When it snows it snowballs ... should I get help?

[Noisserped]

Name changed to post this - sorry long

Have suffered with depression on and off since I was a teen (sleeping lots, ill all the time, drug abuse (as a teen), suicidal thoughts), but recently I have been having thoughts that things would be much easier if I wasn't here/that I want to die.

Have had a very stressful few years, DH and I were made homeless by DH's mother whilst I was pregnant, lived in a hostel with people smoking crack in the room next door when DD just born nearly two years ago. Moved twice since then in to different temporary accomodation. I have worked since DD 7 months old as DH struggling to find work, but still bfing so have not had a good nights sleep in over two and a half years. I am trying to stop bfing altogether this week but job stressful and now I work ft so I am not coping with the lack of sleep. Have been ill with one virus after another since Christmas and am just exhausted. We are about to move yet again (because flat they placed us in is full of damp and mould due to roof problems), but they are stalling having said it would be three weeks it is now more like 2 1/2 months so we are living out of boxes and sleeping in the same room as DD which is making the whole night weaning thing even harder.

Today DH could not find his hat and got all stressed out about the fact that we can't find anything and are still living out of boxes, this culminated in him having a massive go at me for not pushing to speak to the housing manager on Friday to get a date for our move. I spoke to someone who said they had told the manager to chase the contractor as they had been unable to contact them. I didn't speak to the manager as I find dealing with the council very stressful as they never give you a straight answer and DH always disbelieves what they tell us anyway which causes more stress. DH would speak to them but they will not allow him to be a tenant so as I am the tenant I have to be the one. I am so fed up of living in limbo and fighting with the council and then fighting with DH when they inevitably stall, don't do their jobs or lie to us. Cannot afford to go private or else I would seriously consider it just to get rid of the stress.

It all snowballed today and I ended up crying hysterically and telling DH how I had been having suicidal thoughts. He said he can't deal with another family member with mental illness (his brother has history) and that I needed to fix up for the sake of DD. I know I need to fix up and usually when I get to this stage I deal with it by giving myself a good talking to, but it is so hard to see the wood through the trees at the moment. I am wondering if I should seek help via GP, but am worried it will lead to SS involvement in my family and I don't really want to take AD's unless really necessary. Do the GP's really help? Would counselling help? Had some as a teen, but it didn't help as it didn't change the situation that was causing the depression in the first place.

If you have a good gp then I would ask for help.
I am a bit like you describe, in that recently everything has built up and I not cope well with it. Saw a gp who said I have been worse and here are 5 days of diazepam. But after seeing out of hours gp as dh didn't know what to do with me, this dr said the other gp wasn't good and is writing to my named gp to say I need help.

I say the above to say help is there, even if you don't first get it. Can't say I have had any success with getting counselling, just AD's and a psychiatrist - but hope you live in an area that promotes counselling before ADs. Have a look on your gp website - ours has a cbt therapist and 2 counsellors that work from it, I found for short term help. I don't see why SS should be involved, but others here could reassure you better. Why not think about what help you would like, such as cbt, find a good gp to go to and ask for what you want. All the best x

Nosserped - life certainly sounds very tough for you at the moment and you are clearly under a great deal of stress, with housing issues, full time employment, and recent thoughts of "not wanting to be here" - it sounds like you are heading for an episode of depression and anxiety. There is small wonder that this is happening with all the stress that you are under and have a history of depression.

Forgive me if I am a litlle confused - but are you still bf your child at age 2 plus, and are still having broken nights. Is this because you are bf ing the night , because if so, I think that it is time that you did stop, as children of this age should not need feeding in the night surely.

I think your DH is being totally unfair and unsympathetic to you. Telling you to "fix up" is total nonsense, and I know many people don't understand mental illness but he needs to understand that you are at the end of your tether and telling you to "fix up" is absolutely unhelpful. You are in he middle of trying to get a response from the Housing and then getting it in the neck from DH for not acting quickly enough. Incidentally you say that he is not "allowed" to be a tenant. Why is this? What is your r/ship with you DH like. Sorry to say but he sounds very selfish to me, you are working full time, having broken nights and are stressed to the max and he is going into meltdown because he can't find his hat!! FFS.

Sorry this probably isn't helping you at all. Yes I think you should see your GP asap before you fet any worse. I have had 2 major episodes of depression and am still trying to recover from one last Easter (many setbacks) so know how unbelievably awful this illness is.

I worked for children's services in a LA social servies dept for 30 years in child protection/fostering/adoption and am recently retired. I can absolutely assure you that GPs will not refer women who are depressed and anxious and have children to SSD routinely and even if they did, social services would be most unlikely to become involved in your family as nationally they are all totally overworked and can't even keep up with real child protection cases. In any event they are only involved if a child is at risk of significant harm. And your child isn't so don't worry about social services involvement.

Hope you can get some help from the GP, who will either prescribe ADs or counselling or both. You say the counselling didn't help when yu were in your teens as it didn't change the reason for the depression in the first place. Do you know what was causing the depression - this is half the battle, but counselling is not a magic bullet and neither are ADs as I'm sure you know. You are older now and may be able to make better use of counselling especially if you know what the underlying problem was at that time. And stand up to that bloke of yours and don't stand for him blaming you for everything - sounds like he'd be in a right mess without you!

Take good care of yourself and get some help from the GP.

Thanks for the replies. Still feeling wobbly today, but am off work this week so things slightly easier.

Nananina I have stopped feeding dd in the night (last bedtime feed was last night :(), but she still wakes and is up for an hour talking to us and crying as only started stopping this week as it was just quicker and easier for me to feed her back to sleep before now (I got more sleep). Like you say she doesn't need it at 22 months so I have stopped, but after she has been up for an hour I then can take 2 to get back to sleep. Problem is until she settles more quickly I will have less sleep as we are sharing a room at the moment whilst our room is filled with boxes packed up for the move. Lack of sleep is definitely part of the problem as it makes me less resilient to everything else.

DH is not allowed to be a tenant as council policy says that only the women should be tenant (for temporary) as they will have children in case of a split and it makes it easier for them as if DH was tenant they would have duty to house him if we parted. He apologised to me already and acknowledged he was being unreasonable he just feels powerless to change our situation, he is also having broken nights too so is tired and stressed out by our situation too. I do stand up to him (am not a doormat), he is ASD and Dyslexic so doesn't cope well with change and is always losing things!

Thanks for advice re: GP and reassurance about SS, my GP is good so will make appt to see her.