Hi Dizzzy Dreamer
I wish I was there sitting beside you, encouraging you to vent freely. The freedom to vent, the freedom of self expression, is (I believe) one of the greatest gifts.
Was saying to my 18yo daughter and 16yo son just yesterday how I'm grateful for the ability for all 3 of us to sit together and freely speak about how our mental health is being challenged within another extended lock down in Melbourne. When you speak out loud in this way, it's like puzzle pieces come out, leading to brainstorming, in order to make sense of the overall picture. Keeping everything to yourself in a challenge, the pieces can remain jumbled in your head, leading you to want to scream uncontrollably at times.
I can understand where you're coming from, in the way of feeling like your kids aren't a strong enough motive to stay, to some degree. During my years in depression, I felt the same way. One of the things I hated most about depression was how it led me to define myself. In the false reality it presents, I was (in my mind) an unloving mum, an angry person, a sad person, a bit of a control freak, an unmotivated person and so on. It's a long depressing list, how we can come to identify our self through depression. It's so cruel, the false reality and identity it presents us with. I think if people really knew what it was like, they'd say something like 'Oh my god, I can't believe you've tolerated this for so long. We gotta get you out of this, no matter what it takes. We'll do anything. This is urgent!'. Sometimes it can feel more like people just wait 'til you come out of depression and they try not to upset you too much in the meantime. Some will be doing their best but to some degree their best unfortunately doesn't make much of a difference. Believe me, a meaningful difference is something you can feel in depression, although it has to hold enormous mind altering meaning, far from simple.
I imagine you can relate to being so sensitive that you can feel your thoughts. If I mentioned this to a non feeler, they'd wonder what the heck I was talking about. A highly sensitive person will feel just about everything. It's like you can feel the speed of your thoughts working you up, the depressing nature of your thoughts bringing you down and you can feel the volume being turned up. You can feel the self questioning and the longing for answers. Nothing compares to feeling your way through depression, it can be thoroughly exhausting.
My heart goes out to you.