topic My boyfriend is depressed in Supporting family and friends

My boyfriend is depressed

Ella2610 — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 12:35:52 GMT

Hello, i just found out my fiancé is depressed. He tells me he does not enjoy anything anymore. we have been using substances over the weekends for a while now which probably doesn't help. This week he has missed it but I did do it behind his back. When he told me he was depressed , I guess I didn't understand and told him to think about the things he has. He has a good job, a house and finance who loves him. I told him that to think about ppl that are less fortunate than us who don't even have food on the table. He was a little distanced to me today and after digging deep digger he said he was upset at me for how I reacted when he told me he was depressed. Can anyone please shed a light on me on this? Coming from a third world country and where the stress is not knowing where the next meal will be coming from, I find the whole concept of being depressed rally difficult to relate to when you have a nice house, a good job and a loving fiancé. When I think of ppl that are I third world country's barely surviving how can you be depressed? My mentality is to be grateful to what you have. He tells me he knows the signs of depression because in his younger days, he had to get treatment and couldn't even get out of bed. my perspective is if I strip him of everything he has, would he still be then or switch to survival mode. Maybe lose everything first in order to appreciate what you have. Can someone please enlighten me on the issue. Coming from a third world country with nothing at all and my fiancé is depressed when we have everything I find hard to comprehend. Any feedback would be great. Thank you.

My boyfriend is depressed

White_Rose — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 20:15:12 GMT

Dear Ella

Welcome to Beyond Blue. It's good that you are concerned about your BF and interested enough to want to find out more. BB has heaps of information on depression which I suggest you read. It is about the clinical side, not about why people in Oz get depression and not people in third world countries. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Depression. Have a good look around the site as there is also information for family and friends.

To go back to the third world comparison, there is no comparison. Lifestyles here are different but I do not believe this necessarily rules out depression. I get the point about survival mode and I agree in some instances that having too much of everything can be a stressor leading to depression. It certainly cuts down the worries of finding food, shelter and warmth, but it allows people to worry or be more concerned with other aspects of their lives. Put Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in your search engine or try this site. http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Basically Maslow is saying that when our basic needs of food, shelter, warmth etc are met, we want security and if this need is met we progress to what Maslow calls love and belongingness. Generally speaking in Oz we have the first two stages, and I am not ignoring or discounting the huge number of people who do not have the first two sets of needs met.

Having the first set of needs unmet does not stop anyone feeling depressed. Yes you may spend your whole day searching for food, or being so hungry that you have no strength or energy to look for food. This is truly terrible and it may appear that people in that situation do have time, or even the luxury as it appears, of becoming depressed. I don't think this is true, only that depression is manifested in a different manner.

And remember many people may have food etc but no security. So many terrible things happen in the world and fear alone can cause mental illness of various types.

Please believe that depression is not about feeling miserable. The person who truly discovers the trigger for depression will make a fortune. And that is exactly the modern attitude. What's in it for me? I think many people would avoid depression if they felt loved and cared for and there are all sorts of reasons for this. Read the info on depression and compare it to your BF's comments. Please write in and continue this discussion.

Mary

My boyfriend is depressed

geoff — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 21:04:03 GMT

dear Ella, thank you for coming to the forum and posting your comment,

We all know that people in the Third World Countries are struggling, and all the donations that Australia gives never seems to be dist

My boyfriend is depressed

geoff — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 21:51:02 GMT

dear Ella, thank you for coming to the forum and posting your comment.

I'm not sure what happened to my last reply back to you, but half of it got lost.

We all know that people in The Third World Countries ( TWC) are worse off , but when you are hit with depression then that's what

My boyfriend is depressed

Ella2610 — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 02:32:12 GMT

Hi Mary,

Thanks for your reply. I have read through types of depression and my bf is showing signs of major depression. He says he doesn't enjoy the things he used to, finds it hard to get out of bed, and if it were up to him he doesn't want to see anyone or do anything and just lock himself in a room. I still find it hard to comprehend that a person that has everything can feel this way? What about the art of gratefulness? When i mentioned this he got angry and didn't want to talk to me anymore which also makes me angry as I don't understand how a person can have everything and not be thankful for being just alive and sheltered. Is it me? maybe. I want to help him, but I just think that he need to be grateful and thankful for I life he has? How can I help him change his mind set? He mentioned when he was younger he took medication as he suffered from severe depression that he could not get out of bed.

