Men's depression

[Sparkly666]

Hi lovely people!

I'm hoping you can help- I'm fairly sure my partner is depressed ( A look on the M.I.N.D website seems to confirm). He's permanently angry- not with me, just in general. He seems to be completely shut down, refusing even simple offers like a cup of tea.
He says that he just wants to be left alone, but I hate feeling like I'm ignoring him. He's too far into it to listen to reason about seeing a Dr.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to proceed?

Thanks all :)

Hi there,

Yes I do, I have been depressed and currently work with men with depression. Depression isn't something that occurs over night, it can be caused by post traumatic stress, but in most causes it is caused by and begins during a persons childhood. Depression is simply a fancy word for describing pretty severe emotional pain, unfortunately not something a cuppa and a bickie is gonna resolve

Its a pretty big topic, in my opinion and it is only an opinion, most people suffering with depression simply have anti-depressants thrown at them by Drs and they 'help' in the short term, but the effect of them generally wears off over time and that can lead to feeling even more hopeless. Here are somethings that would help you in the very short term:

1. When he is angry what will help him is you not being afraid, anger is VERY difficult to be around and its so easy to want our partners to simply snap out of it. If he feels your fear he will only feel further away from you. You could read some books about dealing with your own fear
2. Make sure that you are feeling full of love, angry people are merely screaming out to feel loved, it just doesn't look like it on the surface, he needs to feel your love for him (there are many ways to do that)
3. When he IS angry, don't smother him, ask him if there is anything he needs, get close to him rather than speaking to him from across the room (not saying you are). Ask him if he would like a hug for example, ask if he ants to talk about his day, ask if there is anything you can do for him right now, but it cannot be asked if you want him to be different again that would simply push him away.
4. If he doesn't want to know, tell him that you are going to give him some space and to come and check on him again in about half an hour - make sure you do that, don't avoid him.
5. Offer to help him with his chores/the kids/his work etc to lighten his load a little

All this stuff is going to help you move towards at least communicating with him, we spend WAY less time communicating with out partners than we think we do, in my opinion on average GOOD actual communication and connecting time (not logistics and planning) 10 mins per day. When you start talking more frequently about him and he feels safe enough to talk about how he feels you can tackle the subject more directly.

If you would like anymore help I would need some more information regarding his occupation, time to bed, age, amount of sex you guys have, number of kids etc etc

Anyway hope that helps a little

*causes was supposed to say cases