Posted by CarolAnn on January 25, 2000, at 10:00:22
In reply to Peroxeline - anyone know anything about this, posted by NikkiT on January 25, 2000, at 8:44:44
Dear NikkiT, I had the same problem in the beginning of my marriage. Finally, I came up with a way of explaining my depression that my husband could understand. It may not be medically acurate, but it serves the purpose of explanation...Communication is the secret to any good marriage, and is doubly important where mental health is concerned...
Find a time when things are calm, no one has to go anywhere, ect., ask your husband if he would sit down with you and really listen as you try to explain about depression.
I put it something like this:
"okay, honey. First, don't ever take my moods personally, my depression is in absolutely NO WAY caused by you, it is something that happens to me no matter how good my life is. Depression is an illness, just like Diabetes is an illness, and there are treatments for Depression just like there are treatments for Diabetes, unfortuneatly with Depression it is much more difficult to find a treatment that will work, because every case is different. No one chooses to be depressed and no depressed person has any control over their depression."
I explained to my husband that no matter how much pain my depression was causing me, it could never stop me from loving him. I encourage my husband to ask me anything so that I will know what he "needs" to know in order to understand how to be supportive with my depression. We have been married over five years now, and though I still struggle with horrible, can't get out of bed sometimes, depression, my husband doesn't blame "me". He understands that there are limits to my abilities because I have this "illness".
Hope this helps. Keep us posted. CarolAnn
poster:CarolAnn
thread:19655
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000112/msgs/19658.html