Suicidal DH

[Horseneigh79]

He won’t get help. Refuses to acknowledge he’s depressed but every few months he explodes and says he can’t take it anymore and tries to leave so he can kill himself. I have to physically restrain him from going out the door as I know he’ll do something stupid if I let him go.

Latest episode was this evening. He exploded and tried to leave but I managed to keep him here and calm him down. I know he has suicidal thoughts but I don’t know how to help him. I’ve phoned the Samaritans previously and they advised me to keep his spirits up by planning fun activities for the weekends

I don’t know what to do. I have small DC and low moods myself, and the only thing forcing me to keep my shit together is the DC. I don’t know how long I can go on like this. I’m tired of tip toeing around him because I don’t want to upset him again, but I also don’t want my DC growing up without a dad. What do I do?

I am surprised in your contact with the Samaritans they ‘advised’ you to kerp his spirits up by planning fun weekend activities. I think you were unlucky in the person you spoke to and should consider trying again.

It It is not their role to advise, but to listen and help tease out your thinking on options - what might help your husband to open up to professionals, how you can maintain your own sanity, what support structures you can tap into etc. Like a live version of what you are trying to do here, with a trained listener and without the need to be coy about the triggering event.

This thread pretty much sums up why, attitudes towards men who have mental health issues and may react to that are very different to women.

I agree. You can see why many men choose not to talk about their mental health or get help as they risk people thinking they're being abusive or you should 'kick the fucker out'.

I think there'll come a time when you'll have to call 999 and get him assessed in an emergency. He may or may not be sectioned but should hopefully get crisis team involvement.

Totally disagree with above, I gave advice based on my experiences with a woman who also refused to seek help.
People are very rarely sectioned.

And the crisis team where I am only get involved with people who are very close to being sectioned or who have been sectioned in the past The crisis team is in many places to keep people out of hospital, not to give people help who are struggling but are at no risk of being sectioned.

are you sure he's really suffering and isn't using this as a way to get at you? A bit odd that he's refusing help.

Also for any help except being sectioned, the person has to agree to engage. You do know there are people who are psychotic wandering around that get no treatment because they are not sectionable and will not engage with services?

There is a lot on MN (understandably) about CAHMS, but few seem to understand how little help there is for those with serious mental health problems. Also note people can threaten to kill themselves, but it does not automatically mean they are at risk of that. Only a proper assessment will reveal that.

And in some places there is more help for men than women because of specialist services.

@bubs101 RTFT. It’s not odd to refuse help at all. He simply can’t see how a GP or mental health service can help him, he thinks he can deal with this alone. I have stated in my previous posts that he has suffered a trauma and is struggling with his mental health.

As a couple of other posters have said, it’s clear to see now why men suffer with MH in silence. They just get accused of trying to manipulate and control women. FFS.

I think the person who talked about co dependant behaviour is on the mark. And this can happen whatever the sex of the people involved. But also OP you need to stop tip toeing round, That is not helping anyone.

@Horseneigh79

why don't you RTFT? every other commenter has said that he needs to see help! If he or you cannot see that and refusing to engage in the basic first step then how do you expect to make any progress in healing? He says he can deal with this alone? Great! But clearly, things aren't quite working out if he's threating to kill himself every couple of months. So here are your options like every other poster has stated, you can demand he goes visits a GP, or a therapist or you let him have his moment and ring the police, and they can force him to get help. There isn't much else you can do! And getting defensive at my comment isn't getting anyone anywhere and yes I do find it odd that grown man, is allowing his whole family to be torn apart by his explosions (and I can imagine it is very distressing), yet won't go to the GP to talk about how he feels. He may have MH issues and I have sympathy, but having MH does not absolve him from his own responsibilities to look after himself and ensure he doesn't put his loved ones through such awful situations without trying to seek help!

@bubs101 I hope if you ever suffered from PND that your partner wouldn’t accuse you of using it to “get at him” and think it odd if you didn’t feel that you wanted to seek help. And I’m feeling very defensive of my DH because 75% of these posters have accused him of being manipulative and controlling, when what he actually needs is support from me if he doesn’t yet feel ready to seek help, whatever the reason is for that. I asked for help on here because I wasn’t sure what I could do for him, but I can see the LTB crowd is out in force tonight.

OP this link explains what is I think happening with you and your DH.
www.mentalhealthamerica.net/co-dependency

@Horseneigh79

I actually suffer from depression myself and nobody has ever accused me of trying to use it to hurt the people I love. Do you want to know why? Because I know that my MH has an impact on those around me and I'd be devastated to see anyone hurt, so as the adult I am, I saught help! It's not that hard. And you talk about him 'not feeling ready', he's threatening suicide FFS. He's clearly past the point of being able to think rationally and you sitting there tip-toeing and trying to start fights with people who say something you don't want to hear is stupid too. If you love him as much as you say you do, call the police next time he has an outburst, they will make sure he gets the help he NEEDS, he may not want it but he bloody needs it. And for the record, I never said LTB, RTFT?

100% agree Bubs.

As for all those getting all righteous about men not talking about mental health why not flip that logic to women who don't recognise psychological abuse and coercive control for what it is?

Op your husband is not suffering in silence, he is making your family suffer too. It may not be deliberate but it is true.

The stats for male suicide tell you that he needs urgent help. You must ring 999 next time. Can you phone the gp to discuss ?

Just to clarify I agree with Bubs previous post (X posted). I disagree that seeking help isn't hard. It can be incredibly difficult but simply saying "I'll support him until he is ready" when you are having to physically restrain him is not helpful.

