What is my role now?
I've done all the things i can think of. I've gone through the process of researching and organising therapists more times than I can count, but he needs to talk to them to make the appointment, and hasn't. I've invited him out of the house daily, he doesn't want to go. I've tried encouraging him to go to work (he does uber, sometimes) but he won't. I've even told him I need him to do something because it's too hard for me to hear about how he hates himself and hates his life and wishes he could run away or stop living.
So what do I do now?
Background:
My partner is depressed, and has immense shame about being unemployed and being depressed, and has no motivation to go to therapy or exercise or eat well, and it's all an awful deep cycle.
He's been smoking weed to cope and isn't sure if it's helping or not, neither am I. On one hand, it's sometimes the only time of the day he'll laugh and seem happy or relaxed. On the other hand, he has shame about that too since he now feels like a "drug addict".
It's like everything makes him feel shame and self-hatred. He regularly says he feels shame because of society and like a drain because he's on welfare, and that he wishes he could live in a windowless box alone where nobody would know he existed.
When I tell him this is stigma he's internalised, and that he didn't choose this, and that there are millions like him, he says he doesn't want to talk about it any more and shuts me out. When I ask him to go to therapy he says he can't be bothered trying. He says he can't be bothered doing anything ever again. He says he doesnt care enough about anything and that he just wants to hide so he can stop letting people down. He says he's embarassed and he's a burden. When I point out the depression is that voice and those thoughts aren't facts, he shuts me out.
So... some days I trick myself into believing he's fine. If he's getting high and overeating and avoiding responsibilities, but he laughs once or doesn't mention feeling like shit, then I can at least not be absorbed in concern and heart ache that day. If he mentions hating himself, it's like a kick to my chest and I feel miserably helpless. Nothing I am saying or doing is making a difference, so I just hear that and have to walk around with it.
What do I do now? I can't do anything? If I just focus on me, keeping my health in order, and enjoying moments in my day, does this make me selfish because he is in the corner feeling almost suicidal?
