Christian faith and Mental Illness

Accidentally pressed post before id finished!

Thank so much @Shaz51 . Unfortunately my husband doesnt handle stress very well. He gets very annoyed/angry/frustrated, and i wear the brunt of it. And his stress levels are thru the roof with all that is going on in our lives at present.

Feeling very alone bcoz hes not speaking to me at the moment and hasnt b for hours - hes just too stressed and annoyed.

I guess i need to turn to my Saviour dont i, rather than winge and complain about it!

Thank u again for ur prayers, i rly appreciate it!

And thanks again @Former-Member for all ur support also!

@Doglover

my husband has Bipolar 2 and other diagnosis , and most days he does not talk to me for ages

this used to really upset me in the past

let your husband work it out himslf my friend

can you do something else ,

I had to learn this and still leaning at times

Wow, thats a hard road @Shaz51 . That must hav takn a lot of working thru for u. Amazing that u hav bn able to work thru it to the point of being (mostly) accepting. Mayb my expectations of marriage are too high. Or mayb my reactions to things (internally) are more than they shld b. I dont know. But ur right, i need to find a way to deal with it so it doesnt cut me up the way it does.. Mayb finding things to do to take my mind off it as u said. Mayb praying and asking the Lord to help me, and help my hubby, to deal with the stressors of life better. He doesnt hav an MI so he doesnt hav that as a contributing factor. In fact hes always looked down on people with an MI (due to total lack of understanding) and now his wife has one which frankly, i just think he cant handle.

How hav u managed to deal with it within urself, like the hurt and pain associated with ur husband not speaking to u for hours on end?

Thank for your support my friend. ☺

@Doglover

I can see that your husband loves you but he does not fully understand, being patient , and letting him know what you want from him , like just being there for you will reassure him like --( let him know when you want a hug or let him know that you want him to just sit with you )

How hav u managed to deal with it within urself, like the hurt and pain associated with ur husband not speaking to u for hours on end? -- at first I used to cry which made the situation worse , but then over the years I have included self care and keeping myself busy with other things until mr shaz wanted to talk about what is worrying him

Mayb my expectations of marriage are too high. -- @Doglover , I had to lower my expectations and when I did I was surprised

Give it to the Lord @Doglover , @Former-Member

Youre right @Shaz51 , he doesnt understand. Im not sure he wants to understand. I hav at times asked for specific things like a hug, or just to hold me, but it hasnt always gone well. He just doesnt know how to handle it. I think i need to just accept that im not going to get what i need from him and if i do on occasions, well that will b a pleasant surprise.

Ive done my fair share of crying and grieving too but i think your approach is what i need to do. Im not sure what my self care things are, i guess il need to think about that. And giving hubby space and not having too high expectations of him i think wld b a gd thing.. But all that is going to need some changes on the inside of me. The biggest thing i need to do is exactly what you said - give it to the Lord. Give my marriage, my husband, my pain and loneliness, my fears, everything, giv it all to the Lord and look to Him to meet my needs rather than my husband. Im just not sure how to do that. But i think if i was to look to the Lord more and my husband less, that wld take some of the pressure off him and mayb he wldnt b quite as stressed.

Thanks for your advise @Shaz51 , its a really big help. I rly appreciate you sharing of your experience to help me. Thank you.

Hi to you also @Former-Member

Dear @Doglover,

Hi @Former-Member ,

Firstly let me apologise that my reply will probably not do your post justice. I hve a keyboard bluetoothed to my phone that I have just started using and the keyboard is very different to what I'm used to so it is taking me ages to type. I'm also not sure that I can answer a lot of your questions.

I am struggling in my faith very much and not trusting God as I should so I don;t believe I am one to give advice. I still have difficulty reconciling my MI with my faith and it is a daily struggle.

I think we need to be careful about the whole Satan thing. True he is there and seeks to rob and destroy, but Jesus is greater and has defeated Satan so as long as we are Christs, we are on the winning side. And I dont say that to sound all 'word of faith'-ey becasue that's not where I come from. I guess it's like everything, just because we are Christians it doesn't make us immune from life;s struggles, in fact the Bible promises that we will have trials and tribulations - we need to be looking to the Lord in the midst of them, something that I am struggling to do myself so really have no business advising someone else.

I am very sorry to hear about your suicidal thoughts and do not want to offer you some glib response. Are you safe? That is the main thing. Do you have people you can turn to at those times?

I don;t believe in prophetic words in this day and age as we now have the Bible and God has said everything he needed to say - he finished the Bible with an Amen, so I can't give you are 'word', other than to maybe ask the Lord to give you a Scripture or 2 that you can hold onto in the dark yimes. I don;t want to make light of youor situation by giving you pat answers. And I am struggling myself so don;t really feel that I am the right person to be giving you advice. I hope someone else reading this thread can offer you more wise counsel, advice and support than what I have been able to.

I'm sorry EOR, I hope have not let you down.

Take care and stay safe.

Warm wishes, Doglover

PS: Apologies for the typos, I can't get the curser to go where I want it to on my phone so can;t go back and fix them.

@Doglover @Former-Member

Can I ever so gently encourage you to hold onto hope, you are not alone in your struggles , God is with you and he loves you so very much.

As David the psalmist wrote "even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, You are with me".

Whist physical healing may seem so far off, remember that God is still at work in you, transforming your character and nature to be more like Him.

https://youtu.be/nCCfd7EnHsA

@Doglover And everyone here. I’ve struggled with all the above mentioned. I have no answers, but I’ve sat with a few songs over the years. No answered questions, just a something that can’t be put into words, not by me anyway. I hope the above song helps even slightly.