Depression, Denial, And The Therapist's Couch
By Katie Blackburn
@katiemblackburn
This essay was a joint effort, written by Katie Blackburn together with her husband, Alex. To the best of their ability, they have tried to relive their thoughts, and tell the truth.
Katie: It was about two and a half years ago, I guess, and I can only place that because I have a clear picture in my mind that he was pushing our middle child on the swing, so it had to be warm enough to be outside on the porch. He was stoic, and quiet, just pushing the swing again and again without looking up at me. We had been in an argument about something, I don’t remember what, and I finally said to him, “What is wrong with you, babe? Why are you so angry all the time?” He kept pushing the swing, then finally he said, “I think I’m depressed.”
Alex: I don’t remember the first time I told her, but there is no doubt that I was depressed.
Katie: Did I believe him? [Pause.]
Alex: I didn’t feel like she believed me at all.
Katie: I think I wanted to push him, because I was not ready for him to use that word. In the moment, that felt like a cop out. He threw that sentence out there, like that should just make sense to me and explain everything—how he could be fine one minute and not fine the next.
Alex: If she believed me, I didn’t know she did. She gave me no indication that she did. All I felt was, well... it felt like she was suspicious of me right away.
Katie: I’m reluctant to use that word “depressed”. I always have been, not because I don’t think it’s real, but just because I think it’s thrown around too casually. Are you depressed, or are you just in a tough season? That’s where my mind tends to go. And we were most definitely in a tough season. We had three kids in three years, and then our middle son was diagnosed with autism when he was two. Your whole life changes with young kids. But your whole life and all your dreams for what it could have been are wrecked when you throw special needs in that mix. So I don’t know if I believed him or did not believe him—I just thought, ok, well life is hard right now, so let’s acknowledge that and keep going. I am a “do what needs to be done and don’t complain about it” kind of person.
Alex: I always heard what Katie was saying when she would say things like, “Don’t you think this is hard for me, too?” But I just could not figure out how to explain to her … I felt like there was a brick wall in my way, between me and everything I wanted to do and be. I felt like she was saying that because the wall wasn’t there for her, it shouldn’t be there for me. How do you convince someone to see something invisible to them, but so real to you?
Katie: Maybe I just knew I didn’t want ... that I couldn’t add a depressed husband to my plate. Life was too full for that. It sounds so selfish now to say that out loud, as if he was doing something to me on purpose, giving me more to worry about. But at the time, I remember feeling like, “We have the same life, Alex. It’s hard. Really hard on a lot of days. But I’m not depressed, and you shouldn’t be either.”
Alex: I felt like she was constantly comparing us, measuring our capacities against each other… and every time I saw that, I knew I was behind. I wasn’t measuring up. While I was struggling with all my friendships, she could make friends easily. I couldn’t keep one consistent obligation outside of work going, and she had ten things that she would have to say “no” to because she was juggling so many others. She told me once, “Alex, I feel like I’m working hard and making a lot of sacrifices for you to do things that will be life-giving to you—going out with a friend, taking a run by yourself—and none of them are ever enough.”
What else am I supposed to do with that but feel like I am more of a failure? Because the thing is, she was right. Nothing was enough. Nothing was truly life-giving. And all she was doing was pointing that out to me again and again.
Katie: In the last two and a half years—and I’ve said this to Alex a handful of times so I don’t feel bad saying it again—but there have been many moments when I have felt like he doesn’t like our life, doesn’t want our life.
Alex: This is one of the hardest parts for me, because I don’t want any other life. I got so offended when she would say, “Do you even like our life?” But I know why she’s coming to that conclusion. I love our life, absolutely love it. I love how the kids run to the garage door as soon as they hear it open when I come home from work. I love that I am the one who makes my autistic child the happiest. I love that my kids want to be around me all the time. But, even the things I love the most, they were the very things that were suffocating me. I know … I know what that sounds like. I did and do love our life. But I have also felt overwhelmed by the reality that I am not always capable of loving it.
Like no matter what I do, I cannot muster the ability to embrace it, to see myself as able to handle it. That’s what is so paralyzing about depression: you can see who you want to be, what you want to enjoy, but you cannot get yourself there, that brick wall is in the way. I cannot deny the responsibility that God has given me with six children—I know it’s from him. But I also cannot deny that it feels like he made a big mistake giving this to me. When you feel like God messed up … that’s an awful place to be.
Katie: Why has it been so hard admitting that my husband is depressed? I mean … [pause]
Alex: I think it’s hard for Katie because with the life we’ve been given, we rely on each other so much, and sometimes I feel like I’m not allowed to struggle, especially with parenting. Katie relies on me to be the thermostat at home, because I always have been—the one who brings joy and energy to our family. But if the thermostat is broken, the whole temperature of the house is wrong. If I’m not well, then we are not well, and if we are not well, our family is not well. And if our family is not well …
Katie: Because I’m afraid it all falls apart if he is depressed. All of it. Our marriage. The teamwork it takes to keep this family going. Our individual goals, too; I mean, those are not a priority compared to your family, but they’re there. How do I authentically pursue the work I love to do … [pause] If my husband is depressed about the life I write about, the life I try desperately to find God in—to believe God is sovereign over … and by the way, do you know how hard that is to do sometimes? To believe God is good when your son is hitting his head on the floor, when you get a positive pregnancy test after a vasectomy when your husband is clearly overwhelmed already …
How do I do what I believe God is calling me to do with these stories, which is find him in them, if my husband is depressed?
