I have been in stealth mode for a while, reading your stories and feeling the love and support here. I have decided to de-cloak, and say hello.
I have had depression a few times. Medicated twice, self treated once, but now feel like I need some support to help me self-treat myself again.
It may be useful to hear the catalyst to why I am having problems at the moment. If not then feel-free to fast-track to my question at the bottom.
Phew. Well. One evening, 3 years ago a family member (who was 13), came to me for help as she had had unprotected sex. At the time I was about 6 months pregnant with our first child. She looked very upset and very scared and asked me to help her.
She had seen her parents straight after it had happened, but had chosen not to tell them. They had now gone out for the evening.
We went upstairs and sat down and my Niece cried a lot. I told her that she would need to tell her parents, she said she couldn’t and wouldn’t. She was staying with a friend and said that they were going to get emergency contraception in the morning.
Knowing that EC is more effective the sooner it’s taken, combined with the thought of her going with her friend and without a responsible adult led me to offer to take her myself. On the way we talked about why she felt she couldn’t tell her parents and I suggested lots of ways to do it, and reassured her that it wouldn’t be as bad as she thought it would be.
We went together, my Niece did all the talking herself, collected the medication and we left. I took my Niece back to her friend’s house and spent the rest of the evening texting her, persuading her to tell her Parents.
The next morning I continued to text my Niece, telling her she needed to tell her parents, she continued to say she couldn’t. I told her that if she didn’t then I would have to, that it was too big a secret. Eventually my Niece texted to say she had told them. I was hugely relieved.
Later that day I had a text from my Sister-in-Law to say that they were very unhappy with me. She said her Husband was very angry. She said they had dealt with the situation, that they wanted us to not discuss it with anyone and they wouldn’t be talking about it any more.
My SIL and her Husband were two of my closest friends, he was our best man at our wedding, and we thought a lot of each other, but from that day on I felt our friendship was damaged, and as time has gone I fear that this is beyond repair.
When my Daughter was born a few months later I had hoped that things might improve a little, but with my SIL’s Husband it has not and over the past 3 years I have begun to lose hope of the friendship being repaired. I see them regularly at family gatherings, but even after 3 years I still feel the anger and hatred from him.
I feel the animosity face-to-face, where he will not initiate conversation with me, will cut me out of conversations he’s having and quickly end any conversations that I have initiated, and I also feel the bad feeling on places like Facebook, where he will comment on status updates and photos from my friends and family, but never mine; even photos of our Daughter (his Niece).
After this time I think the only way to ease the pain would be to cut him out of my life, but I can’t because he’s part of our family, and that would mean cutting my SIL and their children, my Niece and Nephews out of my life too, and the pain of losing them all is too much to bear.
After 3 years of apologising, trying to mend our friendship and failing miserably I am feeling hopeless. I get very anxious before family gatherings and feel very very low. Most worryingly I have started to fail in my role as a wife, friend, carer and Mummy.
A once attentive person I feel withdrawn, anxious, unhappy, angry, a failure, and can see no way out. I have started taking St John’s Wort in an attempt to lift me, but so far it is not working at all.
My question is how long has it taken for people to start better on St John's Wort, and is it possible to get through depression with the problem causing it not being able to be solved? Thanking you in advance.
