Q&A: depressed partner

There's no quoted email for today, because I've gotten too many emails about living with a depressed partner to pick just one.

I got the first one about two months ago, and delayed answering because I didn't know what to say, exactly. I think my thoughts are maybe not exactly mainstream, because I grew up with a depressed parent who never quite got on top of it, and I have depression myself (that was in remission from the time my older son was born until last month, but I'm back in remission now).

But now these emails are escalating, and I'm getting a new one every week from someone whose husband or wife is just barely functioning, either with or without meds. I think it's clearly related to the economy, and people worrying about not having a job or losing a job and what's going to happen to their families. And WTF does it all really mean anyway? Especially in light of all the climate change and freaky events and the fact that the world basically seems like it's on the verge of blowing up.

The majority of emails I'm getting are from people with depressed male partners. I don't think that's a coincidence, either (aside from the fact that most of my readers are straight women). In general, men tend to be more socially isolated than women do. Even if you don't know anyone in your town, you probably have a friend somewhere that you can talk to if you're a woman, or at least you can come here and hang out and recognize the regular commenters and know you're not alone.

Men are more likely to be emotionally isolated. For the most part, they go to work and come home. Maybe they hang out with some male friends on weekends, but lots of men still don't talk about their emotions, except on approved topics (how much they love their kids, etc.). I don't think most men would feel comfortable talking with other men about the despair and flat-out rage that is part of depression.

So I have so much sympathy for people who are in the middle of it. I know how hard it is just to walk across the room without having your soul hurt. And if you can find those one or two things that don't make you feel like you're going to lose it completely you really grab onto them, even if they're stupid counterproductive things. Even if you're just trading the hurt for rage or derision, or losing yourself somewhere like TV or the internet.

But I've also been on the other side of it. A little kid who didn't know why her dad was never home (self-medicating with work) or alternated among smotheringly loving (because we were the only worthwhile things he had), distant and unable to interface, or angry. I saw how my mom became our parent, and our dad the visitor. It felt like my dad didn't love us enough to try to get out of it. And I vowed that I would do whatever I had to to prevent my kids from ever feeling that way about me.

So the controversial part of my views is this: I think depression is a disease, like diabetes is. And you have sympathy for people who have it, because it affects everything. But if a person with diabetes just stopped doing anything healthy, went off insulin and binged on carbs, that wouldn't be responsible, and you'd hold them accountable for it while still offering them help. There is no one treatment that works for depression for everyone, but someone who doesn't even try anything is not being responsible. And I don't think their families should just take it on themselves to adjust their lives to facilitate the depression.

That may mean having to say to your partner, "This isn't OK. You need to see your doctor." Or asking your partner to stop taking sleeping pills (yeah, insomnia is a symptom of depression, but sleeping pills make the sluggishness worse). Or just making it clear that you can't go on like this indefinitely. If you've been reaching out a hand by offering to talk about it and help with exercise and seeing a doctor or buying supplements or giving massage or buy a light treatment lamp or any of the things that have been shown to help alleviate depression, your depressed partner needs to accept your help. If he won't, then I don't know what the answer is. You're going to have to think seriously about how you can live.

Please be clear that I'm not saying a depressed person should be able to find their way out of it mysteriously on their own (aka "Just snap out of it!"). But if a person is offered help and doesn't even consider it, that's a huge problem.

I know some of you have been going through this and have made some decisions recently. If you feel comfortable commenting, please do, and you can always comment anonymously. If anyone disagrees with me, please go ahead and post. If you agree with me and have your own depression story to share, please comment.

If anyone's feeling depressed right now, please call your doctor, and while you're waiting for the appointment do some exercise that works your core (pilates, T-Tapp, yoga), take some Omega 3s and B vitamins, talk to someone who loves you, and go outside for a few minutes. You can get out of this, and people will help you.

Comments

[anontoday]

another of the original emailers here...
I think for my husband, his job situation has been the push point - he is miserable, and feels trapped by me and the kids. Like a previous poster, sometimes I feel like telling him to just quit (I make more money than he does) - but I don't think we could afford daycare with him home and I don't think the stay at home dad gig would be good for him right now (he doesn't have a ton of patience right now - our kids are 1 and 4.)
so instead I tell him to find another job and it drives me crazy that he is so miserable and won't DO ANYTHING to change anything. And I do feel like his depression is contagious, that it is bringing me down and I have to try that much harder to keep myself from joining him in the pit of despair.

So I'm thinking of going back to therapy myself, since so far he has refused those suggestions. I'm also reading the Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the voice of vocation by Parker J. Palmer recommened by Moxie a few weeks ago - it's actually given me a lot of insight into what he's going through. Which helps, but it's not enough.

Last week on our way into work I started to fall apart a bit (we commute together) - I was sitting in the parked car crying and I think it was the first time he realized how much his actions (or inactions) were affecting me. That seemed to be a bit of a wakeup call for him to be a bit more functional with me and the kids over the weekend, but I am still wondering what the future holds for us. It's just so hard living with this unhappiness.

