When the clouds roll in.

I've lost him once before, but never quite this bad.

His personality that once shone bright and lit up the room, now fills the atmosphere with a dark shade of grey as he begins to lose hope.

He sleeps through the day, but finds himself lying alone awake at night, contemplating the meaning of life and doubting those that he once trusted with the full of his heart.

As the storm begins to roll in, I think to myself -

I'm losing him again.

The once confident, trusting, loving and caring man that I met that fateful day, is now filled with anger, paranoia and complete lack of interest.

"Are you cheating on me?" he'll ask on a frequent basis.

"How can you be so sure that you love me?" he'll inquire hopelessly.

I can't reassure him. No matter how hard I try, and things keep getting harder and harder.

He's missing his sons milestones too. Moments he'll never retain as memories. Moments he'll never experience the intense joy and feelings of being proud, the moments that we live for as parents. Our little one took his first step today, as he cried himself back to sleep.

Depression is difficult. It's like living a wonderful life until one day, so suddenly, the people we meet begin to morph into the demons we recognised once before on a previous path and in that, we begin to lose hope.

It breaks my heart to see him so lifeless, yet still breathing.

The brain, the psyche, our emotions, they're complicated things and no two are the same so despite having been through it myself, I feel helpless.

I crave his touch, his love, his jokes, everything that makes him who he his, has gone away for a little while and I hold onto hope that one day he'll return.

I try to remind him that it'll pass only it falls on deaf ears, to no fault of his own but rathermore the fault of his experiences and those that tried so desperately to hurt him in the past, both physically and emotionally.

"I'm so sorry" - He tries to utter the words through a breaking voice as he begins to tear up again, and I begin to tear up with him. Two hearts, breaking at the same time for entirely different reasons but ultimately, both feeling helpless and hopeless.

I wish I could take it away from him.

The man that once cooked, now relies on microwave meals once a day. Showers once a week, and his vocabulary has reduced drastically as he begins to withdraw further and further.

I know it'll pass, like a wading storm and amidst it all, I hold out hope that one day, he'll make a joke or crack a smile again; if only just a small one. I'll know then that he's on his way back to me, to us. His family.

Because the thing about depression or any mental health issue for that matter, is that as quickly as the clouds roll in, they'll roll out and the sun will shine back down on him again.

Ironic that as I'd write this, the clouds begin to part, allowing sunshine to beam through the living rooms windows, which tells me to continue to hold onto hope for the man I met two years ago.

It'll pass, I'll tell myself.

And just like before, nothing has changed in the way that I feel about him. Everyone needs a helping hand sometimes. I've needed him before, and now he needs me.

And we'll need each other many times more.

We'll need each other, as we always say, forever and always.

My forever and always.