Some of you will know who I am because of how I have linked this, please don't out me for DH's sake. The name change is just a random one from a name I had already used that festers in my registration box and is of no real significance.
A few times lately I have been asked why someone with depression might get DLA and that its not the same as other disabilities. Mind are promoting male mental health this week, and as I have disabled children, this is my rexperience of what it meant to have Dh seriosuly ill with depression several years ago, and why it was at least as hard to deal with as the children's needs now. DH is well now as he has found suitable medication () but others aren't always so lucky to get help in time. DH never claimed DLA but only as nobody told us about it, we lost our house as a result so could have used it.
Dh had his first breakdown aged 17 but his Mum wouldn't let him get help as she thought it was an embarassment. He was exhausted running a full time job, full time college course (his aprents were charging him large amounts of keep so the job had to be kept, and he wanted the college course to make something of his life), and being expected to taxi his Mum to work at all hours; exhaustion is a key factor in depression for DH and the biggest single trigger I know of for him.
About eight yeras ago DH got ill again, after a period of intense problems including almost losing me and our child during a birth cock-up. At the time I was eight months pregnant. I should emphasise that the only times he wasn't employed were during sick leave or two small periods when employers told him leave as he couldn't perform, he never used it as an excuse not to work, something he has been accused of before. I also want to emphasise that at no time in his illness was the welfare of either me or the kids at risk. Had that been so I owould not have stayed. His hatred was for himself, not us. The children were extremely young and very unaware, intentionally so. They were and are our priority.
It would be more accurate to say what time DH slept than woke, as his sleep was so badly affected. Hwe would get three hours a night I think, in tiny batches with horrid nightmares. He'd lie there eyes wide open whilst I slept, then be exhausted in the morning. Each day I would have to coax him up, force him to eat then to wash and dress. Left to his own devices he wuld wear the same clothes day in and out (night also) and not eat at all, he simply forgot.
Dh believed he was well and that made helping so much harder. People who thought he needed help were out to get him, and he had paranoia that was horrible. He couldn't cope with anything at all- a simple bill in his mind was a last demand before bankruptcy, a phonecall from a friend meant I was having an affair, bad weather the shed collapsing. Often I would get a phone call at work before I went on mat leave tell me the world was ending.
When DH went to work, I couldn't go anywhere as it was always 50 / 50 whether he could get through the office door. If he had a panic attack the first I would know was when he came home again, or I had a phone call telling me he couldn't cope and was leaving me: the system seemed to be he would hang up, I would call back no answer, text him to say I love you come home and then get a call ten minutes later. Always the same pattern, always the same broken man.
Except for the one night he was told off at work shortly after forcing himself in. Then the call was that he was going to kill himself, then hung up. I immediately sent police out, and was stuck with the children miles from anyone I knew waiting for a call to see if he was alive or dead. He tried to drive off a cliff but the car stalled: he was home before the police found him, and in fact accompanied me to the GP the next day, the start of getting help and his now happy state- hardearned after many years. You know that thing about if someone tells you then they're not really ging to kill themself? Well its crap.
The thing is, he was disabled by it, it pervaded every aspect of his life. Shopping trips were accompanied by severe panic attacks and sudden claims that X was out to get him; he couldn't make phone calls or fill in forms so we ended up being forced to sell our house and move into rental as he couldn't deal with the mounting debts through ill health; I couldn't leave him home alone without a mini disaster so my life also had to stop completely. He lost all his friends and even his Mother who phoned him to tell him he had no business being depressed and it was her with the problems.
Money management was way beyond his ability as he couldn't see beyond the nexct 24 hours and I took over what I could, but that wasn't much as some companies refused to deal with me as his spouse.
Even when he was well enough to go to work, he did keep the same job through the second half of his illness and indeed until very recently, I wuld have to be by that phone talking him through every interaction, every phobia or panic attack. I became as much a prisoner of the disease as him in many ways, and yes our amrriage struggled to the point I almost left him, We are very lucky to be still together.
Depression is viewed by many to be a latent thing that just makes you feel a bit down and certainly it can be, but equally it can be a terrible life threatening or even fatal illness that robs a family of a person they love and leaves them with a traumatised needy shadow in its place.
I'm not sure this captures the half of it and I dont want anyone to think that I dont or didnt love DH, he is very precious to me and I am glad of him, he is a great DH and father and my best friend.. I am proud of every step to recovery he has made and we have worked a life now that enables him to not only cope with the illness but stave it off. Others work through it but dedicate their life to work sleeping and being cared for every other minute, or needing to give up altogether in order to recover. How depression affects you is in a large amount fed by the life you already have, but is equaly horrible.
Remembering those days is like stepping back to a dark palce where I never knew if DH would survive. We didn't once see a counsellor (was on long term sick leave) or CPN, only the GP and I were involved with care. It's stilltreated as a shameful disease, something you bring on yourslef when of course it is not. DH's was caused by a chemical imbalance. Others have it from a trauma- like my friend whose son killed himself then she tried pretty hard to follow him. It can happen to anyone,at any time, but men are more likely I beleive to take their lives violently and some people are more genetically vulnerable.
Depression has become the scapegoat of the decade along with back problems, it is a byword for taking a sickie or choosing a life of benefits dependancy. Every time it is used that way it insults someone who has tried hard to reclaim their life despite the illness. Many, many poelpe cope with it it OK on some meds and a bit of space but many don't, those people are hidden, at home and unable to leave, hospitalised, or dead.
Of course depression doesn't always means severe but it's not something that can be judged without an in depth understanding of the support that person needs to function. It is very disabling condition, possibly fatal, always traumatic.