Support thread for those with depressed DPs or Spouses

[grace2010]

Just starting this one off as it sounds like a few of us are going through the same thing. Sharing through this with those going through similar would be such a boost and maybe we can offload on each other, offer support and maybe some learned wisdom too.

Would be wonderful if those with depression could chime in with any insights or suggestions of how we can help our SOs. I'd also love to hear from those who have been through it. Keeping hope alive for the return of the person you loved gets harder and harder and any positive stories are always music to the ears.

I won't write a long post here, but my DP got depressed around a year ago for the first time in his life, due to financial stress and nothing has been the same since. The person I loved might as well have been abducted by aliens.

I feel like I have lost him, he no longer thinks he loves me, I feel completely alone and miss him constantly. The emotions range from anger to devastation on a daily basis.

I'm currently going through a break-up with my DP who has BPD. It's awful, I don't think I'm going to recover.

I would like to quietly lurk and learn as DH is not coping but not yet willing to talk to anyone else. I am willing to support him but need to learn more. He is not against going for help, just doesn't feel ready.

Hollerback, I'm so sorry to hear that. I feel I am headed for a breakup too and it's terrifying me. Ghostisonthecanvas, it is disappointing but true that often people (especially men) have to get very bad before they seek help. if you can't get him to get help is there anything you can encourage...for example thing like 20 minute walk every day, mindfulness exercises, careful diet, use of Omega 3 vitamins and massage are all things that help my DP?

To get the ball rolling, my experience with depression has been...

My DP Before depression
Incredibly kind and sensitive, could not stand to see me upset.
Very emotional, cried easily at sad things.
Never got angry or irritable
Was very slow to make decisions and carefully analysed before acting
Always positive, and definitely my "rock"
Could not keep his hands off me. Daily sex, constant sexy texts from the office too!
Felt so deeply connected to me emotionally.
Told me constantly how much he loved me, showed it in his actions, facial expressions and touch
Cuddled me endlessly, was always holding my hand
Was always giggling
Had an amazing memory and was thoughtful
Completely selfless and always trying to help others
Thought I was his "soulmate" his entire life...
Had heaps of energy and was fun to be with
Was honest, trustworthy and my best friend

My DP After Depression
Varying between constant crying and being verbally cruel to me and abusive
Totally hopeless about everything
Had constant outbursts of anger and rage directed at me
Had no energy, could not get up in the morning, started drinking heavily
Snapped a lot at my little boy (from previous relationship)
Could not handle and emotional talks at all
Still wanted sex all the time, but less lingering kisses and cuddles
Less intimate emotionally, distance between us but still reassured me he was in the under the illness and to bear with him
Told me he loved me very much but had lot himself
Was struggling with suicidal thoughts.
Acts wonderfully normal in front of everyone else!
Was manipulative and started to lie

My DP after starting Citalopram
Calmed significantly from the dark place of deep depression....BUT
Lost all interest in me sexually, turned away from me in bed
Can't cry or show emotions about anything
Feels extremely distant from me
Can say very hurtful, cruel cold things and seems to not know he does it
Never laughs or seems to deeply enjoy anything
Is extremely selfish and seems to think he is the only person on earth
Doesn't want to kiss me, hold my hand or cuddle. Turns away in bed.
Lost all empathy for me and how I was feeling
Offers me no emotional support or closeness of any kind
Has very poor memory
Thinks he no longer loves me, or says he doesn't love me the way eh thought he did and he is sorry.

So....quite a rollercoaster to live with. He is now pretty sure in his head that he loves me but not as strongly as he once thought and he thinks it is best to move on to let me meet someone who will love me the way I deserve.

I live constantly with the loneliness and rejection and I know he intends to leave soon. Before he was ill - I know he would never for a minute have felt this way so it's confusing to know how to react.

Hi Grace your DP sounds like he's in a bad place and so are you. My DH has had depression for about 20 years but not as extreme (as far as I'm aware) as you're sharing... Re citalopram - it does have sexual depressant side effects but could he ask to try another anti-d? Much love!x

Thanks myrtleWilson. Yes, he has been very severe. Much more extreme / agitated / pronounced in nature than I ever knew depression could be. I have tried everything to help him. Read every book on depression. Been to a counsellor myself. Talked to his doctor.

