Follow-up to "Changing Course" post

Thanks for the replies and comments to my “Changing Course” post. I just want to follow-up that post with a little more background information. I honestly don’t feel the memory and comprehension problems are caused by depression or stress. I feel better than I have in a long time, but more importantly, I never experienced these problems back when I probably was dealing with some depression. I just want to give you an idea of what the past ten years have been like to give some context as to what’s going on now compared to then. I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts. Again, sorry this is so long.

My wife abruptly quit her job in 1998, and several months later she accepted job in Pennsylvania. For ten months I stayed in Idaho to take care of the kids and try to get the house sold while working full time. By the time the house finally sold my wife had quit the job in PA and taken a job in Missouri, so we move to MO. I gave up a job I loved and a career where I was advancing and had a bright future. (To put that in perspective, I’ve worked the past ten years at a job I don’t like and have no path to advance, and where after ten years I make about half of what I made at my previous job.)

After being apart for over ten months we were hoping our past marriage problems would be over and things would be better, but they only got worse. During marriage counseling my wife was diagnosed with depression, which continued to get worse, to the point where she was unable to work. I was taking care of her and the kids, working full time, doing all the housework and cooking, and taking classes at the university to finish my degree, while trying to cope with what was happening to my wife. She continued to get worse, attempted suicide several times, and began a long series of stays in psychiatric hospitals. She was later diagnosed as being bipolar and schizophrenic. It was tough kissing her goodbye every morning and wondering whether that was the last time I'd see her alive, and worrying whether the kids would come home from school and find her dead. You can imagine how difficult this was for our young children to deal with. Eventually she admitted that she had voices in her head telling her to harm me and the kids.

The decision to divorce was a very difficult decision for me to make. We’d been having marriage problems for quite a while, but the deciding factor was the safety of my kids, and to ensure the kids had one capable parent and a stable home, and being in that situation was making it very hard for me to provide those things for the boys. We had agreed to work together to try to get the divorce done as quickly and easily as possible, using one lawyer. We had agreed on all the main points, although she was initially reluctant for me to have primary custody of the kids, but I was not willing to negotiate that point. Things went smoothly at first, but then during one of her hospital stays she decided to hire her own attorney, which caused things to get very complicated and nasty and dragged the whole process out much longer than it needed to be. The divorce was finalized in December of 2003. She continued to get worse and be hospitalized on a regular basis. She tried to work and accepted jobs in several different cities, but was never able to handle working, so she eventually went on disability and now lives with her mother in Ohio.

This whole ordeal has been extremely difficult on our kids. My oldest son has been able to handle it fairly well, but my youngest son has had a tough time and continues to struggle with everything. He’s very sensitive and it really bothers him that he doesn’t have a better relationship with his mother. Sadly, he’s never known his mother when she wasn’t sick, and she has lived apart from him for the majority of his life. They talk on the phone most days, but he only sees her once or twice a year. He’s been in therapy to help him deal with this.

I’ve been raising the kids by myself for most of the past ten years. Being a single parent has been tough, especially since I’m all alone out here since all my family is on the west coast. But my main focus has always been on the boys and trying to be the best dad I could for them and providing them a stable home environment. But it hasn’t always been easy. Being the only parent every single day without a break has been tough, and there were times when it got to be overwhelming. But I kept going because I had no other choice. I started seeing a therapist before the divorce, and continued seeing her periodically through the years when things got rough.

In September of 2007 my oldest son was working part-time at McDonalds. One night he was working at the drive-up window when a man walked up to another man and shot him, right in front of the window, then stood over him laughing as he reloaded, and shot him in the head, killing him. My son had a very difficult time dealing with what he saw, and was eventually diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This began a very difficult period where he had behavior problems at home and at school, and things got really bad. He was in therapy and on meds, but it was still frustrating that I couldn’t do more to help him. Prior to this he was an honor student in school, but he ended up dropping out of school the year he was supposed to graduate, which was very disheartening and difficult for me to accept. Things got really bad at home, and it reached the point early last year where I told him he needed to move out. He later totaled two cars (hit a deer and was broadsided by a lady who ran a stop sign), and had some minor problems with the law. But he’s finally gotten his life back together and is doing well.

In September of 2008 I started coughing up blood, and was eventually diagnosed with a Brochiectasis, a Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. A couple of weeks after that I got a phone call from a woman who told me my oldest son had gotten her daughter pregnant. Needless to say I was in shock. After doing some research and piecing things together I was fairly certain he wasn’t the father, but we still had to wait seven more months until we knew for sure, which was very stressful. It turns out he wasn’t the father and the woman had intentionally lied.

After my son moved out early in the year 2009 it ended up being a fairly calm year, and I felt more relaxed and unstressed than I had in a long time. My youngest son and I enjoyed our time together, and my relationship with my older son returned to normal, and I started being more social and spending more time with friends. But then the memory problems started and things changed.

So, I guess the point of all this is that the past ten years have been the most difficult period of my life, but things were much better last year. I have been in therapy on and off for most of those years, and my therapist agrees that there were times when I was probably mildly depressed. Looking back I can see that. I tried anti-depressants for a while, but they didn’t help, and in fact made me feel worse. Having lived with someone who battled depression for many years, I am very familiar with the signs and symptoms of depression and anxiety. At times in the past I have exhibited some of the symptoms, but not now. I have none of the typical signs of depression other than insomnia, which I’ve had for a long time. My appetite is as good as it’s ever been, I enjoy doing a wide variety of activities which I actively participate in, I don’t feel hopeless, and I’ve never had thoughts of harming myself. I’m happier and less stressed than I’ve been in a long time, so I don’t feel this is caused by depression. I know I’m overstating this, and by doing so it probably makes me look like I’m trying too hard to convince myself that it’s not depression, but I just don’t think its depression. Maybe I’m wrong and in denial or not seeing what everyone else sees, I don’t know. But why would these memory and comprehension problems show up now and not back when things were really rough and I probably was somewhat depressed? Why now?

Thanks again for taking the time to read this, and I’ll look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Me