I Wish You Weren't Here

Here's the thing about three year olds, especially three year olds you've created... They aren't cruel, but they can cut deeper than anyone else. You see, they rebel. And when they rebel and push boundaries, they're blunt. The open their mouths and they haven't yet learned tact, or metaphor, or sarcasm. What comes out is a mix of the truth of their feelings at thatb moment and words they know have upset you previously.

Tonight my son didn't want to eat his tea and he was being obnoxious about it. I told him he could eat his tea or he could have a time out on the 'naughty step' and that I'd have to tell Santa he'd been naughty.  He turned to look up at me and said, "Mammy, I wish you weren't here."

And my heart broke.

Logically, I know exactly what I said in the first paragraph; they rebel and they say things that hurt. The problem is that my depression has a voice and it whispers to me. Sometimes it yells, actually, and what it yelled today was, "see, even he knows he'd be better off without you. No one even wants you." I had to get up and go into the next room...

"I wish you weren't here" is among the most hurtful things that can be said to someone who often wishes they weren't even alive. Those words cut deep, carving a path right into the wound which is already trying to become fatal.

"I wish you weren't here" is the worst thing you can say to someone with a fear of abandonment and has had other loved ones turn away.

I'm not going to hold those words against my son. He and his sister are the reasons I'm alive. Maybe that's why it hurts. I draw breath for my children. Without them I would have attempted suicide more than the once I have, and maybe that's why those words hurt so much. It makes me want to evaporate, to simply cease to be. I will almost certainly cut tonight. It'll be the only way to stop myself walking out of the house and just leaving. Vanishing. Either to kill myself or die on the street.

That's the thing about depression; the slightest thing, like an off the cuff comment from a child you know loves you to bits, can set in motion a tailspin that you just can't pull yourself out of. That makes every conversation a risk. It means being around people is a risk. It could take one wrong word, one misunderstanding, one moment to kill me. Literally. And even the most innocent voice could be the one that makes me crumble.

Pseudonymous Zombie
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