BC, CANADA: How To Tell A Depressed Spouse From A Jackass: A Mom’s Guide

BC, CANADA: How To Tell A Depressed Spouse From A Jackass: A Mom’s Guide

100369250_3cd4e5760dOf all of the illnesses that can descend upon a happy family, I consider depression to be among the worst.

Depression kills.

Suicide is one of the top ten causes of death in Canada. In my age group, it is the #2 killer, after accidental death. I am more likely to die by suicide than from cancer. I am four times more likely to be killed by myself than by a murderer.

My husband is even higher risk. He has a 20% chance of dying by suicide… that’s a 1/5 chance, worse than a toss of a die.

Shortly after my miscarriage, my husband, who has always been prone to depression, became suicidal. He was committed, he went on short term disability, he got put on a bunch of medications, none of which seemed to help.

For months I spent all day at work worried that I would find a corpse when I came home, and wondering how I would explain his death to our three year old son.

Now he seems to have leveled out a bit, and while he still has suicidal thoughts, the chance of him acting on them is much less. But he’s still unable to work, unable to do much of anything. He’s not himself.

I miss him.

Depression affects the mind and body. Not only is the sufferer often physically unable to function, but they also suffer personality changes. That makes life extremely hard for the spouse, because even though I KNOW it is a disease, even though I KNOW my husband is in pain, even though I KNOW it is out of his control…

I sometimes have to work hard not to get frustrated or angry.

Because, quite honestly… a depressed spouse closely resembles a jackass.

For the past 6 months, I have essentially been acting as a single parent, while my husband lay on the couch.

If I was on the outside of this relationship looking in, and I didn’t know about the depression, I would think my husband was a major ass.

But depression is NOT the same as being an ass, and if you are married to a depressed spouse, there are little things you can look for to assure yourself that, yes, they are, in fact, sick and not actually jackasses or jerks.

How To Tell A Depressed Spouse From A Jackass

  • A jackass sleeps in every morning, while you get up with the kids…. But a depressed spouse physically cannot be woken up at times, and may sleep for 24 hours straight.
  • A jackass doesn’t help around the house…  But a depressed spouse knows that your workload is too heavy and is grateful for any housework you manage to do.
  • A jackass leaves you to do the majority of the childcare… But a depressed spouse still exerts special effort to stay involved every now and then. He will physically collapse after attempting this.
  • A jackass never wants to do your favourite things with you… But a depressed spouse never wants to do his own favourite things any more, either.
  • A jackass snaps at you out of the blue all of the time… But a depressed spouse sometimes cries out of the blue, too.
  • A jackass wants to live… But a depressed spouse may not.

All you can do is be as kind as understanding as you can. I like to ask myself, “Would it be okay for me to expect this of him if he had cancer?” or “What would I say if he had cancer, instead of depression?” and then I do that. Because he has a deadly disease, and I need to remember that.

The best thing to remember when trying to get through life with a depressed spouse is to constantly remind yourself of this:

  • A jackass will always be a jackass… But a depressed spouse used to help with the housework, used to contribute equally to childcare, used to do fun things with you… and will again some day, when he recovers.

Do any of you have loved ones with depression? How do you cope?

This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Carol.  She can be found blogging at If By Yes and on Twitter @IfByYesTweets

Photo credit to Paranoid Monk.  This photo has a creative commons attribute license.

Carol (Canada)

Carol from If By Yes has lived in four different Canadian provinces as well as the Caribbean. Now she lives in Vancouver, working a full time job at a vet clinic, training dogs on the side, and raising her son and daughter to be good citizens of the world. Carol is known for wearing inside-out underwear, microwaving yoghurt, killing house plants, over-thinking the mundane, and pointing out grammatical errors in "Twilight". When not trying to wrestle her son down for a nap, Carol loves to read and write. Carol can also be found on her blog, If By Yes, and on Twitter @IfByYesTweets

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#Moms4MDGs How it Went & the Impact for #SocialGood

#Moms4MDGs How it Went & the Impact for #SocialGood

#Moms4MDGs #MDG6 ResultsSo what kind of impact can you make with a Twitter party for social good?

Last night, after our #Moms4MDGs chat, we ran a TweetReach report.

In the past week, our collaborative efforts under the #Moms4MDGs hashtag have reached over 1.1 million Twitter accounts and made over 5.8 million Twitter impressions. There were also 160 contributors to the hashtag and 569 retweets. Tweeters from North America, South America, Europe and Africa joined in!

The #Moms4MDGs campaign was announced last July at the BlogHER conference’s International Activist’s Panel by World Moms Blog Senior Editor, Purnima Ramakrishnan, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.  We were answering the call to action to keep moms engaged with the world’s goals on topics such as eradicating extreme poverty and empowering women and girls. There are 8 Millennium Development Goals, and we have been covering one per month and have teamed up with a different organization each month that works year-round toward a particular goal.

