I don't know how to help my husband's depression

Hi, @tyme @defaultusername

My husband has been feeling happy last week or so again. So he took us(me, our son and dog) for a fishing trip down the road on the weekend. We live here for 18 years but has never been to this place before. We all had a good time and he's planning to go back there again during next summer holiday. Our son is 13 years old and starting to get into fishing as well. He's a keen learner and hubby enjoys teaching his skills. Thankfully everything is good at the moment. Everybody is happy.

I don't want to be negative but knowing him, he's like a ticking bomb. If something or someone say/do wrong thing, he could go back to his room. Hopefully this happiness last long and depression can ease off eventually. I may share story if I feel struggled and feel alone again in the future.

Thank you everyone!

Hey @Tete ! That's so great to hear!

I'm glad your son is getting into fishing. I like fishing too. I have over 20 fishing rods in my garage. I don't keep the fish I catch though. I just like being out there.

Fingers crossed things continue to improve 🙂

I look forward to hearing how things go!

Aw, that's great news, @Tete. I'm happy to see that everything is good right now and that you all had fun doing something new, and that your husband is enjoying teaching your son how to fish… that's really valuable bonding time for them as well. I bet the dog enjoyed themself too!

And don't worry, you're not being negative, just cautious as you can only go on past behaviour and that's completely understandable. Hopefully he can keep it up — I think doing more fun family activities is a great way to create/encourage more positive energy.

I hope that things continue to improve for you all.

We're always here for you if you need us, take care 🙂

Hi everyone, @defaultusername @tyme @MJG017

I forgot my password and I couldn't login for long time. It was a real struggle to get online support to reset my password!

Anyway, It's done now and I'm back again.

So my husband, it was good to go fishing weekend but quickly he has gone down hill again. He stays in bed a lot again. One of the reason he's upset is we'd like a little concrete slab at the backyard and he can't get anybody to do the job. So far he has contacted 3 different people and none of them has come around to do the job. I think they are too lazy and basically not good tradies but he blames himself that nobody wants the job. He can't catch fish because the weather is crap but he thinks that his fault. He thinks he deserves to be punished for everything.

We had a chat that he needs to see a doctor to see different medication or increase the dose. He agrees but he doesn't actually want to leave house. He's too scared to go outside. I think this is one of the reason that he can't brake the negative cycle because he refuse to see anybody.

I was going to recommend this site but I was worried that he sees my post. If he sees my post and knows I'm chatting with unknown people online, he'll difinately get offended and will blame himself. Can he see my post?

Now Christmas is coming soon and he started saying 'I have to pretend to be excited again'. I know he really love Christmas and familly time but I'm worried he won't be the same this year. It's been exthousted for me this year mentally up and down..

Oh one more thing, he mentioned maybe he should go to psychiatric hospitals to get better to stay away from us so we don't worry about him all the time. I don't mind if he goes somewhere like that and get help but I don't know if its the best thing to do. He just looks and behaves like 'not interested in anything'. Just wake up, eat and bed again.. It's hard to see how he lives at the moment.

Sorry everyone for negative update.

hey @Tete sorry to hear that things have been hard for you and your husband recently. i can see that you care so much for him so much, and online supports are a great idea if he's not able to leave the house.

with our forums, all posts are publicly visible. as our anonymity guidelines mentions, we "avoid sharing personal details in posts that could be used to identify you offline" in order "to protect members from privacy breaches and potential real-world consequences."

so if your husband did go looking for your posts, it might be possible he finds your posts - but it's highly unlikely he'd find them unless he knew your username. do you think you'd be able to post as freely if he were around on the forums?

if you are worried about him identifying you on the forums, there are other online/call supports available too such as these:

• Lifeline 13 11 14 https://www.lifeline.org.au/
• Lifeline Text Support 0477 131 114 https://www.lifeline.org.au/crisis-text/
• Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467 
  https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/
• SANE Support Line (counsellors are available Mon-Fri, 10am-8pm) 1800 187 263
• Anxiety Recovery Centre Victoria has helplines, support groups, etc. Arcvic Homepage - The Anxiety Recovery Centre Victoria (ARCVIC)
• BeyondBlue Get support - Beyond Blue - Beyond Blue
• Phone and Online Counselling | MensLine Australia
• Current mental health resources and support services | vic.gov.au (www.vic.gov.au)

and please don't forget to look after yourself too, i know that caring for others can be emotionally draining sometimes so please make sure you recharge with some self-care activities. 💙

Hi @Tete

Im sorry to hear your husband is still struggling so much, and its clearly a strain on you as well. If he is open to getting some help but afraid to leave the house, then online or phone support still seems like the best options for him. Do you think he would be willing to talk to someone in this way? He wouldnt need to leave the house, and if you can get him to do it once he may see its helpful and be more willing to continue. As for the doctor and your husbands medication, would it be possibly for a doctor to do a home visit for him? Or would it be possible to get him to visit the doctor while he's in a better place mentally again?

The psychiatric hospital is obviously a big step, so maybe it would be a good idea to get some professional opinion on this and see what they have to say and make a decision from there.

