How to not be depressed

[Elektra1]

Earlier this year my wife left me for someone else. It was very sudden and unexpected. She commenced the divorce within a month. I will lose my home, can now only see my child 50% of the time, and am in massive debt as she took all our savings and spent them. After the shock passed, I became depressed. I started sertraline but it didn't agree with me and I changed to Citalopram 20mg. I also have therapy. For a while I felt more stable but for the past few weeks I've been feeling worse and worse. I struggle to get up and dressed in the morning. I have no appetite and have lost 15kg. I need to declutter the house to get it ready to market but I can't find the motivation to do it. Can't find any motivation for anything. My work is suffering. I have supportive friends but turn down most invitations because I don't want to go out. Recently I started running again to try to lift my mood, it hasn't worked (yet).

I've got the meds, I've got the therapy. But I feel worse than ever. What can I do?

Give yourself time and be kind. You have had a huge shock and life change you will see progress slowly. What gives you joy?

Hobbies Good foods
See or make new friends. You will feel happiness again

Talking helps hugely. If not in person online ❤️

Hi OP, sorry to hear you have had such a rough time. In many ways it’s not surprising that you feel depressed as you are grieving a sudden and massive loss and it takes time to grieve . I would recommend you go back to your GP and/or therapist and explain that you are feeling worse. They may adjust your medication and/or increase your therapy sessions. If you can, try to reach out to a friend who you trust even if it’s just got a coffee and a chat one to one. Depression will try to make you isolate yourself but try to resist that if at all possible. Good luck , take it one step at a time.

If you can't see a way of regaining the happiness you felt in earlier times, possibly prior to a major negative life change (a death, divorce, losing a job, etc) depression can take hold because you can't see any way of getting back to the way you were before.

The cooking analogy is useful here. When we want to weigh out ingredients to cook something, we place a bowl on the scales and hit the zero button so that
the weight of the bowl does not confuse our calculations. Then we add the ingredients and the numbers go up; were we to remove the bowl, the scales would read a minus number. To continue weighing anything accurately we must hit the button to zero the scales once more, now the bowl isn’t there.

When we have a tragedy in our life we can be plunged into depression because our happiness levels now read a minus. Any attempt to improve our life would result in slightly less of a minus... but a minus all the same.
Depression is when we don’t see any way of getting back to zero. A person’s ability to move on from loss depends entirely on their ability to adapt to where they are now and to effectively ‘zero the scales’.

If we can accept where we are today (minus that loved one, or that relationship, or that job), we can start to once again build on our happiness levels. Human beings are, in fact, excellent at resetting the scales and adapting to new circumstances (we do it every time we improve our situation or circumstances but very quickly take that for granted).

Can you reset to zero? Can you look at the future from a starting point of today where everything is unknown and full of both possibilities and challenges?

How long have you been taking the new meds?
If it seems like you're still down, perhaps talk to your doctor.
During therapy, what do they suggest for where you are at at the moment?
After all you have been through, would some time with a friend help?
Someone to help with the house declutter?
Do you get to contact your children on your off days?
What would help you feel happier or more enthusiastic?
You have your children to keep you on track and functioning - Remember to get you up every day.
Eat well, enjoy your running, treat yourself to a good book, a walk with a friend, or what do you enjoy that you can incorporate into your day?

The therapy has been really helpful in guiding me to an understanding of what went wrong in the marriage, and the part I played in that and how not to do that again in any future relationship. I'm struggling with the idea of another relationship. I just want my wife back. I can't bear our child growing up split between two households, one containing the horror my wife left me for. She's only just started school and these years were meant to be the good bit for me and DW - past the baby years. But she bailed out.

I do try to focus on gratitude for what I do have. But spent the weekend in bed because I just couldn't make myself get up, even though I have so much to do. Friends came round yesterday to help put my Christmas tree up and if they hadn't, I think it would have just stayed on my doorstep. I don't want anything bad to happen, but I wish I could just hibernate, and wake up in my new house in a year's time, and not have to go through all the mediation/court/house sale. It's a very acrimonious divorce and 'D'W isn't giving an inch.

Make small habits and increase each day. It could be tiny, say a goal to imagine being on a beach listening to the sea for a few minutes as soon as you wake up. Then add in doing that plus getting up to brush your teeth. Then a habit to ensure you have five cups of herbal tea a day, clean socks on etc. You won't just bounce out of bed one day feeling fine but you need to build a structure and sense of achievement.

You're being quite glass half empty about your child - yes, 50/50 is a big change but you get time to yourself and time to be fully present with your child. It's an opportunity to build a strong bond with her.

Make sure you also get to green spaces and have some kind of relaxing hobby - knitting, colouring, yoga or whatever.

Don’t put huge expectations on yourself. Your wife left you and you don’t see your dc everyday now. That’s bloody hard. My exH left me 5 years ago. Exercise and other hobbies at home did help me. And I certainly agree with the poster who wrote about adapting. The species that survive are those who adapt. Take your time to adapt.

At the start, I cried all the time and I had days where I couldn’t go to work. Then the shock started to calm. Eventually I decided just to go with it, and to feel sad. There’s nothing wrong with that. As the saying goes ‘when you’re going through Hell, just keep going.’ Don’t pressure yourself to feel anything other than how you feel. Just be sure to wake up everyday, get up, breathe and at the end of the day, go to bed again. You got through the day and that’s all you need to do right now. No one would or should expect you to be okay right now. I think we believe that we can and should fix things quickly with pills, therapy and exercise and they all help but what actually, really helps is time. At the moment, you just have to take my word for it that life won’t always feel this way, it will alter again and new things will come into it. This website was a lifesaver to me when my exH left, especially read the stages (beginning with tsunami). I found them to be very accurate: https://www.runawayhusbands.com/healing

Give yourself time OP. You are doing a lot currently to heal so just try and be as compassionate as you can. It takes time to accept a new reality, and you are not willing to accept it yet. That's absolutely fine, this is your thing to go through, but it might be that until you can accept the end of the relationship the depression won't budge, or that would be my suggestion anyway.