The topic of yesterday’s #Moms4MDGs chats was on the UN’s Millennium Development Goal #6, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.  The key to tackling the world’s most pressing problems is teamwork. In the first party, we were joined by cohosts, Multicultural Kid Blogs, InCulture Parent Magazine, Girls Globe and our featured organization of the month, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who tweeted from @gateshealth.

World Moms Blog and our contributors got the party started by welcoming guests!

#Moms4MDGs World Moms Blog Welcome

#Moms4MDGs Documama

#Moms4MDGs Gates Welcome

#Moms4MDGs Sisters From Another Mister

Then we passed the baton to cohost Multicultural Kid Blogs, who educated us on the targets for HIV/AIDS and statistics on progress and what still needs to and can be done to fight the disease.

#Moms4MDGs Multicultural Kid Blogs HIV/AIDS

#Moms4MDGs Think Ten HIV/AIDS

Multicultural Kids #Moms4MDGs HIV/AIDS Question

(By the way, the answer is c.)

This was a very popular and important tweet from the HIV/AIDS discussion:

#Moms4MDGs Gates Health HIV/AIDS

Next, the baton was passed to cohost InCulture Parent Magazine, who announced the targets for malaria, the seriousness of the disease, and what can be done to help.

#Moms4MDGs InCulture Parent Malaria

The UN Foundation and their campaign, Nothing But Nets, entered the twitter feed, which was really helpful to the conversation.

#Moms4MDGs UN Foundation

Nothing But Nets #Moms4MDGs Bed Nets

And the smart people chimed in!

#Moms4MDGs Nelly Lukale HIV Malaira Quote

Great tweets on malaria from the PM chat:

#Moms4MDGs Clean Birth Malaria

#Moms4MDGs Emma Salor Malaria

#Moms4MDGs Erin Threlfall Malaria

Some moms were already connecting with Nothing But Nets during the chat about getting their children involved in #MDG6! (This made us feel great!!)

#Moms4MDGs Taking Action on Malaria

#Moms4MDGs Diana On Malaria

And more great conversations!

#Mom4MDGs Playtime Malaria Prevention And…

#Moms4MDGs Culture Beliefs Medicine

Then, cohost Girls Globe took the baton and asked the party some powerful questions to stir up ideas and action towards #MDG6.

Girls Globe #Moms4MDGs World Moms

The Shot@Life campaign was also present and invited people to join them in the fight against disease and to become a Shot@Life champion when Girls Globe asked how moms of the world could get involved to reach #MDG6 goals.

Shot@Life #Moms4MDGs Be a Champion

And Girls Globe brought up tech and MDG goals!

Girls Globe #Moms4MDGs Tech

#Moms4MDGs Emily Bosworth #Mhealth

Our interview was cut short during the first party with @gateshealth, but it left everyone something to come back for later that evening! Later, we learned how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation came about and more about their global blog, Impatient Optimists.

Gate Health Impatient Optimists Tweet

And, they provided a mind-blowing statistic on polio, given that India was just declared polio-free for 3 years in a row this week.

Gates Health #Moms4MDGs Polio Stat

But, perhaps, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s biggest, most powerful message on #MDG6 was this:

Gates Health #Moms4MDGs Global Health Tweet

With two months still left in the 8 month #Moms4MDGs campaign, we are thrilled about how much MDG8, a global partnership for development, has played a role in all the parties throughout.  World Moms Blog is proud to be meeting interesting people on Twitter, connecting with other websites geared up to make a difference and partnering and featuring foundations that are making year-long contributions to the vital goals to end extreme poverty and increase global health that the world has set.

#Moms4MDGs Lauren Supina Quote

Our next twitter party takes place on February, 15th, 2014 on MDG7, the environment from 1-2pm EST.  We hope you will come out and join the momentum. Mark your calendars…!

This is an original post by World Moms Blog Founder, Jennifer Burden in New Jersey, USA. 

Photo credits to the author. 

Jennifer Burden

Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India. She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls. Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.

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Congo: It Used To Be So Easy

Congo: It Used To Be So Easy

It used to be so easy.

A $30 box of Rice Krispies was worth writing home about. Sewing pillowcases from pagne fabric was so exciting that I had to Skype my friend in Virginia. Our morning oatmeal topped with cheap passion fruit was worthy of photographic documentation.

Painting congo

I couldn’t stop collecting stories from the new people who suddenly surrounded me. I clearly remember walking to my neighbor’s house one night thinking excitedly, “I am walking…in Africa!” and wondering if I should write a poem.

 people in Kinshasa Congo

Now, everything about my life seems either too complex to describe, or just not worth it. A few weeks ago I tried to write a fluff piece about the blue tins of Nivea lotion that are ubiquitous around Kinshasa and before I knew it, I was going on about globalization. Other things, I just forget to mention. I don’t notice anymore that it’s weird to pay $40 for laundry detergent, soak your veggies in filtered water and vinegar, stop your car conversation briefly to say “pas aujourd’hui” to a seven-year-old beggar, or pop a live worm out of a person’s skin. These events are ticked off neatly in the daily rhythm of life. I don’t honor them with the thought I once did.

