Questions About Depression And Marriage - Help Me To Understand This Please.

[Ira]

Hi. I am brand new here, seeking help for my marriage.

This is rather hard to explain but I will do my best.

My husband of 20 yrs and I have always had a difficult marriage.

Everything always has been good as long as life is going well. As soon as we hit a speed bump in life, he goes blank. I have had to make all the decisions in our life. This has caused uncountable fights between us. I am now ashamed of the things I said to him during those fights.

About 3 months ago it finally hit me. I thought he had the early stage of Alzheimer. After going to see a Dr and then several specialist we now know that he has chronic severe depression. The Drs feel he has had this for many years.

Thankfully we got lucky with the right med right away - kind of.

And this is the issue that brings me here.

This may seem funny or non important to some people, but to me it is very important.

How do I know what is his depression and what is him just being a man

The med has majorly helped with his temper, but there is still many issues.
Examples, he won't do anything without me telling him to. I mean anything! Take the dog out, eat, get up, go to work. He won't even do fun things unless I tell him to, fishing, hunting, watch a movie.

He says his brain is a blur and that his brain is fried. He must tell me this 4 to 6 times a week.

Let me give you a step by step example. We rented a rug cleaner machine. I told him to take it back last Tuesday. I got really sick with a bug and have been mostly in bed since then. I come out to the dinning room tonight and there is the machine! I blow up. He passed this machine and had to step around it at least 50 times in the past few days. He says "my brain is fried".

OK so what is the depression and what is him just being a man?

He never pays me a complement. I mean I could put on a wedding gown and he would say nothing. I asked him why, he says "I don't notice anything any different my brain is fried".

I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the general idea.

My friends complain about such behavior from their spouses. Maybe not to this degree. So how do I know what is depression that I just need to deal with and what is him just being a man that needs his wife to adjust his attitude?

Also his Dr looks to me to find out how he is doing. I am not sure as I don't know what is the depression.

Also since I am sick right now I want to ask another question. When I have any health issue he runs. I mean he RUNS!!! I had to have emergency surgery and he took me to the hospital and as soon as the Dr said I needed surgery, he left me. He came back three days later to pick me up!!
ANY medical issue I have he gets mean and nasty with me or acts like there is nothing wrong. Like he won't say how are you feeling or help me in any way.
Is this a typical action of a depressed person. Or is he being a jacka*s?


PS: I have lots of other questions about depression and marriage but will save those for now.

[darkness-]

well i might not know much about depression and i'm only a kid but i can tell you that i barely ever feel like doing anything. even if it's something i used to love before, i just don't have the motivation for anything. i wouldn't be eating, going outside, basically i wouldn't be doing anything if i weren't forced to do it. this also ends in arguments with my parents because they don't know i'm depressed and just think i'm lazy.
yea just thought i might mention that, because i think that just belongs to depression. you see no sense in doing anything. because sometimes even if you're doing something you like, there's still this shadow pulling you down and it makes you just sadder that something that used to mean a lot to you means nothing anymore.

[Ira]

Darkness, That makes a LOT of sense. TY. You are wise beyond your age

Can you explain how you feel to your parents? Or at least to an adult at school or a counseling place.

Fighting this with out any help is not healthy

[darkness-]

well, if that helped, then i'm glad. =]
i know it's unhealthy but i don't think i can do that. i live in germany right now and i hate it here. speaking english is much more comfortable and much easier for me.
as for my parents... anytime i had mentioned a topic similar to this in a conversation, cuz i wanted to see their reaction and i just needed it, they always said something that would just hurt me more and make me feel stupid. they never mean to do that to me cuz they don't know it has something to do with me but it does. so i gave up on parents. when i see someone that's come down either on the streets just drinking and smoking or someone like that on the tv, i always wonder what it was in their life that pushed them that far. i feel with them, i almost feel like one of them, cuz i don't believe someone would just give up their life for the hell of it. my parents always say something like "stay away from people like that", "how pathetic" or shake their head. before they always told us those are 'bad' people. and my mom has told me clearly before that she just doesn't understand the way my mind works.
srry for rambling that much xP

[Ira]

I can tell you are very smart. You are able to see that your parents comments are not directed at you in any way.

As a parent I said things like that to my child. After she attempted sucide I spoke to her totally differently. The Drs said she was as close to death as one can be without a death certificate being signed. She was not crying out for help - she truly wanted to die.

Parents seem to think that saying "don't touch the fire, it will burn you" is enough to keep their kids from getting burnt. In our mind telling you that they are the bad guys or crazy or what ever is the same thing as the fire example above.

