feelinblue, sorry i didn't post last night but i was just very tired and had to go to bed.
feel free to cat me.
my dh has been suffering depression for about 18 months. we'd only been married 4 months when it hit. i was 6.5 months pregnant and he went AWOL for 6 weeks.
he came back for the birth, stayed 3.5 weeks then went again.
eventually he saw the dr last xmas and went on ads and moved into his parents' place. by march he started having therapy.
thru all this time contact was very sporadic. only on text or email mostly but occasionally he would visit. this would often result in a panic attack and he'd run (literally) away. left the car in the street once and ran............
eventually he came home end of July after a bit of a crisis point. things were great, he got a job and we moved back to an area we like etc.
unfortunately during october things got worse and he went again 3 days before dd's 1st birthday.
a week awol then turned up at his parents again and has been there since. we've seen him twice in this time.
it's the hardest thing in the world to deal with. the anger can be all consuming but the pity for his terrible state is great as well. not to mention the grief for the person he isn't anymore. i really miss the man i married........
he says he loves me, he adores dd etc but that's very difficult to reconcile with his demand to be left alone. days can go by where he ignores my texts (1 per day is what i restrict myself to) and i wind myself up and up! really i should go over there and confront him but i know it wouldn't do any good.
he has to get himself to a place where he can ask for help and that can take an awful long time. i should've spotted the signs and not been so naieve to think he was "better". i shouldn't have let him stop seeing his phsychiatrist in July etc etc.
this week we've had a breakthru, he came for dinner on monday. he's agreed to let me help him manage his treatment and to see the dr. his meds need reviewing and he needs more therapy.
only you can know how much you are prepared to do for him to support him thru this. i have certainly done more than i probably should and i know it has affected me deeply but i haven't known what else to do.
he knows that each time he does this i am less and less tolerant and he stands a very real chance of losing me.
the best advice i got from a book was "the pain and the wisdom of silence". if i rant and rave, if i tell him he's useless to me and dd this way, if i tell him i am struggling or can't cope, if i make demands on him for assistance - all these things push him further away.
really, anything i say or do cannot make him feel any worse than he is already making himself feel. in fact, he sometimes wishes i would walk away as then he can succumb entirely to his depression and really have nothing to live for.
if i offer unconditional love and support and praise whenever i feel able (and that's certainly not 100% of the time). if i show him how grateful i am for the small things he does and allow him to feel good about those things all this builds his self esteem and helps get us to a point where we can get him into treatment again.
believe me, i will be watching him like a hawk in future for any sign that he is slipping again.
god, i've really gone on! sorry! hope it's helped, it's kinda helped me to write it all down.
feel free to CAT me if you'd like and good luck.