When I read these comments and see so many fellow HNers are in are in relationships with depressed partners it makes me wonder what’s going on. My ex wife was severely depressed for over a decade and so is my new partner of a couple years. I know leaving my ex was the right thing to do but now I’m back in a pretty similar situation. Having a partner who won’t get out of bed til after noon, won’t exercise, and eats only junk will drag you down no matter how hard you personally work on your own health.
Loving Someone with Depression
241–250 of 304 posts
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#242[deleted]
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
I left a partner who has OCD and probably some other issues that cause massive mood swings and make her do a lot of irrational things. I tried for years to help and be understanding. It never really got better, never ending ending, often self-made problems kept coming and it reached a point where I felt either we go both down or I have to leave. So I left. I feel guilty to some degree but it was also clear that I cou…
Kafka's The Metamorphosis explores this a bit. The protag, before the story starts, is relied upon by his mom, dad and sister for everything. Once he becomes a bug they become self sufficient again.
If you consider selling your daughter off for marriage self sufficiency sure.
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#244This is so fucking desperate. This whole thing is so fucking fucked up. Somebody I love has been in depression for almost a year. I tried everything, including this suggested "stay with them in the dark until they are better, oh wait that time could never come, but you do stay there with them nevertheless". Thanks for the "advice". That's what I've been doing. It's draining and it's killing me. Burning out through su…
What you're going through sounds painful. Depression is perhaps contagious. I hope you are doing the best you can to take care of your own mental health. It could otherwise result in a negative feedback loop.
Also, please think about seeing a therapist. It might help to talk to someone who can understand what you are dealing with.
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an internet stranger. I know nothing of their life but what they have said here and me patting them on the head is unlikely to be of any help. But sometimes reflecting back to someone what they just said about their own life is helpful for them. Perhaps not in this case, given the downvotes and pile on of replies. Anytime you try to help, it risks going sideways. I'm prone to trying anyway. Chalk it up to longsta…
Easy to come across the wrong way online where if you said the same thing in person with tone and emphasis it may be ok. I’ve fallen for that trap a few times and so now I even delete comments before posting as if I think “maybe my intent wont come across correctly here”. I think the problem with the comment (the one starting FWIW) is it comes off a bit sarcastic even if you didn’t mean that.
It's certainly not sarcasm.
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#246My father dated somebody who was manic depressive and his life was a living hell but he wouldn't leave because he worried what might happen to her. I was living at his house after the service while in college and it was as if he himself were bipolar. She would treat him like shit so he would be sad/upset and difficult to be around. He would have a free schedule so we would plan a day and then he would get a call that she "needs" him so he would immediately leave. Then she'd kick him out and in two days "need" him again.
Having depression or being bipolar doesn't give you the right to treat other humans like trash.
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm also a 41 yr old man and I think you sending a mixed message here. Background: I spent 20 years "being a man" in a relationship with a depressed wife. You know what I didn't do during those years, took care of my own mental health. Do you know what happened when I approached 40, boom mid life crisis with an avalanche of shit pouring over me that I hadn't dealt with due to "I'm man, I'm strong" mindset. I haven't…
Well - I was gonna say, we should get a drink - but here is where I think those old worn-out social roles and gender roles actually serve a purpose. What I'm trying to get at is that we had role models in our lives - I think about my dad or my uncles, who were tough men - who had no fucking clue what they were doing but they just did it. They were rocks for the people in their lives. And I look at these sort of excus…
I'm fully aware I'm projecting now! But I'm interpreting your mixed signals and incoherent rambling are some kind of ad hoc beacon signaling out-of-band "it's fucking hard and I don't know what to do, send help" but the framing you are in can't allow you to say that out loud because that is not "sucking it up". So you'll go on believing that the gender roles serve you well because "at least I'm not having a nervous breakdown". Until you do. And then I hope, you'll seek and accept help.