[Linda March]

WHEW! What a topic...I agree we all need to be self reliant and responsible adults if we suffer from this complicated malady. Right now I am needing help.

I read Dr. Weil who says that studies show vigorous excercize, proper diet and supplementation help depressed individuals as much as medications for many types of depression.... I have been clinically depressed since childhood. This chemical imbalance has plagued many in my family...Nutrition and excercize have always helped- when I have been able to get my butt out there and do it.

I was on Lexapro for 2 yrs before I became pregnant and it was excellent for me- with very little side effects. Those black, negative thoughts in me disappeared!! It was a wonder drug!

but I stopped taking it during pregnancy and I was okay without it for about 2 yrs. when my child was about 1 year old I relapsed and discovered I could not tolerate the side effects of Lexapro.
Then My mother died of cancer and I slipped deeper into the darkness. All my energy went to the care of my 2yr old. After a year when I was beginng to feel a bit alive I discovered my husband was hiding a huge amount of debt from me- about $90,000. Dealing with that deception, the loss of a dream of a normal married life, the loss of respect I have now have for him, the feeling of how can we ever rebound from this debt, etc has been staggering for me.

I am taking omegas, D, CoQ10, C and trying my hardest to eat well. I recently returned to work and am dealing with being away from the only joy in my life- my sweet daughter- for up to 60 hours a week! Yes, it is beyond hard. But somewhere deep inside if we are parents we must find the resolve to do something about our horrible condition for our childrens' sake. I don't want my child to think of mommy as a wallowing, sad, tired and yes, self-indulgent parent. I keep reminding my self to get out there and help myself! Take care of myself! Believe it or not, Barak Obama's campaign speeches have helped me. His optimitic vision of the world is reassuirng. I wish you all well in your personal battles.

[thebigmeow]

There is a really interesting article from last year that discusses how the latest research suggests that Depression is more like Alzheimer's Disease. Definitely worth the reading.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/06/head_fake/

[Anony-mrs]

Aaarrgghh! Typed a long post and my computer ate it! Typeing while breast feeding so please excuse errors. Another wife of a depressive here, but things are going well for us at the moment (touch wood), so thought I would share what has helped. It’s not easy being married to an anxious/depressed man, that’s for sure.

Firstly, I think the term ‘depression’ is vastly overused. There is appropriate sadness about a situation (like job loss), where you feel upset/lost/confused/sad and then there is the greyness of depression where you feel numb. In my experience, if you have sadness about a situation then the best thing to do is feel your sadness. Feelings are meant to be felt. We so often shy away from uncomfortable feelings like sadness. Sit quietly for 20 mins each day and be sad. At the end of 20 mins do something you enjoy, so that you don’t wallow in sadness all day. If you start feeling sad outside your designated time, tell yourself you’ll deal with that emotion in your next 20 min session. I’ve found this to be incredibly effective in moving through sadness. I have a personal theory (completely unvalidated) that suppressing feelings can be a cause or contributing factor to depression in some people. Feelings are like a beach ball, if you deny them it’s like pushing a beach ball under water – it will always be trying to pop up. But if you deny your feelings for too long and effectively puncture the beach ball, it will go flat and you’re into real depression.

Anyway, husband had severe clinically diagnosed depression for many years as a teenager/young man. It went away for a number of years and resurfaced after the birth of our first child (which seems to be a trigger for many of the husbands mentioned here). From the start we took a practical and multi-pronged approach to it. If he broke his leg, he’d go to the doctor and in my view, depression is no different. This approach seemed to work with husband and he has seen our brilliant doctor several times. Husband has ended up on low dose antidepressants, but we tried a number of other things, some of which were quite effective.

Running was the most important factor – it made a huge difference to him. I used to kick him out the door every single morning to run for half an hour and I viewed it as vital. After running he was 80% himself again. A good website on starting running for the unfit is Doctor Mama’s blog (see the Maggots section!). Medical trials have shown running is as good as medication for low to moderate depression.
A healthy diet and eating regularly. As a SAHM, this was something I could do and I needed at times to feel like I was doing something.
Socialising with friends and family, just hanging out. He would distress and cope better, so we tried to socialise 2-3 times a week (not always easy with a newborn). We gave his family the heads up about his condition in case we needed more help and support from them. They weren’t very helpful at the time (response was ‘ahh, you shouldn’t be feeling like that’ – REALLY helpful!) but we knew we would be supported if we asked for practical help.
Having a plan for the bad anxiety episodes. Typical male, he responded well to a plan. He used to wake at 4am and worry for hours. His plan, if he woke early was to a) go for a run, b) go into work early or c) play on the computer. I would remind him of his plan before we went to bed, and once he knew what he was going to do, he slept much better with fewer early morning wake ups.

