Living with a depressed person.

It isn`t easy living with someone who is depressed, it tests you on every level and it is extremely draining. Here are some thoughts and recollections from personal experience and I hope, some ideas and coping mechanisms relating to how to look after yourself when you are caring for or living with someone who is depressed. I understand depression is a serious business, it can be completely paralysing and debilitates an individual so absolutely, they can become immobilised by it, physically, sexually and emotionally so I do not underestimate how powerful an impact depression can have upon a person and their relationships and serious depression can of course lead to long term medication, hospitalisation and sometimes, suicide.

I have occasional periods of feeling low – my mother used to refer to it as waking up with the devil on her back, however, I live with the luxury of knowing this will pass so I surrender to it safe in the knowledge that within two or three weeks I will get up one morning and think – hey – I feel better and all is well with the world once more. For some people though, this experience of feeling better simply does not exist and the depressive state can hang around twenty four seven. I have had a lot of years to consider why or how this occurs and I think it is a mixture of familial inheritance (or a predisposition to depression,) coupled with environment and events that may lower our self-esteem and confidence as well as other factors for example, not believing anything can help and so not trying out different therapies/supplements/diets and so on that might make a massive difference. I have been known to call this lack of action a lazy reluctance and that is when I have exhausted all avenues to find help and none have been explored. So how can we combat the effects upon ourselves, when living with a depressed person because it can be really depressing, no pun intended?

Initially as a young woman I used to research avenues of help for my depressed friend and enthusiastically explore these over a few beers in the evening, excited at the prospect of change. This approach however, failed since how do you help someone who does not want to be helped? It is so frustrating especially as one of my traits is a desire to sort out other peoples problems. In the early days I listened attentively to them and would write lots of notes suggesting where to go to find something that might shift them out of their downward state of mind. Therapy – a new diet – exercise – let us go for a drive in the country – a walk in the park – visit the cinema? All of these suggestions some of them tried, did not even dent a hole in their overall frame of mind and so it became quite emotionally exhausting just trying to help. It felt for me like I had a troublesome otherness attached to me, depleting my energy. It felt a bit like the passing away of a person who when I first met them in their teens was a happy person, a clown and as with a passing, I went through all the emotions of bereavement because I had lost the person I knew and they had been replaced with a doppelganger. It has taken a long time to process these stages of loss and I think now I am nearly seventy, I am at a place of peace and here are some ways in which I achieved that.

I stopped taking responsibility for the other person`s happiness.

I forged a career and a life, especially a social life, of my own. I refuse to be defined by any individual, I am not a nurse to someone, I am not their carer.

I remain as far as possible, empathetic to my friends plight however, I cannot do anything to make it better, that is up to them so I try as far as possible, to listen and respond in a kind way. This doesn`t always work and I can be sharp or sarcastic or unkind but I do try.

I will not engage in repetitive conversations or going round in circles and generally say so. I will say, we have talked about this several times so I am not prepared to talk about it any more.

I take myself out of the situation – literally!

I try to focus on looking after myself. I meditate, go for walks somewhere pretty, ground myself when I awake, my next plan is to start open water swimming as this is incredibly beneficial to our mental well being as is pursuing any hobby which you enjoy.

Once I realised (and it took a long time) that I am not here solely to make someone else happy, I also realised I could forgive myself, stop feeling guilty, stop responding to their triggers or repeated themes and relax in the knowledge I have done my part. You can of course cease the relationship (whether it is a friend or a partner) and I have done that too – no-one likes banging their head against a brick wall. My point is that if you love someone, it is possible to overcome the negative impact of their stuff on your own mental health.

If you relate to this blog. then I hope it has been helpful, even if it is just to know that you are not alone. Please feel free to respond on WordPress, I will always get back to you.

My latest bookette….

Good old Fucking Fred!

My dad was a real gent. Raised modestly by quite staid parents he was always a courteous man. The most I ever head him swear in my entire life was to say “hell`s bells and buckets of blood.” Honestly. My father never swore.