For me, seeking help came in the form of starting doing work in the context of a national movement affiliated with the global movement Men Engage. But that movement see the traditional gender roles more as harmful rather than serving a purpose like you believe so I'm guessing that's not it for you. http://menengage.org/about-us/what-we-believe/
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#248Depression can also manifest in different ways. One way is anger, frustration, and anxiety. My wife’s depression was like this. She would come home from work, find one thing wrong with our apartment - there were dirty dishes in the sink, the clothes hadn’t been folded - and get angry with me for not having taken care of it. The fact that I had cooked dinner and mopped the floors didn’t count. She was angry with me pr…
Every piece of this rings so true to my own experience. My wife suffers clinical depression. It has been no joke the biggest challenge of my entire life. When it is under control, life is great. When it's not, it's not. We've been through many meds and doctors and therapists. We're in a decently stable place right now, but there's always a fear in the back of my mind "but for how long". Her previous meds worked for y…
> online support for people in this sort of relationship
For sociological reasons that bear discussion, there is very little support for men in this situation. You may need to depend heavily on strong, close friends and family members. There is rarely a village to support a modern marriage.
Do not isolate yourself.
A relationship can be good or bad or some kind of stable compromise. When things go sour, one has to take a hard look at the risk to oneself in trying to personally support another person whom the psychiatric field may or may not be able to help. Then there is also the sunken cost of marriage, with home, children, and economic risks.
If I may offer a final personal observation... by the time you feel you are hurt by the situation, you have been hurting for a long time and worse than you realised.
Sincere best wishes to you!
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#249My father dated somebody who was manic depressive and his life was a living hell but he wouldn't leave because he worried what might happen to her. I was living at his house after the service while in college and it was as if he himself were bipolar. She would treat him like shit so he would be sad/upset and difficult to be around. He would have a free schedule so we would plan a day and then he would get a call that…
Indeed. I dated someone who gaslighted me like this, treated me poorly and then held the specter of suicide over my head to keep me in line. Messed me up, let me tell you.
It can be really difficult to see when you've crossed the invisible threshold between supporting someone you love who is in pain and being an enabler who is participating in your own abuse.
I don't particularly like to talk about this, but for anyone who needs to hear it:
If you find yourself in a situation where you are being hurt by someone you care about, and you can't get them to stop - do whatever it takes to leave, immediately. Destroy your phone if you have to. For me, I couldn't think clearly and make good decisions through the fog that they and I had erected. If they hurt themselves after you leave - that is not on you, it never was. You're in a burning building. Get out with your life.
If you have friends and you see concerning behavior - don't stop telling them that it isn't okay. Remind them them that they deserve to be respected. Remind them that their mental health matters, too.
ETA:
I worry I came off as an ablest here, so I'd like to elaborate a little bit.
I don't believe depression makes people behave this way. I believe narcissism is what makes people behave this way. Virtually everyone I know has struggled with depression at some point in there life, and to my knowledge, only 2 of them have behaved this way towards anybody.
While one cannot allow themselves to be hurt like this, these people are of course in great pain and deserve empathy and respect.
The advice in the article is great. What has helped me manage my own depression is accepting there is no solution, in the sense that nothing will permanently fix it and make it go away forever, and the strategies that work today won't work forever. But there is a lot that can be done. I've seen such amazing results in friends when they found the right therapist, right medication, whatever worked for them. It's incredible and life affirming, but it's also slow and subtle and hard and painful. So slow and subtle they might not notice it themselves.
I've found the best way I can help is to be there for them consistently, and, when they're feeling lost, remind them of past conversations we've had and how far they've come. Ultimately you can only help yourself. But sometimes a friend can hold onto a nugget of your own wisdom, and give it back to you later.
Re: Loving Someone with Depression
#250Depression can also manifest in different ways. One way is anger, frustration, and anxiety. My wife’s depression was like this. She would come home from work, find one thing wrong with our apartment - there were dirty dishes in the sink, the clothes hadn’t been folded - and get angry with me for not having taken care of it. The fact that I had cooked dinner and mopped the floors didn’t count. She was angry with me pr…
God this sounds like my life right now. I’m glad your wife got help. How did you keep positive and healthy? And how did your wife come to see the problem?
In our particular case - she was a horse girl and earned a veterinary degree. When she started seeing our wonderful collie as a burden, she finally realized something was seriously wrong.
That understates what happened. She started wishing the dog would just go die.
That finally brought home to her that her thinking had dramatically changed and that it wasn't just situational, e.g. it wasn't that I was lazy. This is incredibly specific to our situation and I'm sure it doesn't help anyone else.
But the takeaway for us was that she had a come-to-Jesus moment that made her realize this was her problem, and she needed outside help. She did not realize she had clinical depression until that moment.
It helped that I was in graduate school and had a very supportive set of people around me. They valued me and let me know it.
As stated elsewhere on this thread - there aren't a lot of support options available for men in this situation.