Depression Supporters Support Group
This community is dedicated to spouses, children, relatives, co-workers and others who are actively supporting someone suffering from depression or other serious mental illness. Depression can bring about intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive, which can have a grave impact on the ability of others trying to help.
I'm so glad I found this site. My husband and I think that he has depression. He is working his way through the medical system to get some help, but it will take time (one and a half months to an appointment). In the mean time, we are doing what we can.
I have read some of the advice on this board and found it very helpful. I am no longer (more or less) angry or frustrated with him when he "goes down." I tell myself that it is the same as being sick with food poisoning or some chronic illness (cancer?) and that I can't just expect him to pull up his socks and get over whatever put him down. I am lonely and disheartened though. Will I ever get my husband back? It is hard to be with my husband laughing one minute and then to realize that he is "down" the next. He just stops talking and becomes passive aggressive for whatever I have done to tick him off. The list of things that can tick him off was my first clue that something was wrong. I used to walk on eggshells and try to control me and everything around him so that nothing would upset him....it never worked anyway. It took two years for me to be sure that this was depression, and to get him to accept it. There is a lot of stigma to work through. Now I am gathering tools to help him understand his perceptions and to work past them.
I find it difficult to not be able to share this amongst my friends. I respect that he would like to keep this quiet, but I need help, and I need support.
He is open to help....but is slow to take the steps. I am reading books for him and feeding him the info anytime he seems open to him. I understand that very nature of depression makes self-help very difficult.
I want our life back.
Thanks for listening.
I have read some of the advice on this board and found it very helpful. I am no longer (more or less) angry or frustrated with him when he "goes down." I tell myself that it is the same as being sick with food poisoning or some chronic illness (cancer?) and that I can't just expect him to pull up his socks and get over whatever put him down. I am lonely and disheartened though. Will I ever get my husband back? It is hard to be with my husband laughing one minute and then to realize that he is "down" the next. He just stops talking and becomes passive aggressive for whatever I have done to tick him off. The list of things that can tick him off was my first clue that something was wrong. I used to walk on eggshells and try to control me and everything around him so that nothing would upset him....it never worked anyway. It took two years for me to be sure that this was depression, and to get him to accept it. There is a lot of stigma to work through. Now I am gathering tools to help him understand his perceptions and to work past them.
I find it difficult to not be able to share this amongst my friends. I respect that he would like to keep this quiet, but I need help, and I need support.
He is open to help....but is slow to take the steps. I am reading books for him and feeding him the info anytime he seems open to him. I understand that very nature of depression makes self-help very difficult.
I want our life back.
Thanks for listening.
I am so glad to hear that he is open to help. Maybe if possible you should look into counseling as well. I know it helped me. I only went two times, but she really helped me understand my husband's illness and what he was going through. Made some suggestions and worked with me on how to keep myself from following on his rollercoaster ride. She even suggested I find an online support group which is how I ended up here. I
So, please... please don't feel alone. We are all here for you. With work you will be able to get your lives back. It will be difficult, I won't lie, but he is still there and just knowing that he is willing to seek help means that he wants your life back, too. That is good.
Hugs to you and welcome to the group.
Tonight was another lonely night. I turned the air conditioning up and my husband turned to his passive aggressive routine of having minimal interaction with him (I am breast feeding and tend to heat up when I nurse our little one). When I ask him if something is wrong, I get "no" in return and he walks away.
What bothers me the most is that logic does not work. I can ask him if it really makes sense that I should be uncomfortable and sweating. I can ask him if having the air conditioning up a few times a day (by 1 deg C) is really so bad that we should lose a day of our marriage. But there is no point.
I hate that I had to choose between having a husband who talks to me tonight or not breaking into a sweat while I breastfeed our little one (it is actually biologically amazing - breast feeding makes me instantly thirsty and usually very warm). But I also know now that this was never the choice. When he is going down, anything I do is fair game for him. If it wasn't the air conditioning, it would have been something else.
OK. Time to regroup. I can take it. I can remember that he is working with irrational scripts in his head and that I can point him towards some of the tools that we are learning about. And I can do this with love, because deep down in there is the man I fell in love with and the man I really hope to get back.
Thanks for the hugs NewlyWed616.
I find myself going over our lives for the last three years, and I find that my perspective on things is changing. I'm having to re-examine why we do some of the things we do, and how we interact together. Unfortunately, I think the depression started right about the time we decided to spend the rest of our lives together, so we haven't really built our "us" absent of having depression in our lives. Actually, we probably won't change that much. When my husband is not down (usually about 70% of the time up, but we go through periods where it is more like 40% up) he is kind, fun, down to earth etc. He has a few annoying traits I'm sure, but so do I. So maybe we do have a strong "us" already outside of depression.
One things I can say that I am proud of is this: We've stayed committed to us the whole time. I've always made a point of not threatening the end of our marriage, and explained that it isn't a question of whether our marriage will end or not, but the quality of marriage we have. At times when we can joke about our hardships, I've told my husband that if he doesn't start to get this squared away and continues to treat me badly, I'll amuse myself by weakening the seems of his pants so that they regularly split at work.
I love him. And....he's sitting right now reading a book with some tools to help him.
We'll get there.
Thanks for listening.
Katie
Newlywed is absolutely right!! You are not alone. You need support and coming to a place like this to give you the support you need in order to support him is excellent!! It helps keep your life as intact as possible and stops us from spiraling downward into their depression.
There is work to be done... but it is SO possible when you have a place to vent your frustrations, get advice, and honestly offer advice and share your experiences. It is a great place for me to reflect on what has and hasn't worked in the past.
He wants to be better and acknowledges that he has an illness- that is 90% of the battle! You have friends here :)
And that passive aggressive silent treatment? Trust me... we get that! It is something to make you want to scream at times huh? :)
Come here and vent... it makes my life so much happier to have the people here to help me through tough times :)
Welcome! :)