I have namechanged. Some of you know the first bit. Please do not out me.
DH suddenly left me. We'd had a few rows but nothing major. 24 hours later we talked and talked and talked some more. It's taken a week but the situation has been emerging.
He's depressed - I knew this. But he revealed to me tonight he's thought about suicide many times over the last few years. I had no idea it was that bad.
We're going to RELATE - starting next week. He says they will be able to get him some help. I want him to go to his GP on Monday because I'm really scared for him now. :( He's always pooh-poohed me saying he was depressed but he's now agreeing.
He's not sleeping well, we are living apart, but he's seeing me and the kids every day. He's coping reasonably well with the day to day but he's just flat all the time. He will smile for a moment but it's fleeting.
I don't know anything about depression really. I've always been a really up sort of person. I've had bad times and been down obviously but never anything more than a couple of hours of misery you know?
I have absolutely no idea what to do to help him. Or what he should do to get help.
People round me are saying I should not be with him because he walked out on us but from my point of view, he's mentally ill. I wouldn't leave him if he had cancer and it made him unable to live normally, why would I leave him if he has a problem with his brain which made him act irrationally?
I don't know what I'm asking here really, other than some reassurance that it's good that he's acknowledged this problem. I don't know how to deal with it at all though 
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Need some honest advice - DH is suicidally depressed and I had no idea
pseudonomic · 23/07/2011 00:03
Oh, this is horrible and remarkably similar to my situatio where DP upped and left after a minor incident that we'd have ordinarily talked about. but its been 10 weeks and he still won't talk to me other that brief occasional texts saying he misses me.
I want to help but there's little I can do. And I feel so angry about how he's treated me and DS I'm finding it all very hard. i do have some understanding as ive been seriously ill with depression but even in ny very worst moments, i was always careful to try not to hurt those i loved. Please make sure you look after yourself.
It is very good that he has acknowledged that he needs help, that is the first tentative step towards getting well again. But he really does need to see a GP and get an official diagnosis and hopefully some treatment.
Sometimes you don't even notice how low you've sunk and how depressed you are until getting out of bed in the morning becomes as challenging an idea as running a marathon is for a 'normal' person. So if it has crept over him gradually it isn't surprising that you didn't notice immediately just how bad he was feeling. You often don't notice gradual changes in people you are closest too.
I know that I plodded on for years feeling alternately miserable, and totally unable to really be bothered with anything because it was all so futile, and occasionally idly contemplating how much easier it would be to be dead. Nothing dramatic and no 'I can't possibly carry on!' sort of moments or real suicidal intent, just a quiet feeling that life wasn't really that great and it wouldn't be so bad if it was all over and I could stop crawling on and on through this thick bland pointless mud of existence. But I don't think anyone knew just how drained and sad I was feeling until I finally had a break down and admitted that I couldn't cope.
There isn't much you can really do for someone with depression. Quiet un-judgy support and being there if/when they want you is about all you can do. You can't fix his depression any more than you could fix a tumor or other disease. He has to want to be treated and then accept what medical professionals offer him to hopefully help him get well.
As for medication. It can be a great help, it can be only semi-helpful, or if you've been prescribed something that disagrees with you it can be a nightmare.
I was given Prozac at first and it made me worse. I was sleeping 20 hours a day and having hallucinations. To this day I have no idea if some of my 'waking dreams' were real or not and I have substantial memory gaps. The doctor quickly realised though that it didn't agree with me and I got given Zoloft instead and I felt the fog slowly lift and 'normality' returned. I wouldn't say I was a happy-go-lucky person now, but I don't feel like I'm drowning or lost anymore, and it takes quite a bit to drag me down and although I still haven't figured out what the 'point' is I'm not having a bad time on the ride.
As for alcohol intake - he will probably have to stop drinking if he starts taking ADs because they react with alcohol... no actually, they really react with alcohol.
I had two small glasses of wine once while taking mine (It was Christmas Eve and I decided it wouldn't hurt 
) I vaguely remember falling over (like a felled tree I am told) and then nothing. I missed Christmas. I woke on on Boxing day feeling like hell with no memory of anything after I hit that floor.
Best of luck with dealing with it all. It may be HIS depression but that doesn't mean you don't need help dealing with it too. Look after yourself x
Hello, lovely :)
As I think you know, I have clinical depression following a couple of breakdowns. Forget about self-help bollocks like mid-life crisis; it's a potentially fatal mental health crisis. They rarely look like they do in the movies.
Firstly, you're right that it's great he's decided to acknowledge a problem and see his doctor. Unfortunately, he will probably downplay the severity of it when he's there. We do this, not out of pride, but because our world-view is already so grim, we see ourselves as worthless and the entire universe as similarly depressed. A healthy person, listening to us, wouldn't get what a hugely different perspective we're coming from (this includes doctors!) because we present our feelings as normal - they are, to us - and can even be funny about them. A lot depends on your GP personally, and also on the practice's catchment area; I got the most empathetic treatment in an overcrowded London district, where practitioners have more cause to understand stress-related illnesses.
I took advice to write down my real feelings before seeing the doctor. This has to be done privately: for obvious reasons, we try to hide our honest thoughts. It helps a lot when you get to the doctor's - if you find you can't talk, you can hand your mind-dump over and wait for a response. It's OK to cry (that's for him, though it's also okay for you!)
You can't mend it. Neither can anybody else, though people who have appropriate knowledge are invaluable guides towards recovery. It's hard to describe depression. It's like living in a colour-desaturated world, where it's always dark and there is no future. Horrid beyond horrid. Suicide looks like the only logical option: there is no point, just no reason to carry on trudging through the dark. I'm a hundred times better than I was back then but, in truth, I still don't see the point. Main difference is, I now believe I will!
Medication is not a cop-out, it's a lifesaver. Ignore anyone who insists you can do it with herbals and exercise. Exercise is helpful but, at my worst, I did well to walk thirty yards - and I often had to do it in my pyjamas! Antidepressants are really hit-and-miss. It takes six weeks to find out whether your prescription suits you and three or four months to tell whether they're working. The patient is not the best person to tell if they're working, unless they have a strong reaction one way or the other. It takes a good, listening professional.
Big joys can strain your depressive to the max. We'll put out all our best responses, then be exhausted by the effort for days or weeks. Tiny joys, like the ones that interest small children (a butterfly, a pile of autumn leaves, a jigsaw, tidying a row of something) are more useful because they give us an opportunity to be mindful - to exist, just for a moment, in something honest.
You can't mend it.
You are not responsible for it.
The best example I've ever seen - and I've seen a lot - of a depressive with a working relationship was a journalist, who wrote of his "black dogs" and how his family copes. His wife ignores him. She makes sure he's fed & watered, shoos him into the shower once a week or so, and otherwise shuts the door on him. He has a young child, who knows it's okay to go tell Daddy about stuff, but just to walk out again if Daddy isn't well enough to listen or play.
This keeps the writer and his wife sane. From what he wrote, I imagine his wife's doing a great job of keeping the child sane 
Depression is 'catching'. Don't involve yourself with it. If you can, stay kindly detached. If you can't, there's no shame in quitting.
I wish you both the best of luck and the best of help.
I know nothing about depression. Nothing.
Nothing about the drugs either.
Other than the ravings of people who have told me they hate their meds. But generally this is when they suddenly stop them, so perhaps they are not quite right in the head either?
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