Sometimes Gently, Sometimes Harshly

Someone recently shared his opinions with me.

Until a few weeks ago, I was going out a lot.
This person could not stand watching this and told me the following...
That I should stay with Hajime all the time and not go out.
That maybe I was using my depression as an excuse to get out of taking care of Hajime.
That is what this person thought.

As you all know, I have been taking care of Hajime from morning until night.  Only at night do I have my husband's help and of course the nurse is there.

Until May of last year (when Hajime was still able to walk on his own)  I often went out...to see friends or teach my craft class.
But from June our family's lives completely changed.
During the five months that Hajime was in the hospital, I went to the hospital every day, driving one hour one way, and we took turns staying overnight.
But I never thought, "I'm sick of this" or "I hate this".   Rather, I was so worried about Hajime's condition every day that I cried many times.

He was discharged in October.  At the beginning, we had no nurse, so my husband and I went through training at the hospital.  We didn't want Hajime to feel lonely so we thought of all kinds of things and moved his bed near the living room.

I wrote about this before, but I have depression.
I had had it for several years before all this happened.  My depression got really bad after Hajime got sick.  My husband was worried about me, so he tried to let me get out of the house.
It was not possible for my husband and me to go out together, so he wanted me to go out with my friends.

But because of Hajime's illness, I started to drift away from my friends and I couldn't see them as often.  There are some friends from that group who still come over to visit.  But there are also friends who did not know how to relate to me after Hajime's illness and just drifted away.
So, I had almost no opportunity to go out.

Still, I have to confront my own illness while taking care of Hajime.  This situation will not change.  I must face my illness in the midst of all this...because if I'm not well, my whole family will become depressed.

There was a time when I was rescued from my depression.
It was thanks to my friends who invited me out.
My husband was very relieved to see me being more cheerful, and everyone in my family supported me.
It was important for me to go out to ease my depression.

But I realized that I was relying too much on these people.
I don't know if it was because they thought so too, but some people changed their attitudes toward me and started to become more distant.
I feel very unsettled about that.

No matter how hard it was taking care of Hajime, I have never ever thought about running away from it.  So when someone tells me that he thinks that I want to run away, it makes me very sad.

As I write this blog about my son's incurable disease,  I hear many different opinions.  I know that can't be helped, and of course there are many things about myself that I must correct.  I waver between feeling thankful and feeling sad about the opinions that some people have of me.

People's opinions are sometimes gentle and sometimes harsh.


(translated by MS)