Whacked by depression

And shockingly, it wasn't me!  It was K.

There's a lot of talk about how men seem to get over it immediately and that's it for them while we women seem to relive our pain over and over and over again.  That's not really true.  Men appear to get over things quickly because they see their job as fixing things and taking care of others.  And when their woman is crying, they get to take care of someone and suppress their own bad feelings.  Yay!

And K has really been taking care of me the last several months.  While I come up with a million and one disaster scenarios, he insists on not worrying about things until they happen.  I'm a pessimist, he's an optimist.

I think he's been holding himself together through all of this by keeping up hope that the FET would work.  And when it didn't, he sank.  He's been a bit mopey, not exercising, not motivated to do anything, classic depression.  And the other day, he sank lower than I've ever seen him.  Scary low.

So we were stuck in a bit of a quandary.  Do we treat this emotionally?  Make him really go through the pain and hope that he gets beyond it?  Or do we treat it physically by giving him some chemical lifts with natural endorphins or medications?

Well, K is not good at talking about emotions and I had a little fear that all that would do is push him deeper into it.  And the depression had taken on a physical manifestation and I figured that talking wouldn't solve the physical symptoms.

We talked, and I recommended he make an appointment with our GP to maybe get him on some meds for the short term.  Just long enough to get his feet back under him.  My theory was to get him feeling better physically and then see what emotional baggage was left over and deal with it then. 

And I told him that I was going to really pester him to get back to the gym.  He hasn't been going since we were both sick almost 2 months ago.  I've found the perfect motivator too.  "Honey, you need to spend an hour tomorrow doing something to make yourself feel better.  Your options are to go to the gym, or we can sit and talk about our feelings."  He went to the gym.

The next day, poof!  He's 50% better.  And then the next day, he's practically back to himself!  I'm telling you, the dude was DEPRESSED and bam!  Over it!  No meds, just a day at the gym and a good nights sleep.  I'm really glad he's back, but how does he DO that???