Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [24]
But I couldn’t.
Steven would come home from the recording studio or rehearsals to find me curled up in our bed crying. Emily had started kindergarten. I loved having little Caleb and Will at home . . . but then there were times when they were right under my feet while I’d furiously clean the house, pay bills, do laundry, and try to keep our domestic life afloat, while continuing to manage various business aspects of Steven’s career.
Sometimes I would just stop, sit, and cry. Other days, I would actually crawl under my bed or in my closet. I was physically and emotionally depleted, and though I’m a real pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of person, I could not pull myself up and out of this any longer.
One day before Steven was to leave on the tour, we were out on the driveway talking with Steven’s manager, Dan Raines. Dan was discussing plans that were taking me by surprise. I like to schedule things on the calendar, be prepared, take care of details, and not get caught by something unknown. I had asked over and over to be given as much information as possible.
But I was now hearing about all kinds of add-ons . . . more shows, television opportunities, interviews . . . things that would keep Steven out on the road longer than I’d been told. This was great for his career . . . but this latest batch of last-minute information sent me over the edge.
I started crying and couldn’t stop. I was way beyond the point of caring who saw me. Complete breakdown. I wanted to die. Steven actually carried me into our house, me kicking and screaming all the way.
Dan was very wide-eyed but compassionate. He told us about a good friend in his small group from church who was a psychiatrist. “Maybe we ought to see about getting you an appointment,” he told me when I was calm enough to hear anything.
I knew nothing about psychiatrists, except they were for crazy people. And that definitely wasn’t me, even though I’d always felt half-crazy and now was flipping out in the driveway and hiding under the bed.
Actually, I had always been quite open to getting counseling help as Steven and I struggled with some of the difficulties in our marriage. We knew the value of having trained people walk through hard places with us.
So I met with the doctor. We talked for some time, and he said to me, “I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term ‘clinical depression,’ but I believe you’ve suffered from it for a long time.”
I thought back to my high-performing childhood and the pain and shame of my adolescence. The doctor was right.
It was a relief to know that what I suffered from had a name. At the same time I felt guilty and ashamed. Like everything was my fault. I had no logical reason to be depressed. I had a wonderful, loving, faithful husband and healthy, great kids. We were financially blessed. I wasn’t living in poverty, persecution, or pain. Why should I be depressed?
What I began to understand was that this was a medical condition. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t a response to my environment. It had to do with my brain chemistry and coping mechanisms that I’d developed over a lifetime. I began to see that I’d carried this for years, that depression had been the filter through which I had experienced much of my adolescence and everything since.
It obviously had affected my marriage as well. And now, with the depression diagnosis, it felt like any problems or differences between Steven and me were automatically my fault, because, well, I was depressed. This dynamic meant that I now carried more guilt, thinking every difference between us was because I wasn’t able to let go or lighten up, no matter how hard I tried. It