When I sit down to write about my life in Kinshasa, my mind is blank. Sometimes I tell myself that this sudden block is self-preservation. After almost three years, the compounding effects of this city are just too much. In order to function as a nurse and a teacher and a mother and a friend and wife, I can’t stop and ponder every injustice; whether it’s my righteous indignation at the price of the imported fruits I can very well afford to buy, or the story my gardener tells me about the three pregnant teenagers he and his wife feed every day, sometimes giving up their own portion of dinner to do so.

At other moments, I pardon myself by remembering that my lack of enthusiasm is the natural progression of time and familiarity. The honeymoon period with Africa has passed and now I’m just living life. No wonder I don’t hold my pillowcases in rapt reverence anymore. They’re just my red and white pillowcases, getting a little grimy and thin with age. The sellers of trinkets tap at my car windows and I greet those that I know with an open window and a few words and ignore the others. It’s not dramatic, it’s the way to the grocery store.

Then there are the times I berate myself. I’ve become comfortable in my pretty bubble. I let it happen. I cancel French lessons to go to kickboxing class. I allow my housekeeper to buy fruits and veggies for me instead of trekking down the hill to the market and doing it myself. I haven’t learned Lingala. I’ve never seen where the woman who helps me raise my children lives. I’m ridiculous for not being able to write about the Congo. I’m not satisfied with rice and beans and spend hundreds of dollars on imported food that sometimes goes bad before it’s eaten. I don’t listen enough and complain too much. Just another expat.

My parents came to visit Kinshasa just after Christmas – their first time. I felt sad that I couldn’t seem to muster excitement for showing them “our life in Africa.” I couldn’t seem to tap into that newcomer’s elation and share it with them. I hardly took any photos (usually an obsession) and was uninspired by the shots I did snap. My suggestions for food, sights, and experiences were halfhearted. I couldn’t figure out what to do. Even in retrospect, I can’t figure out what I could have done to give them a more authentic experience of my home – which I consider to be wonderful in so many ways. Trying to provide a planned glimpse into my contradictory life proved impossible.

Congo is often described as a country of vicious contradictions: a land bursting at the seams with diamonds, coltan, and fertile dirt yet home to some of the poorest people on earth. NGO workers throw up their hands in frustration and spit nails about failed projects over too many drinks at night. Many of my Congolese friends struggle with the creeping knowledge that they’ve always truly believed it will get better, and it never has. No one I’ve asked has any great ideas. Everyone is just doing the best they can.

I’m not sure what to do with the reality of the Congo I know, so I do the very best I can. Sometimes, that means that I throw myself into the stories of those around me, asking questions I know will lead to heartbreaking tales. Sometimes I read Celebrity Baby Blog instead of Congo Siasa. Sometimes I eat beans and rice. Sometimes I complain loudly about the price of my cereal and buy the box anyway. Sometimes I talk incessantly about the number of mothers and babies who die in this country every day to people who I know are not interested. Sometimes I hear my daughter speaking Lingala and smile proudly.

Sometimes I fret that when I no longer live in Kinshasa, all I will want to do is live in Kinshasa.

but i live in Kinshasa, congo

What things about your life are too complicated to talk about or even ponder?

This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Jill Humphrey.  You can find Jill blogging with Sarah Sensamaust at Mama Congo.

Photo credits to the author.

#Moms4MDGs: MDG # 6 With The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

#Moms4MDGs: MDG # 6 With The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

#Moms4MDGs Button copy

 

In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge turned into the eight Millennium Development Goals, and was written as the Millennium Goal Declaration .- United Nations Development Programme

 

The goals of MDG #6 are to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases. This month we are thrilled to continue our #Moms4MDG campaign  by joining forces with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to take on the topic of preventable infectious diseases.

MDG-infographic-6

The goals of Millennium Development Goal # 6 are:

  • A. To Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
  • B. By 2010, to have achieved universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
  • C. To have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  works tirelessly to support research, solutions and implementation towards improving global health.

 Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.-www.gatesfoundation.org

Meet us over at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation blog Impatient Optimists  today to read the guest post by World Moms Blog contributor Erin Threlfall! 

We will be co-hosting two #Moms4MDGs Twitter Parties with The Gates Foundation, Multicultural Kid Blogs, InCulture Parent and Girls Globe tomorrow, January 15th at 1-2pm EST and 9-10pm EST, so please join us! 

