Husband with depression and anxiety

[Fiona89]

Hi.

My husband is suffering from depression and anxiety. This isn't a new thing for myself or my family as we have supported our daughter through depression and anxiety over the last year and a half. She has come through it now and she is looking forward to starting university despite the fact that she has recently been diagnosed with ocd and receiving treatment for this. We celebrate 25 wonderful years of marriage this year which wasn't without its ups and downs but we got through them and we have three lovely children, two teenagers and one young adult. 

I had my suspicions that he was suffering from depression and anxiety before Christmas when he started to get irritable and very aggressive. He would say things to me that were very hurtful and lash out at anything that was within his reach but he never hit me. It was very difficult to have a conversation through fear of saying something that would set him off so in the end we just wouldn't communicate and when we did it wasn't a good conversation at all and usually ended with him telling me to leave. It all came to a head in late January this year when he became particularly aggressive and kicked in our wardrobe door. This was enough for me so I told him to get help or I will leave. I didn't want to leave neither had I planned to, I love him too much to leave and I believed that the marriage would be able to carry on through this as long as we had support and he got the help he needed. He immediately sought help through our gp who then referred him to a psychologist and put him on medication.

We now take every day as it comes for both of us, my husband with his depression and anxiety and myself as his wife and his carer.  It sometimes gets very hard to carry the whole family, my husband and run the household as well and I find myself getting very tired. When I get up some mornings the day looks long and bleak, and I can tell right from the beginning it is going to be a struggle. We have both found ourselves in a lonely position in our own individual ways but I know we will get through this I just can't see the end at the moment. I am seeking counseling myself and seeking out ways in which I can support my husband one of which is going for a walk with him in a park, something he enjoys doing. So that's my story. Thank you for reading it. 

[optimistic]

Hi Fiona

Wonderful to read that you are standing by your husband when he needs you the most and have not deserted him.

Wise move about getting counselling for yourself. Please check out Carer Support options and sign up for that. You can interact with other carers, share experiences as well as avail of some respite options to get some break from your caring role, from time to time. Check out the free courses offered by Uniting Care.

I hope the teens and the young adult are coping with this new change in the family.

Please check out CBT ( Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) for your husband.

This is a phase and this too shall pass.

Take care. God bless.

[geoff]

dear Fiona, thanks for joining us.

It sounds as though you have had so much to cope with, but congratulations for being married for 25 years, the same time I was married for.

Firstly it must have been so difficult for you, your husband and your daughter to have to try and handle her OCD, which I have had for almost 50 years, or since I was a young kid, where it wasn't recognised as being OCD, so everyone thought that I was crazy or even possessed by some unknown creature, but now it's known as an illness and a common one.

Firstly is she able to control it or does she do it behind everyone's back, just like I do, it's terrible to have but seems to be worst for those that know that she is doing these habits and/or rituals.

I would like to talk to you about this, but that's at your timing.

Boy you do have so much on your hands to cope with and this is never an easy feat, because your not sure if your husband is going to have a serious breakdown on any given day, but your love for him and the rest of the children/adults have kept you together, and by this I mean holding the fort.

When you hope up in the morning I can hear that enormous SIGN when you get up, and it does become like this on a daily basis, although the previous day may have been a good one, so the anticipation is that you hope it will be today, but then something goes belly up, and your back to square one again.

It's so hard living with someone who has depression, bringing up teenages and trying to run the house hold, and you just wish that it would all go away, but unfortunately depression will stick to anyone as long as it can, and even when we are fortunate enough to have beaten it, then we can have relapses, but with these it's much easier to overcome them, that's how it has happened with myself, because I know that I will get better, so I let it ride it's couple of days of pain but then it disappears again.

I am so pleased that you too are seeking help and you have to try and continue this because the psych or whom ever will be able to teach you certain skills on how to deal with your husband and his depression.

I really hope that you can reply back to us and again if you want to talk about OCD then please do so. L Geoff. x