The concrete skab shouldnt be a difficult job, so it surprises me that youve had such poor responses so far. Is there anyone else you can call to try and get this done? Or someone who may know someone trustworth who can do it?

Is there anything, even something small, you could do to get your husband a bit excited about Christmas. Possibly an old tradition he enjoyed before. It seems like it may help him a lot if he could reconnect to that love of Christmas. Maybe even start some new tradition. It also maybe better to start with some small things rather than try to get him to fully embrace it again. Something like putti g up some lights or talking about past Christmas memories he enjoys. Just something small to try and rekindle that love he has.

But just let him know its okay to feel this year may feel different in order to validate his feelings. That it doesn't matter how you celebrate, as long as you are both together. It may help to calm him and reduce some of the pressure he is feeling.

Im sorry i couldnt offer much advice, just a bunch of questions really. But remember to take some time and look after yourself as well. Hopefully you find a way to get him some support before too long.

Thank you for listening to me.

This place that I blurt out how helpless I feel and how I am and frastrated etc keeps me kind of sane, I suppose. I can't blurt out to friends who knows him so this anonymous foram helps me.

He looked like lifeless shell last few days. He gets up, eat, sleep again all day till dinner etc. He told me he made contact with online help support for mental illness. This website(I don't know which one) had a chat system so he started chatting. It asked his details like mobile number etc then asked 'Have you thought of hurting yourself in last 24hours?'. He typed 'yes' but the chat system said 'Sorry I don't understand your answer. Please answer again. 'Have you thought of hurting yourself in last 24hours?'. This went on few more times and when hubby is trying to say he's desparately needs help and think of hurting himself, the chat system says 'I don't understand'. He again felt defeated. He ended up typing horrable abusing words to this chat system and ended the conversation. Later he was thinking he may get phone call since he provided mobile number etc but nothing...

It seems whatever he tries to do he fails. I've got support from this forum kind of straight away but he seems to he can't.

Same as the concrete slab. Since he contacted three guys who he knows and turned out nobody was helpfull, I took incharge and found a concretor online. He came around yesterday and gave me a quote. I think it was bit expensive but we'll be happier when job is done. Hope this will work out. Yes, I don't think this should be too hard but I don't know why people who we know don't want to do the job. I guess they may think they have to give us the mate's rate? They don't have to but I don't know.

There is one good thing happened yesterday. I started work in the yard and hubby came help. Once we started working together, the cleaning process was so fast and rewarding so we got right into it. It was good feeling when all finished and I haven't seen him doing anything active so long. He kept his good mood whole day. Small win but Im happy with it.

Thanks again for listening.

Hey @Tete ! I'm so sorry to hear that you had trouble logging in.

Feel free to save our email team@saneforums.org and email us if it happens again (I hope it doesn't!)

I'm glad to see you here.

Hi @Tete,

That's annoying that you had trouble with logging on, but happy to see you again.

I'm sorry that your husband has been having a difficult time lately — I know I'm repeating myself, but it is lovely how much you care for him and only want the best for him, he is very lucky to have you by his side.

I can see why you'd be concerned about him joining the Forum, did you know that Beyond Blue also have a forum? If that is his preferred method, maybe that can be of some use to him. And those support services listed by @rav3n are all wonderful.

That is understandable, as Christmas is a very stressful time — especially for those of us who are dealing with mental health challenges. That's great about the yard work though, good on you both! I find it very difficult to motivate myself to do yard work, so I applaud anyone that can get it done. Hopefully you hear back about the concreting job soon as well.

If he's thinking about getting psychiatric help then I really do think he needs to see a doctor first, to discuss those thoughts. And a positive with that is that he has acknowledged that he needs professional help?

And I can see how all of this is very draining for you… as mentioned by rav3n and @MJG017 previously, we hope that you are taking care of yourself right now.

Please know that you're not alone.

It's been almost 2 months since I replied. It's been ok. The concrete slab was finally done and Christmas was fine too. My family is overseas and hubby dosen't get along with his family so we are only three of us- a little family. It was actually pretty good and hubby seemed to find the way to help himselves by doing a breathwork and meditation. He seems to find his favorite online help channel. It was working well for him until now.

It was his birthday the other day. We have celebrated as usual but he was upset because he didn't get any personal phone calls from anybody. He says he usued to have lots of friends when he was younger. People visited him all the time and had so much fun. There were people all over the place. But not even one phone call now on his 60th. I think he was talking about on his twentieth. This is way before we met. He blames himself that he dosen't have friends now.But what I see is he always push people away. It is true people can be annoying or have strange belief etc. But he could still try get to know the person. And now, because he's been pushing away or critisizing people, people are gone. He's not creating a chance to know people.

Regarding old friends, It's been like 40 years since he was friends with them so a lot of them's circumstances has changed. I used to party with friends all the time but not any more. This dosen't make me upset. I feel my circumstance has changed- I got married and have a kid etc.

I've been there for him at all the times last nearly 20 years but its getting too much for me. It dosen't mean I want to leave him but I can't be dragged down with him. I have my personal issue with new job as well but of cource I can't talk to him anything. I'm just finding everything is too hard, too much at the moment. Sorry for my rant..