Advice / support needed for wife of husband

[pvroom]

Hi, I've used this forum a long time ago and found it very helpful.

My husband has moderate depression and over the past years it has gotten worse. He also has worsening anxiety. He is ADHD and autistic, extremely well educated and we have two kids who are both autistic, bright and very challenging! We have recently been able to greatly increase the level of support at home which has been fantastic, with an almost full time nanny to support me.

He is in the early stages of a PhD and is also facing some physical pain at the moment with the reoccurrence of an old injury so sitting to work is hard. I'm trying to support him by being understanding and offering my high level organisation skills to book appointments etc but he is very resistant to do anything. He continues to propose that all he needs is more time to himself and it will all be fine.

I'm beginning to get a bit resentful as I have my own mental health to manage, which is fine but is the result of hard work at improving my health and a lot of personal growth. I am a bit worried for him and for our children. I've mentioned this to the GP and his parents but no one is really doing anything.

Together we signed up to a free online course but he hasn't been able to do any of it due to the mental barrier. I really feel he needs medication but the GP says only the psychiatrist can prescribe given he is on ADHD meds. Next appointment over a month away...

Any ideas of what I can do to support him? I have spent the past 3+ years just waiting for him to help himself but I can't keep doing this

[smallwolf]

Hi. Welcome back?

Sorry to hear about the predicament you are in. The first place to start is here...

https://das.bluestaronline.com.au/api/prism/document?token=BL/0124

and the last pages give some sound advice for yourself.

I am guessing he does already see a psychiatrist based on your post. Can I ask whether the psychiatrist also does "talk therapy" with psychiatrist? Or someone else? I have no idea whether everyone would agree with my next statement...my psychiatrist is of the opinion that medication works best when combined with talk therapy. If my own father is an example to prove this point, he had been on medication for many years and only recently started to talk to a psychologist because he needed to speak about the things that had been kept inside for a long time. Again, others are in the right to disagree.

Your frustration with the situation is also natural. Using my family again... mum would be frustrated with dad over various things - she would tell me he needed to take responsibility for some things. Part of this was for his own benefit and for her own mental health which was starting to suffer as well. I am unsure how much your husband can look after and perhaps using "I" statements you can let him know of the impact this is having on you.

I hope some of this was helpful and look forward to hearing more of your story.

Tim

[Soberlicious96]

Dear pvroom,

It sounds like you have so much going on, and are so focused on helping everyone else, that you are starting to feel as though you are burning out, yeah?

To be honest, I don't really know what kind of advice to offer, but I do want to just let you know that you are not alone in this. Here at Beyond Blue, it's a bit like a zoo; in that there's one of every kind here!

A few years ago I (unfortunately) divorced a man whom I believe was/is on the Autism spectrum and who used to say the same thing; that he just needed more time alone to sort things out by himself. Of course, that never really helped us to get closer or work through things together, so we parted ways.

Anyway, I know I'm not too much help, sorry. Perhaps it's time to switch your focus a little, now that you have a lot more home help, towards getting some more help and support for yourself, yeah? Do you think that might help take a little of the pressure off?

Anyway, I don't know if any of that helps or not. I do hope that things start to improve for you soon.

Take care, I'll be thinking of you. xo

[pvroom]

Thank you
I should also mention we both have PTSD, our eldest child was a prem baby and very suck for a few years.

Hubby doesn't want to talk it through, going through it makes it worse for him

I'm actually ok, I am on meds and have lots of strategies.

I'm really worried he's going to have a full breakdown and be unable to do anything. We're actually very close to that now