Thank you for all your support

 I received many emails and messages regarding my latest post. I can feel the warmth that so many of you are sending my direction. I just wanted to let you know that I received all your emails and that I am very thankful for it. I just could not come up with the energy to reply to each email separately. I am apologizing for that.

I am still amazed what a wonderful source of support you all have become to me. I received words of encouragement from all sorts of readers of my blog. And I feel blessed that I have you on my side on my journey through life.

I was in a really really bad mental place recently. I had constant thoughts of killing myself and ending my misery. I felt so cornered and overwhelmed and tired and depressed. My shrink was so worried about me that she offered over and over again that I could call her anytime. I am thankful that I have her and that she is on my side too. 

One night I had a huge argument with my husband, in which I told him how depressed I am and I also told him about my suicidal thoughts. It is still very difficult for me to admit weakness and to ask for help from a place of weakness. Therefore I had not had shared with him the depth of my sadness before. Thankfully he was very understanding and caring. 

Things are just sometimes overwhelming  for me here in the US. And I am still juggling a bit of two lifes, one in Germany and one in the US. I still have old stuff in Germany that I am taking care of and at the same time I am building my life here in the US.

I think I told you that my husband and I are the caretakers of an elderly family member. The only caretaker, I might add. 24/7/365. I am telling the truth when I say that we are doing what very few couples would be able to do. Husband and I work great as a team. The whole situation is very tough though, both physically and emotionally. Both for him and myself.

Now the health of the family member has rapidly declined and  we are preparing for the end. I feel like crying all the time. It's just so sad to see somebody you love "fading away".

The whole situation has brought up many feelings from my life in Germany. I have been seeing people die around me all my life. 

My grandma was a nurse during WW2 and later in life she was a true caretaker and warmth giver.  She was always helping everybody in the family and in the community. And she always brought me along to visit these people. I have seen people who are about to die all my life.

My aunt Maria and my aunt Aenne passed away when I was really young. I had been visiting them in the nursing home often with my grandma, because I think my grandma could feel that the presence of a cute and happy blond little  girl would make the old people happy for a moment. And it did. My young energy was good for them. 

When I was eight or nine years old, my grandma and I took care of my grandfather, and I remember seeing my grandma one night in the hallway of the house, I was on the way to the toilet, and I asked her: How is grandpa doing? And she replied: "He is out of pain now, he just passed away."

A year later, my little brother passed away, he was only 6 months old. He had had a severe heart condition and spent most of his short life in the hospital.

Later in life we had my aunt Erica move in with us and her death was pretty hard on me too.

I have been at so many funerals, it's hard to mention them all.

And when my grandma passed away in 2014, it was pretty much the hardest time in my whole life. 

The situation I am now in brings back all the memories. In a way I am perfectly prepared for the situation. I am not bragging when I say: I know what I am doing, I am a great care giver. And the family member is lucky to have me around. But at the same time it brings me to my limits because I realize how much of my life I have spent taking care of others.

My husband said in an encouraging way to me yesterday:" Go and have fun for a few hours :-) " And I was feeling like: FUN? ME? HOW?  I realized that I have been totally trained to be there for others and to help others, but it is still a pretty unfamiliar concept for me to  take care of myself. 

Love you all.