Doing things he enjoyed. As the depression crept up, husband stopped doing things he enjoyed, so in the end he was just working and watching tv or doing jobs at home. We got subscriptions for 2 magazines for him to enjoy while commuting to work and he took up a new hobby and made sure that each weekend he did something fun. This really seemed to help and remind him that there were still things to enjoy.

He tried therapy (cognitive behavioural therapy) which didn’t seem to do anything. I don’t think the therapist was a good fit personality wise and I think he would have responded better to a man.
All of the above kept the symptoms at a reasonable level, but he did need medication in the end. After a month on the medication he was himself again and has remained so. He is currently coming off the medication (with the doctor’s approval) and we are both keeping an eye out for any re-emergnce of symptoms and concentrating again on the helpful things. We have since had our second child and husband has found things much easier this time around.

One book I have found useful is ‘Families and How to Survive Them’ by Robin Skynner and John Cleese. It talks a lot about family patterns of behaviour and I found it fascinating and an insight into why some families seem prone to particular emotions. It also helped me look at myself and what family baggage I had carried into the relationship. Sorry for the long post, but I hope it helps somebody.

[Tzipporah]

@caramama - oh, yes, of course! Once I actually got the meds and started thinking rationally again, I saw that I had been completely unable to COPE with the sucky situation because of the PPD. So things got a lot better. I'm just trying to explain how it can SEEM to someone in the middle of PPD.

[not_this_time]

My husband's job situation went from suspicious to bad to intolerable over the period of June 2007 to December 2007. I saw the red flags before he did and dropped hints about him finding something else, but he is a total people pleaser (did not want to ditch his clients or disappoint his workplace), told me that the issues facing him were industry-wide (therefore would follow him), or that he was too concerned with our finances (I am SAH, largely because my industry pre-kids is very poorly paid) and expenses.

Suddenly he was so crippled by anxiety attacks that he could not get out of bed. And when he finally did manage to drag himself out of bed he threw up every morning. Things kind of blossomed into full on depression. Finally I told him that throwing up before work every morning is only acceptable if you're pregnant. I threatened to call a psychiatrist we know for a referral if he didn't. He did call, but only wound up for a med prescription. It helped, some, although the meds made him a bit of a zombie. I finally badgered him (nicely) into talk therapy, which he's been at for 18 months. It's expensive, even with partial reimbursement, but it's been worth it.

He says he is feeling much better, although from my perspective I do sometimes have resentment. He has a "hard morning" at least once a week, which translates into him lying in bed until he's late for work and me getting everyone else ready with absolutely no assistance. I used to make his lunch, but now I basically tell him that I don't have time. The kids won't feed/dress/sunscreen/gather themselves, and I have to get myself out the door too.

What is really petrifying, though, is that he is (FINALLY) leaving the soul sucking job that precipitated the depression (although clearly it wasn't just the job if he's had 18 months of talk therapy). And taking a new one that means we will have to move away from the place where we have lived for our entire marriage. Away from my friends, the kids' friends, their school, other connections. I am worried that the new job will not be the magical fix and the new place could really beat the shit out of both of us and the marriage that does not feel as strong as it was before all of this. I'm scared.

[anon]

Resources - National Alliance on Mental Illness - nami.org - they have chapters all over and I think most of the chapters have support groups for those with illness and for their family members. I get the idea that it'd be like going to the AA meetings for partners to get the help you need for supporting someone else's problem (or not enabling, etc, etc).

Depression really is a disease. And partners do need to cut each other some slack. I think everyone here is posting from kindness towards the different parts of the relationship. Yes, when people are depressed they can need extra help to get the help they need, and please do it. But, if their sickness is beyond what you as a non-therapist can handle (violent rages) then there's no shame in having to move on your life if that person won't get help.

Oh - and if you're reading all this depression stuff, because you've spent a lot of time wondering in your life if you or your partner is depressed but they don't seem quite "darkly" depressed or extreme, or it just doesn't seem "quite right" for whatever reason - check out dysthmia - chronic low level depression, it's kind of the next step down.

And it still sucks ;P.

[allison]

I'm late to the party and I haven't had time yet to read all the other comments, but just wanted to say that my husband was really helped by the book "I Don't Want to Talk About It" by Terrance Real. Great points about male depression manifesting itself as anger.

[Cialis Generico]

http://zithromaxnet.com/ cheap azithromycin online prescription [url=http://zithromaxnet.com/]zithromax[/url] zithromax online doctor consultation
http://doxycyclinenet.com/ can you take doxycycline while pregnant [url=http://doxycyclinenet.com/]buy doxycycline[/url] doxycycline cost
http://walmartfreegc.com/ walmart credit card [url=http://walmartfreegc.com/]walmart coupon code[/url] walmart coupons
http://cialisnet.com/ generic cialis mexico [url=http://cialisnet.com/]Cialis[/url] buy generic cialis soft

[Depression Drugs]

"I feel that some individuals need psychological therapy"

yes. very true.

depression is purely psychological disorder