I just might be crazy

My debit card expired at the end of August and I forgot to replace it with the new one. The first time I realized this was when I was at the mall, 25 minutes away. I was buying a few maternity shirts, because the day before, every shirt I tried on had grease stains on the belly. Classy. 2 days later (Labor Day) I was at the grocery store and had forgotten it again. I left the groceries. I came home, almost despairing, so frustrated at myself. Nils went back and paid for the groceries, because I couldn't bring myself to do it. Later that afternoon, we went down to the Walmart, which to this day makes me nauseous, but that's besides the point. I think we were in the canned fruits and vegetable aisle, and I felt the crushing walls of depression closing in on me. In the times that I have felt this way, it's all I can do to remain upright. If you've ever felt this way, you can probably relate. It sucks. Nothing matters.

So, I thought: Crap. It's coming back. No, it IS back. And, this is a really inopportune time for me to have an emotional breakdown. Couldn't we have picked a different time, brain? Really?

The thing is, when I first acknowledged that I might be struggling with depression 2 years ago (which was Labor Day, weirdly enough), I knew there were some underlying issues that were at the root of it. I worked through those and felt better, and have been feeling great for a year and a half. When it happened again last week, I wondered what could have brought on another round. Soooooo, after two days of mulling, I think I started to understand.
Without getting into the nitty-gritty, here's the deal:

My husband is insanely busy. Job 1, job 2, starting a business, church calling, kids, crazy wife, etc. The weird thing is that all of these are good things- especially the crazy wife. She's amazing. Anyhoo, I've been trying really, really hard to suck it up. All of the things demanding his time are decisions we made together and are in our best interest for the long term. So, the trick is trying to figure out a way to maintain a balance between the two of us while all of this is going on. And, I think things were starting to get lopsided. I've learned, yet again, that sucking it up and not expressing frustrations is very, very bad for my mental health.

When I was pregnant with Anders we went to a childbirth class, and the instructor asked everyone what their coping methods were when they were under stress. Most people said things like "read the Bible" or "take a hot bath", and I said, "I complain about it until I can find a solution." During labor, I didn't read the Bible or take a hot bath. I complained until I got an epidural. It totally worked.

In this instance, trying to make sense of my feelings and expressing them proved to be what I needed. I feel much better, and for that I'm very grateful. In life, there are things we just have to embrace. I've embraced the fact that my hair will always curl. I'm not crafty and I've embraced it. My need for cake will always trump my need for six-pack abs- embraced! I need to embrace my need to whine, and not feel bad about it.

I guess in order to preserve my emotional stability, I can't be a quietly supportive wife. I can, however, be a wife who supports her husband but gripes about it at the same time. Whenever I try to fill that "never complaining, always supportive" role, I lose my mind little by little, until one day forgetting my debit card almost throws me over the edge; but it's the Walmart that actually does.