Not to generalize, but I’m not sure many boyfriends/husbands would stick around for the roller coaster ride even though your stories show that it is clearly worth it.

I know her powers. One false step and you’re a pile of ash.

I’ve been there. That deep black horrible place. Thanks to the unwavering support of an incredible partner and modern chemistry, I am no longer a shadow - but pleasantly human again.

Jon, thank you for being such a great husband to Heather. Thank you both for being so forthcoming and brutally honest to The Internet.

The multitude of comments on both sites truly shows that as much as we may feel we are, we really are not alone (just hiding under the covers a lot of the time). Nor should we be ashamed. Yay to everyone for being brave enough to share so much of themselves.

Armstrongs, you are literally saving lives by the minute. Bless you.

I am now starting back on the meds that helped me at that time, so I can be there and me again. Not this person who doesnt’ want to get out of bed in the morning.

Like many other sufferers, Fry has resisted medication and bought into the temptation that Heather describes: the belief that if one takes medication, one will lose a part of oneself.

I am not listing my full name but feel compelled to mention that without the therapy I received for five years in my mid to late twenties I would very likely be dead from suicide. I didn’t understand my aggressive and exaggerated responses to normal stimuli were caused by PTSD. At the time, I didn’t even know what PTSD was. People who are perpetually exposed to violence and chaos - even with periodic lulls - are in a heightened state of awareness caused by constant adrenalin surges. These surges can actually permanently alter one’s brain chemistry. Like a soldier back from a war, I still find myself in flight or fight mode and have to work at this. I will have this all of my life. (PTSD is very difficult to treat.)

Though I probably could have used it, I didn’t go on medication. (My shrink didn’t recommend it at the time.) I have had numerous physical therapies to help me release tension and rebalance my head. Meditation and empowering exercise is a necessary staple of life. (As Heather has mentioned before though, for clinically depressed people, medication is a staple.)

Living with anxiety, depression, and irrational but visceral fear is like having a writhing python inside of your body. It’s an unbearable, intolerable, shameful - and unnecessary - mass.

At least one of the currently 800+ commenters on Heather’s post requested that you write something about this experience from your perspective. I’m seconding that motion.

I grew up with a depressed parent (my mom) and eventually found my way to being in love with a depressed man. (We’re not together now but we’re still very close.) And it is exhausting, being that partner.

Because it’s not about us.

Except it’s hard not to feel hurt when our love is needed — so badly — but rejected. When we can’t make it better for them. When we have to watch, helpless. Or when we try to help, and still fail, and then seem to make it worse.

When we’re ducking from milk cartons.

So, yeah, I’d love to hear more about it from you. Especially now that you’re both on the other side.

:)k