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I am really struggling in life right now. Maybe everyone else is too, but it feels especially hard for me at the moment. Between Ted’s battle with addiction, my overwhelming conflict with codependence, and my seemingly little regard and desire for what I actually want in life, I’m having a lot of trouble just getting through life day to day. Ted’s addictions were diagnosed in the spring/summer of 2009. Since a few months before that time I started seeing a therapist. A couple months ago I started seeing another therapist and decided to finally look up the psychiatric code for my “illness.” Up until this point, I didn’t actually believe myself to be mentally ill in any way other than that I was having a seriously difficult time coping with my marriage and my life. I figured that I was perhaps experiencing some situational depression and that eventually it would get better. But now that I think about it, here I am, almost two years later, and I feel exactly the same. So I opened up the DSM 4 last night and took a look at what psychiatric code my therapists have been using in order to bill my insurance company: 300.4, which in English means that I have Dysthymic Disorder. According to the DSM 4, “Dysthymic Disorder is a chronic condition characterized by depressive symptoms that occur for most of the day, more days than not, for at least 2 years.” Yep! Sounds about like me. Now, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have an occasional reprieve; however, the “good feelings” have never lasted longer than maybe a month at most. This was all a very depressing revelation. And whether or not I really do in fact have dysthymia, one thing is for sure: I have never been so sad for so long.

My biggest challenge is trying to distinguish my fears from the actual truth. I know that one of my fears is that Ted will stop going to school, will never really get a job, and that my life will remain the same unless I leave. But what part of any of that has any truth? All of this is especially hard for me to discern when moments and memories from the past creep up and haunt me when something similar from then seems to be happening now. For example, Ted has been sick with the flu since last Thursday night. Now, I know that he is indeed actually sick because he’s been running a fever for the last few days. But even though he’s had a fever and a note from his Dr. saying that he needs lots of sleep and rest, I can’t help but start to panic when I realize that he hasn’t been to school one day this week. In addition, Ted has never been able to maintain a job in over five years. His biggest hindrance in keeping a job was his obvious addiction and mental illness, but when I see him sober for 6 months and still not working I begin to feel like this will never work out. He’s a good man—a great man! But can he be the man I need him to be? And how many years will I let go by while I wait to find out?

I’m turning 27 at the end of this month. Last year for my birthday I took myself on a trip to Paris…alone. I booked the trip 9 months in advance and although I had a return ticket home, I kind of hoped that something would happen and I would get stuck there forever. I think I thought that when I went there I would find myself, but I never did. I had a really good time and took a lot of pictures, but when I returned home to California I still felt lost—I still felt alone. I suppose that part of my problem is that I keep waiting for something dramatic to happen that will change my life: like Ted getting a job, or waking up one day and finally feeling happy for no reason at all. But I think the real truth is that in order to be happy it has to be ME that makes myself happy. But for as long as I can remember, my happiness has always been determined by other things and other people. Never by my own self. And when you live a certain way for so many years it’s hard to change and do things differently. I want to live for myself. I want to do things that will make me happy. But instead I choose to lie in bed watching reruns of whatever show happens to be on Netflix, tuning out the life that I hate, and wishing it would be better. When will I finally have the courage to make it better for myself?