Today a friend of my daughters stopped by to pick something up and he asked about my husband - more specifically he asked about depression. He talked about noticing that he had ups and downs and wondered what constituted depression. I shared what I know about it and that although ups and downs are normal given his families history I would just watch that neither end is too dramatic.
It seems that because I have been honest about depression and how it effects a family I have had lots of people share with me their story or ask questions. I am not an expert - I only know what it feels like to be the family member. My mom was bipolar, my sister has tried to commit suicide and my husband has depression. I have seen the gamut of reactions to the illness, the drugs, and therapy. Good and bad.
Because of this I have been doing some reading about what it is like for the spouse or family member and I found this: "When husbands have depression, it can tear apart their marriage and family. Wives may take over and hope the problem will go away, or on the opposite end, withdraw, feeling betrayed and angry. More often, they alternate back and forth between these behaviors and emotions. Fifty percent of wives caring for a depressed husband will develop depression themselves."
I found the description of alternating back and forth from helpfulness to despair to be so accurate. I had never seen myself so adequately described. I had thought that I had been handling our lives and his depression in some special way only to find out that I am just like everyone else.
The truth is that depression or mental illness in a family is extremely difficult. That commercial where it says it hurts everyone is pretty accurate. What really hurts is when the depressed person isn't seeking treatment.
What I recommend is that the person get treated AND the family. It isn't a one person thing - everyone has feelings about it and needs to work through those. The current treatment is to treat the patient, but I HIGHLY recommend that the family seek treatment too - you have a lot of feelings surrounding this and working with a therapist can help.
The other thing - talk about it. Depression isn't scary, you can't catch it, and it only helps to be honest about it. I have to say the more honest I have been the more people have been able to reach out about their own issues. If we can help people out isn't that a good thing?
