Feeling Hopeless

[kashdyjo]

I have been feeling myself sink into depression over the last several weeks. I have been fighting so hard to keep myself out, but it seems the harder I fight the more I sink. I use to love being home with my kids. I have 4 boys. Now they are driving me crazy. Deep down I know it is not their fault. It is me. I'm having such a hard time dealing with my emotions that I have no patients for them. It is so unfair to them.

I thought I finally had a breakthrough today. I was feeling really upbeat and stronger. Then the boys did something wrong and I lost it. I started screaming at them. The minute I did it, I was overwhelmed by guilt. Then I took the downward spiral to the bottom once again. Right now I just feel like my boys would be so much better off without me. I just keep thinking about the effect I am having on their lives. I am frustrated and sad all the time. How can that be any good for them? How can they ever know they have a loving Father in Heaven when I am not showing them any mercy or compassion? I fear that I will push them completely away from God. I fear that I will make them the same emotional wrecks that I am right now.

I am continuously going through this ugly cycle. I get depressed, then I fight my way out of it and get better. Then something happens and I get depressed again. I worry about my boys and the effect this is having on their lives and on our relationship. Will they ever be able to trust me?

I stopped working 3 years ago so I could stay at home with them. Since I quit, I no longer have any friends. My husband works all of the time and when he isn't at work, he is asleep. Besides that he doesn't understand depression at all. When I tell him I am depressed, he asks me why. He doesn't think I have any reason to be. I agree with him. I have everything I could ever dream of but I still can't shake it. I can't talk to my family about it because they would have the same attitude as my husband. I just feel like I am in this deep well with no way out. Eveytime I start to climb out and think I am free, I fall right back in. I have prayed so many times for God to deliver me. I know He does when I ask Him, but why do I keep falling back in? Will I ever be completely healed? Or is this the thorn in my flesh?

 

[Mr.Cheese]

The whole deal about depression is that you feel it when you have no need to feel that way.
If something bad happens, such as a death in the family, it hurts. That's normal.

Depression needs no reason(s). It is very hard to understand unless you have gone through it. I encourage your husband to try to read up on it.

I imagine giving up your job and life was a large sacrifice, and you are still learning what you have had to lose.

Deliverance is learning to shine through the darkness that swallows you.

Read some Viktor Frankl.