BF has depression

[SadandHelpless]

Posting here for traffic, no response in mental health section.

My bf suffers with depression but this time he is really bad, shut me out completely and says he has no feelings about anything.

I just want to be with him, hold his hand, cuddle him and support him but he has shut me out, doesn't message or let me see him.

How can I help him? I feel so heartbroken 😢

I'm so sorry

It's a really really shitty thing to be going through. But please try and remove all social media from the equation - it really won't help and will just make you feel worse. Think how much bullshit people post on FB even when they are well.

I get the "It was almost as though he hated me" thing so much. DH and I have been married 16 years and he has done the same. He's like a stranger - a humourless, joyless, petulant, almost spiteful seeming stranger. I have to see him every day and at the moment am just trying to detach emotionally from him. My main feeling towards him at the moment is pity. It's better than grief and hatred.

Bear in mind that he may be beating himself up as a result of the depression and ending it with you AND changing his FB status may be part of this. Changing his status could be his way of punishing himself - difficult to explain but like cutting yourself, though instead of cutting he's inflicting pain on himself by reminding himself what he's not got. It's the sort of self-destructive behaviour that I'd do. He's not trying to hurt you, just himself.

Oh that’s heartbreaking. I’m so sorry.

Speaking from personal experience (and almost 10 years of research) it is sadly often the case that males with low testosterone are misdiagnosed as being depressed, so whilst less common it's definitely something to be aware of.

This is sadly compounded by a widespread lack of knowledge on the topic (the average GP knows less than I do!) and the fact that the UK does not take age into consideration in their 'range' used for assessment - it covers a spectrum of results from teenagers through pensioners.

The upshot is that I had the level of the average 85-100 yo at 25 but was told I was 'within range'. I was apathetic, lacking in sex drive/vitality and very similar to a depressed individual except that SSRIs had no effect (actually lowered my sex drive as they often do).

Also, our generation already has on average about 20-30% lower levels than our grandfathers (obesity/lifestyle etc) and depression/poor self esteem/stress (cortisol) can make it worse and create a problem where there wasn't one.

It took me three months of hormonal treatment to surpass a decade worth of useless counselling/anti depressants and I feel better in my early 40s than I did in my 20s.