Hello ladies,

I feel a bit like the prodigal son returning to the fould repentent, if not in rags (that's just not the YLF way). This year has been a real low-water mark for me in terms of participation in both the forum and the blog. Overwhelming guilt about this has largely kept me silent about the issues I've been facing. The guilt remains, but I'm going to fill you all in now anyway. It's partially due to this excellent off-topic page, but also partially because Angie told me to and you simply don't argue with that.

As many of you know, my long-term partner Corey has struggled with mental health issues for most of his life. The culmination of those struggles came in 2009 when he attempted suicide, almost succeeded and wound up in hospital for several days. We tried to rebuild our relationship in the months after that, and while it was rocky going at first, it seemed as though we ultimately succeeded. It wasn't a clean, start, though, and over time I began to see the cracks that we hadn't patched over. Corey has a horror of facing up to any uncomfortable issue, and more specifically of being called out on his evasionary tactics. It doesn't help that I have strong conflict-avoidance tendencies myself. We began drifting apart in a variety of small ways, but whenever I tried to point this out to him, he would assume an ostrich posture and say everything was fine.

Gradually this distance crept into nearly all facets of our lives, particularly the intimate ones, with the result that we were living like roommates rather than a couple. It reached the point where even he could not ignore what I was saying and conceded that we had a problem. Unfortunately. that revelation came at a time when the atmosphere in his office went from demanding to toxic. Corey has always, always made work his top priority. It's the way he assesses his own success in life and the means by which he defines what very little self-worth he'll give himself credit for. You can imagine what happened when this double-whammy hit him - he fell into a profound depression every bit as bad as the one that levelled him in 2009.

There has thankfully been no suicide attempt this time, but the past few months have taken an even greater toll on our relationship. Corey tends to have extreme reactions to things. I was initially very much encouraged when he admitted we had a problem. I saw it as a chance for us to finally have a two-way dialog in which we both acknowledged the issues and tried to find solutions to them. He saw it as the death knell of our relationship, full stop. Everything was hopeless. Sure, he'd agree to come to couple's counseling, but only so we could say we'd tried everything. Counselors were all the same and did nothing but talk bullshit anyway, so this wouldn't be any different...You catch my drift. As his depression deepened, he fell deeper into a negative headspace that precluded any rational discussion. I suspect he's not alone in this, but when depression hits he becomes entirely self-absorbed and too entrapped in his bubble of misery and self-loathing to see someone else's perspective or make allowances for other people's feelings. He began to say that he had nowhere in which he could be happy, since work was a nightmare and home was a scene of constant tension. He talked about how he just wanted to be left alone all the time, making me rluctant to do something basic like leave my office on time. On a good day he was curt and dismissive to me...On a bad day he was mean and hurtful (though never physically). He took up smoking again, a habit he kicked years ago, then proceeded to lie to me about it for months (he only coughed up on the weekend). If I reached out to him to try and offer comfort or perspective, he would lash out at me verbally and yell at me for offering something he didn't need. At the worst moments, he planned to take a week off and simply go somewhere by himself, leaving his cell phone behind and not telling me or anyone else where he was going. When I insisted on being told at the very least where he would be and when he would return, he flipped out and accused me of keeping him on a tether. He ssimply couldn't see how irresponsible it would be to disappear without telling a single soul of his whereabouts. Through it all, he refused to go back on the antidepressants that had made the most difference in the past. He said they were just a fake bandade sollution and wouldn't accomplish anything.

We did start with couple's counseling, which is a good thing since I was pretty much at my wit's end. This woman is extremely, extremely blunt. She makes Judge Judy look like Emily Post. While I personally find such unfiltered honesty refreshing, I was very concerned about the effect it would have on Corey. He revels in straight-talk as a matter of course...just not when it has to do with his life or the issues he'd rather avoid. After a few sessions she had reached the conclusion that I was a great deal more invested in saving the relationship than he was. She counseled me about some of the ways I was placing undue pressure on him (expecting him to stop prioritizing work etc), but most of her comments were directed at him. She told him he was being disrespectful to me by planning to take off without disclosing his location, that it was imperative to treat his depression before proceeding any further. Corey decided to interpret this as the simplistic advice of a lazy counselor who just wanted to pass the buck and was going to blame him for everything. Even when I would point out that she had advice for me too, his hostility towards the whole process left him unable to give her any credit. That said, ,though, her advice did obviously germinate. He began making more of an effort to spend time with me at home, and he did agree to go back on anti-depressants. He said it was mostly to "shut me up," but at least it was progress. He started the prescription again on Saturday, the day before our most recent phone counseling session.

Our counselor talked to us both about how we felt things were going. I said I felt we were starting to make strides towards reconnecting. Corey said we were having more fun together, but that it wasn't real progress since we still felt like roommates. The therapist forced him to elaborate on what the difference would be. He *always* equivocated when I tried to pin him down on this issue over the years, but she wasn't going to stand for any of that. Eventually he finally said "the spark was gone" and he "didn't see anything salvageable in this." Needless to say, I was totally devastated. Corey tried to storm out of the session at this point, whereupon the counselor called him out for getting angry at her because he was "too cowardly to listen to the words he couldn't say for himself." He remained in the session and seemed to take her words to heart, because he began to mellow almost immediately. She then turned her truth bombs on me, pointed out that actions spoke louder than words and that I had been doing a lot of selective listening for the past few months. I couldn't deny a word of it. In just a few sessions, she certainly took both our measures accurately and cut right down to the quick.

By the end of the session Corey had backpedalled on his previous bald statement and said he didn't know if there was anything salvageable. He has since done a complete about-face and said he wants to save it. I don't doubt that he loves me. I've never doubted that, oddly enough, and maybe it's something that can only be understood by people who have lived with a depressed person...I don't know. But what I do know is that the therapist is right. Actions speak louder than words, and sometimes the words spoken in anger are the accurate translation of those actions.

So now I'm faced with a strong likelihood of saying goodbye to the man I've spent the past seven years with and that I love very much. Either that or I stay and try and work this situation through. The status quo is untenable and unhealthy, and the future options on the table right now scare me to death. Working through this quagmire is a daunting prospect to say the least. Being alone terrifies me. Loneliness has always been my greatest fear, there are myriad pitfalls and logistical challenges awaiting any blind person living on their own, and finances are precarious enough to make living solo seem next to impossible. Not to mention contending with the confidence-shattering idea that nothing I did was good enough and that if this ends, it will be the ultimate rejection.
I'm sorry this is such tall cotton to walk through, guys...but this hopefully goes some way to explaining why I've been awol in all aspects of YLF life. I did do some shopping today with my curtailed budget and actually had a fun idea for a post ruminating on how new wardrobe choices can reflect life circumstances, but that's definitely something for another day.

I don't expect anything of you guys, really...But if you've been through something similar and have wisdom to impart, believe me, I'm all ears.

Thank you to those who read through this. A big part of why I stayed away was guilt about not offering anything to the forum when my inclination was to take so much. I hope on some level you can understand.