Living with someone severely depressed from the families point of view

[Unhappy917385]

This is going to be quite negative and im sorry to anyone suffering from depression. Please dont feel that your family feel this way about you, I am just talking from my own specific situation.
My husband has suffered from severe depression on and off now for 5 years. We will have a few months where he is relatively ok (never perfect as quite a miserable person) and then the rest of the time he is withdrawn, detached , sits staring into space, becomes paranoid , can see and hear things , very flat, shows no emotion.
We have two kids who see this on a daily basis. Our lives have also completely changed as he was a high earner, we had a large home, nice holidays, and I was a sahm, to now him being at home 24/7, I go out to work full time (minimum wage) and we can barely afford to pay the bills and buy food let alone anything else.
He sees a mental health nurse and a psychiatrist but they are useless other than giving him medication and saying "there, there" whilst our family is destroyed in the meantime.
Myself and the children have been hugely affected by this. I have lost my husband, he is a stranger to me . The kids have lost their fun loving dad and now live with someone who cant show them love , attention and makes them very confused as sometimes hes ok and sometimes he basically completely ignored them.
I want to support my husband but the impact this is having on our family is absurd. It has destroyed 4 people's lives, . My eldest son (a teenager) is completely detached from his dad. They never speak to each other , just dont engage. Younger daughter is heading the same way.
I feel so frustrated that there is help and support for the person with the condition but no help or support for the family .
Am I doing the right thing keeping us together or should I be removing the kids from this ongoing situation? Noone thought it would go on for this long but its obvious now that's its never going to go away

You've posted about this many times over the years. The right thing is what's right for you and the children. If that means a new start then so be it.

It sounds to me that he is not on the right medication at all. Has he had a meds review by a psychiatrist?

The problem is that there is no treatment for depression that doesn't require the patient to engage and make an effort. If he won't try, there is physically nothing that can be done. He has to want to recover.

I would split up tbh. The kids don't deserve to live like this.

Not only will he not make effort he is also in denial and refuses to acknowledge there is a problem.
He's had multiple medication changes ,must of tried 20

If it's affecting the dc this much, for this long and with no sign of improvement then i think you owe it to them to leave.

You also matter very much and leaving sounds the best for you too. Your dc deserve at least one happy parent.

You've done all you can.

From my own experience of exactly this, I left. I have a child too who was approaching teenage years & I didn’t want them to think that this was normal. We are much, much happier & he is the same.

Your addition about him being in denial is also key here. He isn’t doing everything he can to get better, isn’t even admitting there’s a problem. I felt I was enabling that by the end & I was becoming more & more eroded, resentful, stressed, snappy etc etc ib the process.

My heart goes out to you. I had a similar situation with my DP - wouldn't engage with any form of treatment and I firmly believe the depression was prolonged by a good couple of years because it became 'the norm', learnt behaviour.

In the end I was the one having counselling and on the verge of having treatment for his bloody depression. I lost the plot and basically told him to shape up or ship out. I'm not sure if it was coincidence but things did start to improve.

My advice - there is absolutely no worth in a whole family suffering when the person with the illness will not engage. Your kids are growing away from their Dad, and they will grow away from you as they associate you with him. Yes I know it sounds cruel to say yes leave but again what's the point in all of you suffering ?

How can it 'just' be depression if he is paranoid and sees and hears things? isn't this more inline with having a bipolar disorder?