My boyfriend is depressed

pipsy — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 03:44:13 GMT

Hi there. I guess depression is hard to figure when you've come from a country where you've had to fight for survival. It would help if you knew what triggered your bf's depression. How does he get on with his family, how about work (if he does work). If he doesn't, maybe he's depressed because he can't find work. What you've come from could also cause depression, but it would be from being scared that today is your last day of life. Sometimes depression can be caused from hereditary. There are many things that cause depression, what about his schooling. It's a fight against inner demons that we can't see. It is a type of fight for survival, surviving every day is hard when you're battling depression. The only person who can really help him is himself. Try and get him to a Dr, see if he can arrange to see a psych. A psych can help him talk about his inner demons.

My boyfriend is depressed

Hypatia — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 04:10:19 GMT

I think it is very hard to imagine that all of our emotions, ideas, ways of thinking are biological, and comprise chemical reactions, but they do. Your bf can't think his way out of the despair he's stuck in, any more than you think yourself sober when you partake of substances 🙂

Being in desperate fear for your life does change your brain chemistry - so maybe it would be different if he was. But it would be unlikely to be better, and it doesn't change the fact that this is what is going on his head now, is blackness and misery. This isn't his fault, and it isn't something that he can snap out of. It can also be very hard to talk about - that there is something wrong with your brain is scary, and there is a lot of shame, so your bf may have reacted strongly to what you said because he was scared.

Also, being depressed doesn't mean he isn't thankful. He may think all the things he has he doesn't deserve. He may feel angry and frustrated that he has such good things in his life and yet they don't make him happy.

I hope this helps. It is very hard and scary when someone you love is suddenly unhappy and you can't do anything to change it. There's no right or wrong way to process that, and it's great that you are trying to work it through.

My boyfriend is depressed

Ella2610 — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 11:15:22 GMT

Hi Hypathia,

Thank you for your feedback. It did help me try and understand what's going on through my bf mind and his depression. Especially your comment about not being able to switch it on and off. I guess I'm going to have to try and understand it. It's just when I see my family at home and not having much, and seeing them happy and us, in Australia we have so much, we have houses, jobs, food, material things, but it doesn't seem to matter. Maybe it is material things that make ppl unhappy/depressed? I don't know, they seem to be correlated some how? After all, someone like Robin Williams who made the world laugh, yet this also affected him and ppl would say he had everything. Thank you all for all your reply. I will see what I can do to help him through this. Besides asking him to go see a doctor/psychologist, is there anything as his partner can do to help him?

My boyfriend is depressed

Hypatia — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 22:27:31 GMT

HI Ella!

My partner has depression - and I often feel frustrated about the fact that we have friends and family with much bigger 'problems' than ours, and yet, they are happy and able to enjoy life and we are stuck so often with this awful freaking disease. So I definitely know where you are coming from. Interestingly - I looked some stuff up because your post made me think, and diagnosed depression is higher in many poorer countries than Australia, which has one of the lowest rates. Particularly the middle east, north Africa, the Pacific region and Eastern Europe, which are the regions with the highest rates of diagnosed depression. I have no idea if this is accurate or not in terms of reflecting suffering, or just reflecting different diagnosis rates though.

You can do lots of things to help! The bad news is that none of them will be enough by themselves, so it's also important that you accept that even if you do anything right, he may still be depressed. If he has been through this before, and he got treatment and that worked, then it is very likely that treatment will work again, and supporting him getting that is very important.

Other things I do - lots of reassurance about how much I love him; lots of letting him know that I am available. Over time, we've adjusted the roles in the relationship a bit too. So I know the things that are very hard for him, and make him feel worse (e.g. talking to tradesmen or calling utilities) and I do more of those things. In return, he makes an effort to keep doing things he can do - on good days, he'll cook dinner and clean up afterwards, and/or fix things around the house, on a bad day we might cook together or he might make me a cuppa, on a very bad day, he might only be able to manage a smile. I've had to lower my expectations, obviously, but importantly, I do have some expectations. Someone entering this journey now, I would suggest chatting about things like this early - he will feel better if he feels like he is contributing, and you'll get less frustrated if you can see he is making an effort for you.

Good luck - your bf is lucky to have you, and remember to love each other 🙂