I think one of the reasons men die more from suicide is that they are slower to accept or seek help.
Op l think people are genuinely concerned for you here as your own mental health is suffering and your dc need one person well.
I am very familiar with this type of situation as my own dh has bipolar. He refused to seek help for a long time.
Eventually l stepped back. I said ..you know what to do ..the help is there. I handed responsibility back to him. I was a wreck. I also sought counselling for myself and joined a support group for people in my situation. I have to admit l was as slow to access that support as he was.
When he became overwrought l said..l'm sure you will sort it out . That sounds cold and unfeeling but l couldn't take the burden anymore. Ironically after me saying that he went to GP next morning and was in hospital within a day.
He is now medicated and leading a good life. I am well and have peace and no longer responsible for him as he is good to take responsibility himself.
Looking back me propping him up did him a grave disservice and made the situation worse.
I also finally accepted l couldn't keep him alive if he choose to die.
I don't like people critisising peoples response as harsh as unless you have lived it you cannot know.

I had an ex like this. He was the most selfish wanker as well.

This is not to say yours is selfish, and I don't want to minimise his condition because male suicide is often minimised and completely ignored until it's too late. However, genuinely suicidal folks don't explode and tell you they're going to do it and try to leave, they just get on with it quietly. Suicide that's the result of violent self harm behaviour with drugs, alcohol, or cutting for example, is usually accidental from going Just that little bit too far. Pre meditated suicide tends to be a very private and quiet thing.

When my ex was threatening it around me, I pandered to it initially until i got fed up of his dramatics. When i say he was selfish, I wasn't kidding. We hadn't long moved back to up to the area he was from, so we could be closer to his son and family. Turns out he didn't want to move back home because that would be too much like being a responsible dad, and his suicide threats were because he said he was "bored" and wanted to go and get stoned and go fishing with his best mate.

Imagine being that kind of dad, moving away from your son and complaining of being bored when you moved back. He would tell me he never wanted to move back, and it was my fault for making him. Damned right I made him, he needed to be there for his son.

It came to a head when he was moaning to me and his sister about being bored again and how he should just kill himself. He was being completely over dramatic and his sister was panicking, so I called 999 and said I was in the house with someone threatening to kill themselves. They gave me instructions to remove sharp stuff as also to keep myself safe in case he got violent. When the ambulance came, he refused them entry and even though I said they could come in, they told me his refusal meant they couldn't. He started ranting and so they called the police for backup because he was getting more and more wound up.

It wasn't long before he was carted off by three police officers, taken to a cell and evaluated by the district psychiatric team. They deemed him stable and not suicidal, and so he got the lesson of his fucking life that day.

I threw him out soon after. I got fed up of his tantrums and selfishness, and I didn't want to be with anyone who refused to be there for his son as a father. I didn't realise the fullness of that situation until we moved up there, and I talked to his family.

Long story short, next time he explodes please call 999 and tell them he's threatening to kill himself.

This article may be of interest.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/01/suicidal-detained-safety-mental-health-therapy

I hope things will get better.

I have not had EMDR but I have heard really good things about it.

"Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) is a relatively new treatment that's been found to reduce the symptoms of PTSD.

It involves making side-to-side eye movements, usually by following the movement of your therapist's finger, while recalling the traumatic incident.

Other methods may include the therapist tapping their finger or playing a tone.

It's not clear exactly how EMDR works, but it may help you change the negative way you think about a traumatic experience."

www.nhs.uk/conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/treatment/

Also - whenever i tried to broach his behaviour with him, he would also refuse to take his medication and even threw a month's worth of it down the toilet in the midst of a tantrum. That was one of the many reasons I threw him out, I refused to live with someone who made my life miserable by refusing to take medication and throwing it away. I was the one who had to call his doctor and tell them what he'd done, so I could get them to write another prescription. That was fun, they would only give him a weeks worth at a time so he wasn't potentially throwing more away, and also said it he kept doing it, they'd make him get his doses every day from the pharmacy. Fucking embarrassing dealing with a 40+ man having a tantrum, that's all his behaviour was.

Since your husband has a genuine reason for poor mental health, then yes you should absolutely be careful, but that does not mean that you have to sacrifice your own well being. Refusal to get help and repeated threatening suicidal behaviour means you would be entirely justified calling emergency services for help, because it sounds like he genuinely needs it.

I have a PtSd, I couldnt face going to the Gp for a long time. It was because I thought would have to talk about the event that was causing my distress.

Please tell your husband he won’t be asked to talk about it.

He may have to have time to think about that, but im sure he’s as worried as you by the situation, but can’t deal with It.

I undersTand how he is feeling, and looking back to my time like that, I know how hard it was for my DH..

I agree with Reanimatedfor several reasons which I don't think you'd be receptive to hearing. But really it comes down to this, you either believe him when he says he's going to kill himself or you don't. If you do believe he's going to kill himself you are being GROSSLY IRRESPONSIBLE by not ringing him an ambulance. Any reasonable person would do this, so why aren't you?

Some appalling posts here. Imagine if those selfish, attention seeking, manipulative posters were suffering from PND. Absolutely their DHs should kick the selfish fuckers out.

OP the majority of posters are right you cannot handle this on your own and neither can he. He needs to access help. Either by starting the process at the GP or by calling the emergency services when he threatens it

OP I'm so sorry you and your DH are going through this and I'm sorry you've had some truly awful responses. Might it help if you repost this on the Mental Health forum?