We did share a wonderful sex life, so much affection and this was a big part of us, so losing this has been incredibly hard.

Would changing the medication possibly mean they would work without such pronounced side effects?

Grace that sounds so hard. I am sorry.
Thank you for the advice. Funnily enough, I saw on another thread about omega 3 and DH is willing. He gets loads of exercise and eats well.

Mine is crap at reading, but I got him some audio books on mindfulness for the drive to work. Every little helps. What a monstrous illness

Hello from the other side of the coin.

Reading your description of your dp was really hard for me. You could have been describing me. Worryingly, the citalopram paragraph particularly rang true. Especially the sex part. I went from wanting sex twice a day or more to just wanting to be left alone. Yes there are other meds but many of them have the same effect. I can relate to the lack of emotion. I actually can't remember the last time i laughed. I was always laughing!

I adore my dp but i am distant.Worse than that, so is he :(

What helps me? I am in a bad place just now so difficult to say but I'll try.

Reassurance. I need to know that everything will be ok (anxiety is my biggest problem). Being told that he loves me. Cuddles.

NOT being told to pull myself together but also not being allowed to wallow in self pity.

I have lost count of the times I have told my dp to find someone else - it is because my self esteem is so low that i can't understand how anyone could love me.

It is also a form of self harm. Losing dp would finish me. So i often try and push - i want reassurance.

Excercise helps, being outside and away from people.

Its hard. But being depressed is not an excuse to take it out on your partner.

Maybe counselling would help you to recognise patterns of behaviour. Help you respond. It isNOTok for him to be abusive.

i wish i could say that the man you loved is hiding under the surface. I doubt he is. I know i will never be the same and that is painful and scary. You have to love who he is now. Only you know if you can do that.

See. If he had a physical illness that made him touchy, abusive and miserable you would feel more like you needed to accept it. Depression is a physical illness. It us maybe harder to undestand why that person is treating you badly but actually it is just as shit if you are caring for someone with cancer. YOU need support and actually if you cant cope then you may have to walk away. Your mental health is valuable too.

dorry if none of that makes sense.

Thank you very much LEM and I am sad to hear you are where he is. It's not a good place to be. Thank you for the advice, I will try to take all that on board.

I would definitely be able to accept him being touchy, abusive, miserable, off sex.....no problems on those ones...rough with the smooth. The difficulty is that if the other person is telling you they think they don't love you and backing up that statement in a sense by removing all emotional intimacy it's very hard to keep up the stamina to not just feel like you are hanging around for someone who seems to hate you.

Before all this if I looked sad he'd want to know what was the matter and would keep going as long as it took to help me feel better. Now he just asks if I want to watch this week's episode of The Village and doesn't even notice if I've been crying.

I know that might sound selfish, but a year is a long time to live with someone who's totally unaware of your emotions.

What has kept me there is the knowledge that before this, I felt like he loved the pants off me and he even says now that he did. I just DON'T believe he doesn't love me. So I'm hanging on faith just now...but faith that's being battered.

May e it is time to start to detatch. For your own sanity. I can onky dpeak from my experience. I have often pushed and pushed at my dp. When he takes me at my word. (Because like you, he has had enough) i beg him to stay. Maybe you need to call his bluff. Like i say. Depression is a bastard illness it is not s free pass to drag everyone else down with you!

Sorry. Bloody phone

A few months after we got together we had an incident where his behaviour was very odd. Whilst talking about it afterwards he told me he had bipolar. Which made sense. In the months afterwards he went to the GP and was told it sounded more like BPD. There was no exact diagnosis and the GP was happy for him to research it and try to work through it on his own. (I must admit I'm very sceptical that this happened).

We moved in together in June but a few weeks later he threw me out and I had to come and stay with my parents but we had a discussion, where he promised to see someone and I said that although I wouldn't move back in straight away we would try.

A week ago we had another incident, it was a major incident and now he has cut all contact with me and is threatening to go to police to report me for harassment if I continue to try to communicate with him.

It's now been a week with no contact, I miss and love him so much. I want to know how he is and I'm devastated that he will not speak to me. It's like I can literally feel my heart breaking and I'm so unhappy that I'm finding hard to function on a daily basis.

