I guess at some point it was going to catch me

I have prided myself on my strength in the face of things that would bring any other person to their knees.

But now...

The depression that I have kept at bay for about 7 years has finally caught back up with me again. Only once before has it affected me badly, when I lost a baby. I got pregnant when No.2 was just four months old and I carried that baby for 5 months before we discovered it had died. I had to go into hospital and give birth because my body wasn't rejecting the fetus, so I didn't have a late term miscarriage. X was there, but not there. In the room, but not by my side. This loss was one of the nails in the coffin of our marriage the first time around, well, not the loss exactly, but the lack of support from X, the inability for either of us to communicate to each other how we were feeling.

I descended in to a black hole for about 3 months. I was not good to be around, I was angry, and suffering and I took it out on everyone around me, but only inside the home. Outside the home I was what everyone expected to see. I had my mask and I wore it. I never saw a counsellor, never saw a Dr, I used to look at trucks and think about turning the wheel just enough to...well, it doesn't need to be said. I pulled myself out of it, just one day I woke up and said 'that is enough'.

This time it is harder. This time I am dealing with the failure of my marriage, a move, juggling fulltime work and raising a family, trying to develop a relationship with someone who lives two hours away. I am hurting inside, so much that I am struggling to hide it.

I had an appointment to see a Dr today, for contraception, but while I was driving there I was sobbing and trying to hold myself together. I decided to speak up, to say that I needed help. I was heard. I am having an assessment done next Tuesday and will be referred to a psychologist if needed. I think I need it. I am feeling like I want to pack in my relationship, my job, my life. I am feeling like I want to lie in bed all day and feel sorry for myself. I am feeling like I just want to cry all the time. I am holding myself together for now, when I feel the blackness creeping up I take deep breaths and try to calm down just enough to keep going.

I don't want to feel like this.