It helps me to understand you. And it helps me to understand my spouse who has been battling depression for years.
I have tried for years to get the psychiatric fraternity to accept the concept of depression as a coping mechanism, and therefore needing to be treated differently from the present "here, take these pills, they'll help". The most important thing is recognising that, in about 80-90% of all depression, there is an event or series of events which cause a level of emotional distress (usually emotional pain, but can be any strong emotion, including too much happiness) which is too high for the person to cope with at the time. So the distress is put into a safe place and the depression is put on top as a lid. The problem is if you try to treat the depression, but not the underlying distress, something else is put in its place, like alcohol, drugs, medication, therapy (plenty of people are addicted to therapy). You need to be very careful, though, because along with the distress which was put away are the memories of what caused it in the first place. Thus recovered memories of trauma, abuse, etc. which can burst out and totally overwhelm the person (as did the memories I found of my dad sexually abusing me).
Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now.
I have had a most roller coaster ride day. I had arranged to see Darcy this morning, but when Julie arrived I knew it was going to be rough. She had a "I'm looking to pick a fight, and you're it" look that I recognised from when we were together, and, sure enough, it started as soon as she sat down, and continued for the next 45 minutes, when she pulled the plug on the access, and called me a child abuser in a loud voice so the dozen or so people in the restaurant heard her. I said to her as I was leaving that if I had in fact been the sort of person she said I was, i.e. violent, that she would in fact have been spread all over the floor of the restaurant, I was so angry.
When I got home I rang the child welfare manager, and said I was not prepared to have any more access supervised by Julie, and that this meant I would have to go to the Family Court and test her declaration of me as a violent child abuser. Then I heard the closest thing to an admission that she may have got things wrong because she said that she would like to meet with me on Monday to "get things clarified". I think that she is now starting to realise just how unstable and unpredictable Julie is. So who knows, perhaps there will be a happy ending to the whole saga. One can only hope so.
Each time I arrange to meet with Julie, I have a bit of me which is waiting for the real her to come back. I think now however that I hope she doesn't. I could never trust that she would not repeat what she has done. I think I need to have a memorial service for my Julie, and for the family that only lived for ten days.