Alex: I’ve been honest with Katie that I felt like I really only had capacity for three kids. And Katie asked me if I blamed her for us having more—for saying yes when Ava needed a home, for getting pregnant unexpectedly with our fifth and then for the vasectomy failing and having a sixth. And of course the immediate answer is “no.” How else do you explain those things except for believing that God wanted us to have those children? I don’t blame Katie. But how do I convince her of that? [pause] ... No, how do I convince both of us of that?
Katie: Actually, it’s bigger than all that. I’m afraid it’s my fault if he is really depressed. I thought he wanted the same life I did. What if he doesn’t?
Alex: I want every part of my life, of this life. But in my worst moments, yeah, I didn’t want it and yes, I can blame Katie for that. I feared what I now have. Or, feared my ability to carry it. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it’s the truth. And trust me, I’m still trying to get comfortable with the paradox myself.
Katie: The tipping point? That had to be the day of the fight.
Alex: The fight was bad. But, there was some good that came out of it, because in our anger we were brutally honest with each other. That’s the morning I called the doctor.
***
Katie: What’s changed in the last few months? Well, the medication, for one. I saw a difference almost immediately. Alex had been seeing a counselor for two years, been involved in a Bible study … but within a few days of starting medication, he was different, more patient, more present. I think Alex felt some pressure to work through all of this on his own because in Christian circles, men don’t talk about mental health all that often. I feel like he gets a lot of “Just stay in the Word, bro, and stay in community” comments. He was doing those things—he is doing those things. He was fighting hard.
Alex: Yes, I would definitely say I am happy I started medication. I couldn’t point out any specific changes I was feeling after starting it. The circumstances and difficulty in front of me stayed the same. But, medication has kind of given me a push—where a few months ago I felt like I saw the person I wanted to be and the life I wanted to enjoy and I just couldn’t get there, I feel like I can get there now. It’s not perfect, but it’s not a mirage I am grasping at anymore.
Katie: I think the biggest thing that has changed for me was that I stopped denying it, stopped trying to make us all run from the word ‘depression’, as if its presence was some kind of indictment on our life, or on me. It has so much power over you before you name it, and therefore accept it—like it is just hanging there in the atmosphere and if you say it out loud, a tornado is going to come out of the sky and destroy everything in its path. But it didn’t. I held my breath, I finally let my husband not only name this thing, but move forward with dealing with it, and no tornado ever came. In my fear, I had been making him feel like he couldn’t name it either. I can be a very good micro-manager of things—he’ll tell you that.
Alex: Ha, yes, Katie likes her control. And that really can be a good thing for our big family. But when it came to my mental health, neither of us could move forward until she gave it up.
Katie: And we started talking more—about what he’s really feeling. That’s been huge. Once there are no words that your husband cannot say to you, no feeling that he cannot confess, the level of intimacy and trust feels so much deeper.
Alex: I read somewhere that when it comes to struggling with anxiety or depression, there is freedom in using metaphors to help you find the words to what you’re experiencing. Like the brick wall or the mirage, describing the limitations I felt in my depression. This tool has been helpful for me, but even more so is the way Katie allows me to explore this language, and joins in the effort with me to name what I’m experiencing. She has always been the most amazing person in my life, but this effort from her has increased my love for her in ways I didn’t think possible.
Katie: Here’s the thing, I have always known this about my husband: he loves the Lord, he loves me, he loves the kids, and he is committed to us. I have never doubted that. But I’m not naive, either. We are human beings, we spend every single day contending with sin, temptation, stress, our own selfishness … I mean, the idea of “dying to yourself” that is so clearly spelled out and modeled for us in Jesus’ life, that does not come naturally to anyone. Self-preservation does.
My self-preservation looked like not letting my husband have depression. I didn’t realize how much damage I was doing, because when you’re just trying to hold everything together, you don’t see it. You just see how other people need to fit into your hands so you don’t drop them all. God had to show me that I’m not the one carrying everything.
Alex: Knowing my wife is for me again, and believing that God hasn’t sentenced me to some kind of punishment but has given me everything I need for this life, those two things give me a genuine hope—hope I couldn’t see for a while. I know I can’t ever stop fighting. But let me tell you, it’s so different fighting from hope than it was fighting from despair.
Katie: Do I think this is all behind us? [Pause]. I will tell you this—when Alex and I got married, we received a card from a couple that had been together for decades, and it said “make ‘together’ your favorite word.” I cannot begin to tell you how much more that sentiment means to me now than it did ten years ago. I think I am more comfortable saying, “I don’t know what is ahead of us.” I mean, do any of us? But I do know this, we are learning to name it, we are trying to stop being afraid to be honest about it, and we will be together. What else can you do but be committed to those things, and to each other?