Hollerback with those circumstances the choice is made for you and you MUST leave him be and try and get on with life. I can understand how distraught you feel if he's not being "himself", but if he is bipolar or has BPD then this IS him, a very real part of him.

I know that this is him. I know that he behaviour had been emotionally abusive. I know that I need to separate completely but I feel like I am grieving the loss of someone who is still there but actively choosing to be dead to me.

I know exactly how you feel

I cannot express how unhappy I am. I constantly think it is my fault because he told me I'm not handling his illness in the right way. I should have handled everything better, I should have modified my behaviour to accept his illness. It's hard to know that this is all my fault.

Hollerback, no one's mental health status is your fault. My DP says the same. It's trying to caste blame at an external source for inner pain

Out the other side now, but still remember the isolation, the frustration, the loneliness of it all. My DH was severely and psychotically depressed from the end of 2004 to the end of 2009, with a very brief respite in the middle when, despite reassurances from the doctors that it was a 'one off' , I knew it wasn't right. He was hospitalised twice, for 6 weeks and then for 8 . Those were the hardest days, especially as there was so much they couldn't/ wouldn't discuss with me due to 'patient confidentiality'. He eventually left work on long term disability in 2010 and that was the beginning of the way back. We were lucky in that his firm was incredibly supportive and our daughter was grown by that time. He took early retirement two years ago when I retired and we moved to the other end of the country to be near our daughter. It was the best move we ever made, although incredibly hard sometimes. I would say he is 99% better now and we have a good life. I will never forget these years though, and a tiny part of me remains ( probably too much) alert to any triggers. It must be incredibly hard for those of you with young families especially, and my heart goes out to each and every one of you. Be kind to yourselves. None of it is your fault, any more than a physical illness would be. As wives and mothers we want to heal and hug and sort everything and it is very hard to come to terms with the fact that you can't do that. Take each day as it comes , rejoice in the good things and remember that the worst times won't last forever.

Thank you. I'm now home early from work sat in floods of tears. I just don't know how I will cope with the separation.

Holler I've been quite vocal on another threat about this.

I will sound very hard but believe me I have been where you are...Crying all the time, unable to work or concentrate. Have you had some help for you, someone that you are able to speak to in real life who can perhaps just put an arm around you and let you cry.

Those tears will be healing, it doesn't feel like it right now but eventually you will feel better and more like you.

Please do not accept any responsibility for your dp's illness. It is very wrong for him to try and put that on you. Being depressed does not give him carte blanch to treat you badly. Know that you didn't cause this, you are not in control of it and you can't change things. You are not able to control your dps feelings or actions, only your own.

If he has left please let him be, he needs to be responsible for himself. You need to focus on you. Can I suggest that you speak with your gp. They may be able to refer you for some therapy or give you something for the anxiety that you are probably feeling.

Tank you Gilded. I think most of the problem is that I fell so completely in love with him at a time when I had practically given up on love. We talked about getting married and spending our lives together. Apart from the illness he was absolutely everything I never knew I wanted. Now he won't speak to me it's hard to accept that the man that professed to love me beyond everything doesn't care enough to listen to me or to even want to know how I am. I don't think I will ever find that sort of love again.

I think when someone is mentally ill they can sometimes act very differently to the person you are familiar with and it can be really frightening and painful. When they are in that space -they DON'T care enough to listen to you and that makes them unfit in a sense to even be in a relationship. The give and take is gone because the other person is not well. In time when he is better - I am sure he will apologise - but for now the best thing to do is look after yourself and not take his illness personally x

In total agreement with you, Grace. I think CAN''T care as much as don't care. Hand holding, Holler .

I can empathise as I recognise so many of these behaviours in my DP who has been on anti-depressants for years. DP has little interest in doing anything. No spontaneity anymore. Sleeps for an unreasonable number of hours. Picks on our son and makes unacceptable comments to me and due to medication no interest in sex. Sometimes I want to just walk away

Thanks for starting this thread, I had been wondering about doing the same....

briefly, dh with history of depression, severe depression 2011. I became depressed 2012 (lots of factors inc dh depression). Dh not quite well last couple of weeks and I'm having to work hard to manage anxiety.

Huge hugs and sympathies to anyone with a depressed partner. In my experience it was awful. He did get better though (Sertraline and CBT) and is in a much better position to cope now.

Need to get to bed I'm afraid!