Dad used to wear a cap while out walking with his dog Dinah. He would think nothing of doffing his cap to any person he felt to be of superior social standing to himself. This included the vicar who was at that time enjoying a full blooded affair with a married parishioner, the local primary school teachers some of whom were horrible, racist people who didn`t like children very much and our GP Dr. Hernan, who was a chronic alcoholic and whose wife had massive hoarding problems. My mother said that Dr. Hernan`s wife had newspapers going back to the dawn of time standing in huge, impassable columns all over their flat above the surgery on the Warwick Road.

My dad`s subserviant attitude used to infuriate my mother along with the myriad of other things that infuriated my mum about dad.  My father attended grammar school until he was 14 and was a clever man, he spoke fluent French and was a good all round academic yet he never felt comfortable with his peers. He much preferred to spend his time with working class men who smoked Park Drive, drank pints and called their missis “the wife”. Mum never understood this, she was not a frequent fan of live and let live, she was a huge social snob, intolerant in some situations and often referred to dad`s mates as `the peasants.`  Imagine what trouble she would have been in today!  I think mum thought that my dad`s friends took advantage of his soft nature, which they probably did, but hey, it`s a free world.

When dad was 65 he suffered a major heart attack which floored him.  After he had recovered he took a sedentary job as a telephonist in a local printing factory called Morcats. It was at Morcats that dad became great friends with a man called Fred, or Fucking Fred as my mother always referred to him.  People often accessed our flat around the back and I still have clear images in my head of my mother standing at the kitchen sink and gazing up the garden path muttering, “Here comes FF” as she angrily piled the dishes on to the draining board.

Dad had a need to be liked and in order to meet this need he would go out of his way to help people like Fucking Fred while sometimes neglecting the needs of his family, especially my ma!  They say we marry people who remind us of our parents. Apparently we do this in order to try and unravel the complicated relationships our parents had and make some kind of sense of them. In that case – I definitely married my dad. My ex old man has many friends who remind me of Fucking Fred. There`s Fucking Dick, Fucking Edward and Fucking Patricia to name but a few. Recently my ex cooked seventy curries for Fucking Dick. It took him three days to prepare them ready for a big birthday party. F.D. said thank you, apparently. My ex also does a fair bit for Fucking Edward including taking his flea ridden dog for long walks around Elmdon Park. Does F.E. ever take my dog Alfie for a long walk? Not bloody likely. As for Fucking Patricia, two years ago Tony rented her an allotment next to his. He pays £75 a year for her to enjoy the pleasure of sitting in the summer sun with him, drinking beer. I imagine that every now and then a happy sigh escapes her lips as they gaze at the weeds and brambles inhabiting their joint allotments and never grow a bloody thing. I view the arrangement he has with F.P. a bit like a horticultural escort service for OAP`s.

Who am I to make a judgement on the people my ex old man chooses to be his friends?  He`s a grown up. Yesterday I got quite cross and said so. I`d asked him if he felt like a mooch around all the charity shops and he turned my suggestion down saying that he was too hot and too tired. Half an hour later he had been beguiled sufficiently creatively by Fucking Patricia to go and pick her up and give her a lift down to the allotments. Then I realised how daft I was being. If that`s what he wants to do with his time why should I be offended? We`ve been divorced for twelve years now, we have our own separate lives and our own separate circle of close friends. Later, I apologised to him for being so grumpy, I explained that old habits die hard and that is all my responses are usually based on – old habits. He didn`t seem to mind and there is so much about him to care for and love.

I adored both my parents, I loved my pa`s gentle humour and I loved my mother`s ascerbic wit and her acid tongue that`d thin slice ham at a hundred paces but I don`t want to become bitter as I grow older like my mother did. So God give me the wisdom to keep my opinions to myself and let my ex old man enjoy being comfortable with himself, having a laugh and feeling at peace with just whoever he likes. That`s what it`s all about. 🙂