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Mental health

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Depression or?

1 reply

delphinidewdrop · 29/06/2018 11:58

This will be a bit of a long post so apologies about that. It's about my mum. To try and summarize, looking back now at growing up she was not particularly nice to me or my brother.For a long time as a child I thought she hated me. She has been a SAHM for the past 30+ years now, so primarily cared for myself and my brother throughout that time (dad working very hard at family business so didn't get involved much in childcare). My brother and I then went to boarding school from about 13 onwards, then university etc. Now we see my mum a lot as we both work for our family business (which she is not involved in, by choice). I would say in the last two years my mum has been having some difficulties - she gets extremely stressed about the smallest things ( minor admin work, normal life distruptions) to the point that she's in tears and low for days. My dad who is working less hours now and spends a lot of time with her seems unable to know what to do and how to cope with these low moods.

She genuinely has very little to worry about as she doesn't work, children grown up, no financial worries etc. We thought that maybe she was just a bit bored but she was involved in looking after a very small enterprise but had to stop doing that as too much stress for her. It is very difficult for my dad as he is constantly walking on eggshells, trying to make things right but nothing seems to make her happy. I have recently had a child and she told me several times when i was pregnant that she didn't want to be 'landed' with her grandchild etc etc. At no point did I ask her to do any childcare and Do you think this could be depression? Or PND that was never treated? Or something else? We as a family really don't know what to do but its affecting all of us.

OP posts:
Chatterboxnz · 06/07/2018 04:13

It may be a mixture of depression and anxiety. It is hard to say without hearing what she is saying or looking at her behaviour and asking her questions. The issue is that there is a fine line between anxiety and paranoia. What may be happening is she is becoming paranoid about leaving the house or being unable to complete things to a high enough standard.
Is she saying anything that she thinks is happening even if it isn't? For example that her husband doesn't love her anymore, despite the obvious fact that he does. Or that he is cheating on her or hurting her on purpose?

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