We don't realize that you have grown way past that now

Is there a place you can get counsel without your parents signing for you?

You are aware of your depression and I would hate for you to get past this point and not get help.

IF you did tell your parents, what do you think their reaction would be?

I am curious, are your parents German? I am asking as my best friend in collage had German parents and their view was it was not "proper" to have a depressed child. She explained to me that in Germany most of the adults thought like that. She was able to get help through our college counseling place without her parents knowledge.

[darkness-]

i hope your daughter is alright now...

what you say makes sense.

i don't know, i'm still not sure i want to. i guess i'm kinda afraid what it's gonna be like if i get out of the depression. it's become like a part of me...like a lifestyle.

yeah, germans are truly weird people, i do not like them, which is another reason i'm getting out of here as soon as i get the chance. but thankfully, no we aren't german. my sis and i were born here but we're bosnian through and through. you see, my parents only moved here years ago because of the war back then and haven't yet had the chance to move back. they would've if they could already. we visit at least once a year and it's really beautiful down there.
but what makes me hesitate telling my parents is that they were in that war. they saw their city getting destroyed and had to fear getting killed by a bomb any second. the buildings still have traces now after almost 16 years and there's still a giant hole right next to my grandparent's house. my dad even had to be in the army. he never used the gun and never would touch a weapon but those experiences touched them deeply of course. they emigrated after about 2 years having to leave everything they had behind. they didn't know the language when they came here, they didn't have anyone to help them and they didn't know the language when we went to the U.S. and only knew one family from work. and yet they still made something wonderful out of it. the war didn't make them hate, it wants them to help change the world but they only seem to say things like that, they don't work on it themselves. they say "some day someone will stand up and through time will be able to change the world" or "someday humans are all going to be vegetarians and will be peaceful and will leave nature and animals alone" but they themselves eat tons of meat. okay that's kinda off-topic.
i'm a bit closer to my father even though we spend less time together and talk less than i talk with my mother. idk why. i sometimes think my father knows what's going on with me but doesn't want to interfere... i sometimes wonder if he knows what it's like to be depressed because he lost his own mom with 14 and his dad two years later. he and his three siblings had to take care of themselves after that. he was the youngest though so he lived with his sister and her newly born child but i know it must've been the hardest thing they went through. they never talk much about it. and later while we were in the U.S. my father and his bro got in such an argument they didn't talk with each other for idk 8 years? so i know my father has had a tough life.
i don't blame my parents or anything. i know what they went through is hard and i know that the war hurt them deep inside but they fought against it and still do. i understand that. But they see the world differently. they know how cruel it can be but they don't see this side, where you wanna give up on life and hurt yourself. they fight for life no matter what but they were being attacked from the outside. their lives were ruined from the outside like the war trying to tear their lives apart but they fought it and managed to win. but i dont think they know what it's like when you have a 'perfect' life and yet nothing means to you. when it's pretty much yourself that is attacking you and isn't letting you live life to your fullest. it's hard to fight against yourself.
i have no idea how they would react... my father is very busy working on a movie right now and premiers and both kind of have health problems. and through all that they try to do as much as they can with us and make us happy and our lives perfect. they don't spoil us, no, they just try to teach us the right things and make sure we learn how to live our lives in the future. they say education and sport/exercise are important factors in life and try to give us the best. we spend almost the whole time when we're not at school and my father's not working together as a family, it has always been that way. and i don't want to be the one to ruin their lives now, i don't want to be the one to ruin their dream. especially not for my younger sister. i've been kinda a jerk to her the years right after our move back and not only to her but also to my parents. i'm doing it differently now, i'm doing my best to keep happy and let them have a good time even if it hurts me. i would love to just leave and let them be happy as a family, because the three of them fit together but i mess things up with all of them. they would be better off without me but I know that they would blame themselves and would all be sad and confused if I were suddenly gone. i think that's the reason I gave up on suicide, because i do know that they all love me, point is that is what is breaking me. they love me and are holding me too tight without realising what's happening to me. it would be best if they would distance themselves and could be happy without me. it would be easier for all of us. which is why i'm glad they went down to bosnia without me this break. they only went because our dog got puppies and my father's premier is gonna be next week and they all wanted to be there and i managed to convince them that someone has to be with the dog at all times and that i was ready to take care of everything.
idk, sometimes i feel like my parents are only naive and have no idea about life but other times i wonder if that's only a cover to forget what happened back then so that they can just enjoy life now…

…srry for such a long post…

[cruzsofializ]

hello,cool forum.




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