Dear Children, Mommy Still Loves You — Even on Her Stormy Days of Depression

To my children,

I know how sometimes it must seem like I don’t love you, but I need to tell you, I do. Always. You see mommy has an illness in her head. You may have heard about it before, but it’s called a mental illness. There are lots of different types of mental illnesses, but the one your mommy has is called depression, and that’s the reason she seems so sad a lot of the time.

I know how you must think I don’t love you anymore, or that you have done something to make me sad, but my darlings, nothing could be further from the truth. I love you to the moon and back and I always will.

This depression in mommy’s head is the reason she is on her own in her room and not out with you playing. It’s the reason she cries so much. It’s the reason she doesn’t look as pretty as she normally does and it’s also the reason she seems to not be interested in the things you made at school today.

The depression is like a dark, stormy, windy, rainy day inside my head — thunder and lightning crashing constantly. There is no light, even though it’s daytime and this storm makes mommy really scared and sad. Can you understand that my angels? Mommy sometimes loses sight of you in that storm and it takes all her energy just to make it through the day because she is so scared and that’s why she is alone in her room, just fighting the storm in her head. The times you have seen or heard mommy say she wants to leave you was because she was so tired of battling that storm. Never for a moment think it was because she didn’t love you or it was because of something you did.

Somedays there will be a break in the storm and just for a few minutes the rain and the wind and everything will stop and just the clouds will remain. These are the days I can see you and I can reach out to you before the storm starts again.

I want you to know mommy is working on getting help to get rid of these storms. With the help of a doctor and some medication, we can fight to make the storms pass so the breaks in the clouds last longer until eventually the sun comes out. Because the sun will come out and when it does, we are going to catch up on all the things we have missed.

The illness may come back, but don’t be scared, because I will always fight the storm clouds away to get to you, because I love you. Just keep giving me hugs and kisses and they will give me the strength in my fight.

Never doubt that I love you, even on stormy days.

Love you,

Mom xxx

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Thinkstock photo via annuker