Depression denial, trauma caused by parent

[Lostwifehelp]

My husband is going through depression (I think) except he doesn’t think it’s depression and thinks he’s fundamentally changed as a person after certain realisations about his childhood. As a result he’s unwilling to seek help (therapy or medication).

His trauma is related to an aspect of his religious upbringing. His mother has apologised for it but continues to be part off a religious cult. This is unacceptable to him because this shows to him that she hasn’t really understood and her apology is hollow. I think it’s impossible to change her religious views. He thinks once he has completely messed up his life she might realise how bad her religious cult is. Why he needs that I don’t understand. He’s obviously deeply hurt.

I love him and want to help him but I feel completely lost. He thinks only he knows how to deal with this and nobody else can understand what he’s going through, so I’m being unreasonable by asking him to try to fix it through therapy or medication.

@Ruth212 Yes she was a weak bystander with my brother in laws sexual abuse. He went NC with her for a few months but is talking to her again. With my husband’s trauma she actively caused it. My father in law said that he didn’t really want to do it, but as she’s the family matriarch she made the decision. With going NC my husband doesn’t want to punish his father who suffers from anxiety or our children who really love their grandparents.

Sounds like he’s furious with his mother and the anger comes out as wanting to hurt/punish her by wanting to wreck his life. It’s a raging inner child response, turned in on the self instead of the parent as that’s the only way for the child to maintain connection/attachment with the parent. (See Gabor Maté’s books)

It’s totally reasonable for him to be furious with her. Anger not expressed can become depression though - have personal experience of this (I experienced childhood abuse/neglect with narcissistic parents and a religious cult aspect too).

The anger needs to be allowed and expressed, and then the depression will naturally lift. Therapy is one way to do this. He could also explore trying to express it on his own through journalling, shouting at the sea, vigorous exercise, maybe something like hitting golf balls or boxing etc - whatever floats his boat and that’s a safe way for his body to express the anger stuck inside, as long as it doesn’t involve hurting other people and allows him to fully express himself.

Therapy is ideal because then he gets someone listening compassionately. But maybe you could you help him start the process of feeling his anger by being compassionate towards it (as long as he’s not expressing it in a way that hurts you/others) and encouraging him to find a safe outlet for it?

Therapy might be a scary prospect for him because it involves him having to feel his feelings. That can literally feel like death for an abused child - to feel feelings that the parent has decided aren’t acceptable, and that will result in the child being abandoned i.e. death (as a child is inherently vulnerable without adult protection in the wild - it’s a primal fear). Gaining some intellectual understanding of this and recognising that this is childhood fear that he doesn’t need to have now in adulthood might encourage him to make a step forward towards therapy.

Medication often suppresses feelings so isn’t always a solution - more like a sticking plaster. All the anger will still be there inside him and medication can have the effect of numbing feelings, so making it very difficult to connect with the anger and release it.

Therapy might be a scary prospect for him because it involves him having to feel his feelings. That can literally feel like death for an abused child - to feel feelings that the parent has decided aren’t acceptable, and that will result in the child being abandoned i.e. death (as a child is inherently vulnerable without adult protection in the wild - it’s a primal fear). Gaining some intellectual understanding of this and recognising that this is childhood fear that he doesn’t need to have now in adulthood might encourage him to make a step forward towards therapy.

I would show him that paragraph.
But having been through what your husband is going through, I think that he is still at the stage where he is trying to repair the relationship, and get his mother to see that she should be a parent. To him that means she needs to leave the cult, for him.
What he is yet unable to see is that his parents are child sexual abusers and so a normal parent-child relationship is impossible without some serious long term therapy on their part. Which he cannot control. He is unable to take himself to therapy, but he is unable to see that his parents are also unable to voluntary go for therapy.
It may be that they would never normally have done that without being groomed by a cult. It may be they sought out the cult because it normalises CSA.

He needs therapy with someone who understands CSA and grooming, so he can process the fact he is a victim of CSA, he cannot fix his abuser or mend the relationship any more than he could when he was a child.
He has other choices but they are not palatable to him at this stage.

@Starseeed
Thanks so much, that’s super helpful. Good point about medication suppressing things. I think the anger has already become depression. I’ve come to realise through the contributions here that he still needs more time to process these feelings and is no where near the acceptance stage yet. I’ll try to help him by being there to listen, but obviously I’m not qualified so ideally he will agree to seek therapy, even though the prospect doesn't appeal to him. I’ve been looking at Gabor Mate’s videos on YouTube. I’m trying to share stuff with him that will give him a sense of hope that things can get better.

@Thelnebriati Sorry I just wanted to clarify my husband was not a victim of sexual abuse. His brother was, but that wasn’t done by the parents and it wasn’t anything to do with the cult.

Glad it was helpful. Things absolutely can get better - I’m proof! Therapy - any journey to healing - can often make things feel worse initially because it means facing all the horrible feelings you’ve been avoiding and sorting through them before things start to feel better. But it really is the best process ever when you begin to learn that feelings aren’t terrible and to find some agency again. It can take some convincing to get there though - that’s the tricky bit, learning to trust the process.

It sounds like he's saying unless his mother says/does x, nothing can change. But she won't ever do this. So then nothing will change for him. He's putting the responsibility for his wellbeing in someone else's hands and unfortunately she's never going to be/dp what he feels he needs. He needs to take responsibility for himself or he's going to be stuck.

Btw Waking the Tiger by Dr Peter Levine might be another good book to look up. There’s a fantastic hopeful quote in there that is very true:

“I have come to the conclusion that human beings are born with an innate capacity to triumph over trauma. I believe not only that trauma is curable, but that the healing process can be a catalyst for profound awakening—a portal opening to emotional and genuine spiritual transformation.”

@Starseeed I do believe things can get better but it’s so so difficult hard battling his sense of hopelessness. He keeps saying he knows himself and therapy can’t help him. He seems to prefer the idea of moving out so we can all be better off without him.

@Chrimbob Yes I agree I just can’t convince him that he has to find healing himself. It’s really frustrating but I do also sometimes wonder what kind of mother sees her child in pain and refuses to acknowledge that the thing that has caused her child pain is wrong?