Or to stand, quietly, behind you if they love you.

If you need to breathe on your own, breathe your own air? You can. We can all breathe on our own fresh, freely available fuckin' oxygen.

I take care of me now. It's the only way.

It is the only way to get to the help you need.

We all deserve the freedom to just look after ourself, to belong just to ourself and have our own stuff.

Once you have your own stuff? Then you can decide who you want to share it with. Just you deciding.

Finally, I want to openly call out the bad danger that is around you. I hope you see that I see it too and that I fear it too.

And I am not ashamed of how scared I feel.

I am grateful for your post.

Thanks for your kind words. It's been a fucking rough year over here. I've had some worse than normal stretches of being kicked in the balls by depression, then the happiest day of my life on Father's Day when my wife woke me up holding a positive pregnancy test, follows up that night by my hometown Cavaliers ending my city's 52-year pro sports championship drought.

Over the next few weeks, my wife became frightened by my brother's night terrors (he was staying with us after moving from out of state, and hadn't yet found a job or apartment), and put extreme pressure on me to get him out of our house. She started staying at her parent's house nearby, and I was crumbling under the stress of trying to make her happy by expediting the process of getting my brother employed and in his own place and still trying to get him in a safe and comfortable place in his limited price range.

We finally found a place, after a couple weeks of looking, that he liked and could afford, my wife came back home, and things started to go back to normal. Then at our second ultrasound, we found out that we lost the pregnancy, and depression came back like a motherfucker. A few weeks went by, and things started to get a little better again.

Two weeks ago, I stopped over at my brother's new apartment after a night shift at work to drop off some of his mail that had been delivered to my house and to have a beer with him. My wife asked via text if I just wanted to stay at his place that night, and I replied that I'd prefer not to, and would rather come back home. I was only at his place for about an hour, had only had a couple of low-alcohol beers, and the drive home is only about 35 minutes.

Since that night, my wife has barely spoken to me, hasn't been affectionate in person, over the phone, or in texts (she usually is liberal with her "I love yous", emojis, etc), and once told me that she doesn't know how to talk to me about what's wrong, or how to get me to understand things.

The new all-time low just happened a little bit ago, when she was listening to some music on her phone while getting ready for work. I had been downstairs watching TV, and climbed the stairs to use the restroom, just as I hear Eddie Vedder singing the line "she lies and says she still loves him, can't find a better man..." Gut shot. My logical brain tells me that it was just an awful coincidence, courtesy of Pandora (I had previously heard Sia playing, so she probably just had Pandora streaming random ballad-y stuff), but Jesus Christ, that hurt. I really think she wants a divorce, but is either keeping me around to help with the bills, or is trying to make me so miserable that I end up being the one to leave, so she can be the victim and I can be the villain. Either way, this had been the worst month of my life, and the only things keeping me going are my precious and loving dogs and the faint hope that she's just struggling to deal with her own depression and that we can get through this together, eventually.