#Moms4MDGs Jan 15 Twitter Parties MDG6

A big THANK YOU, to three amazing sites, Multicultural Kid Blogs, InCulture Parent and Girls Globe for joining us in the rally towards the UN’s Development Goals this month with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation!

P.S. Never been to a twitter party before?  Go to www.tweetchat.com and put in the hashtag: “#Moms4MDGs during the party times. From there you can retweet and tweet, and the hashtag will automatically be added to your tweets. You can view all of the other party tweets at that hashtag as well!

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by World Voice Editor, Elizabeth Atalay of Documama in Rhode Island, USA.  

 

Elizabeth Atalay

Elizabeth Atalay is a Digital Media Producer, Managing Editor at World Moms Network, and a Social Media Manager. She was a 2015 United Nations Foundation Social Good Fellow, and traveled to Ethiopia as an International Reporting Project New Media Fellow to report on newborn health in 2014. On her personal blog, Documama.org, she uses digital media as a new medium for her background as a documentarian. After having worked on Feature Films and Television series for FOX, NBC, MGM, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Castle Rock Pictures, she studied documentary filmmaking and anthropology earning a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School in New York. Since becoming a Digital Media Producer she has worked on social media campaigns for non-profits such as Save The Children, WaterAid, ONE.org, UNICEF, United Nations Foundation, Edesia, World Pulse, American Heart Association, and The Gates Foundation. Her writing has also been featured on ONE.org, Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter.com, EnoughProject.org, GaviAlliance.org, and Worldmomsnetwork.com. Elizabeth has traveled to 70 countries around the world, most recently to Haiti with Artisan Business Network to visit artisans in partnership with Macy’s Heart of Haiti line, which provides sustainable income to Haitian artisans. Elizabeth lives in New England with her husband and four children.

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NETHERLANDS: Mother of Three

NETHERLANDS: Mother of Three

motherofthreeMy husband has a brother and a sister. I have two sisters. So we both grew up in a family with three kids. To us it was just a normal situation, not too big, not too small. I don’t think I ever gave it much thought, except when I watched the Cosby show. I thought our family wasn’t big enough. I desperately wanted an older brother and I thought it would be great if I had that many kids later in life.

Now that I am a mother, I am positive that 5 children would be the death of me. I have absolute respect for those that are able to pull it off. I am a mother of three, and I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into when I started this adventure.

Sure, I realized that we were going to need a bigger car, a bigger house and that it was going to be busy but the reality of mothering three kids is not at all what I expected.

Being a Mom of three is sometimes like an episode of ER. The camera zooms into a touching scene. Soft music is playing, the surroundings are faded, then suddenly you’re being swept away into utter chaos with the passing of a stretcher.

A lot of my days are like that. One moment I sit and cuddle at night with my youngest, the next I am a referee in a heated discussion between siblings. I get yelled at by my oldest and at the same time my youngest passes me dancing and twirling in a princess dress.

I congratulate my daughter for passing her swimming exams and take my other daughter for her first swimming lessons. I gradually loosen the reins around my son as he gets older, while I pull my daughter extra close as we cross the street. I dance to a song on Sesame street with one kid and listen to the other kid calling it childish.

My days are full, my days are never the same. Some days are harmonious, filled with routine, smiles, kisses and singing in my head. Some days are heavy, burdened and feel like a group of giant rocks rolling over me the moment I get out of bed. Some days are loud. I yell, my kids yell, they stomp the stairs like a herd of elephants, something falls, something breaks, doors get slammed and voices are raised.
Most days are hectic, dropping off kids, picking up kids, cooking cleaning, planning, running around.
None of my days are dull.

I do have a chance to read a magazine or to simply sit down with a cup of tea, but that mostly happens when the kids are away or asleep. My husband and I run a tight organization. We plan and schedule, there are doctor’s visits, sports, school meetings, swimming lessons, all times three. When one of the kids gets sick, our entire schedule is disrupted and the whole house quickly turns to chaos.

Date night is a rare thing for us. We mostly watch a DVD together and try not to fall asleep before the movie ends. You are probably shaking your head right about now. And I haven’t even told you about the finances yet.

But there is another side.

There are moments my husband and I pause to look at each other, silently agreeing that we have the best kids in the whole wide world.

When I wake up Saturday morning and all three of them are snuggled in one bed reading stories to one another. When I put on music and they do silly dances together. When we sing songs in the car on our way home. When they play self invented games together. When one of my kids jumps in, to help another kid before I get a chance to. When I watch them watching TV, hanging upside down on the couch. When one of the kids says or does something silly and we laugh until our bellies hurt. That is the other side. A moment that takes my breath away, times three.

How many kids do you have? What are your challenges, and what are your blessings?

This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in the Netherlands and mother of three, Mirjam.

The photograph used in this post is attributed to the author.

Mirjam

Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands. She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life. Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home. She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera. Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it. She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways. But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself. You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.

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