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- Member
Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:31 pm
Really sorry to hear of everyone's difficulties caring for someone with depression or other mental illness. (I'm a carer, but only since my mother's brain scan showed physical destruction of brain cells. I used to "care" for her behaviour, but after I myself and daughter were medically diagnosed with psychological abuse and the Police said we had sufficient evidence to charge her with criminal abuse, I moved away.)
This will sound very harsh, but after my daughter in her teens briefly went off the rails some years ago now, I spent 4 years studying, talking to various professionals & privately paid a Psychologist to unravel some of the mysteries in my life. It became abundantly clear to me that it is simply not possible to help anyone, unless and until they ask and truly want that help.
e.g. A distressed person truly wanting to be healed might initially phone the Samaritans.
A disturbed person won't, but the spouse will wear themselves into the ground "getting help".
It's indescribably painful to walk away & accept that someone (like my mother) simply does not want to be "helped"; their fear is too great; they've never known a life without mental illness; know no other way; they've learnt behaviours to get what they want early in years; learnt how to suppress the pain; they enjoy their "bad" behaviour"; their traumas - to them - are worse than anyone ever experienced, and so - to them - no-one can understand, but they seek and keep the attention of a loving person. Once they get it, they sub-consciously revert to old learned behaviours. They are entitled to their depression. Hope this makes sense!!!
One sentence I picked up which has stuck in my mind:
"Depression is simply the body's way of saying to itself "my current way of life is intolerable, do something".
And most people do do something perhaps with anti-depressants as a prop, but there are others who are too damaged to understand.
Seems to me that often the genuine wife/husband of a depressed person is shoved away; the depressed person can no longer tolerate the intrusion (as he sees it) of 'help'.
"Those they need the most, when they need them the most, they push them away."
This will sound very harsh, but after my daughter in her teens briefly went off the rails some years ago now, I spent 4 years studying, talking to various professionals & privately paid a Psychologist to unravel some of the mysteries in my life. It became abundantly clear to me that it is simply not possible to help anyone, unless and until they ask and truly want that help.
e.g. A distressed person truly wanting to be healed might initially phone the Samaritans.
A disturbed person won't, but the spouse will wear themselves into the ground "getting help".
It's indescribably painful to walk away & accept that someone (like my mother) simply does not want to be "helped"; their fear is too great; they've never known a life without mental illness; know no other way; they've learnt behaviours to get what they want early in years; learnt how to suppress the pain; they enjoy their "bad" behaviour"; their traumas - to them - are worse than anyone ever experienced, and so - to them - no-one can understand, but they seek and keep the attention of a loving person. Once they get it, they sub-consciously revert to old learned behaviours. They are entitled to their depression. Hope this makes sense!!!
One sentence I picked up which has stuck in my mind:
"Depression is simply the body's way of saying to itself "my current way of life is intolerable, do something".
And most people do do something perhaps with anti-depressants as a prop, but there are others who are too damaged to understand.
Seems to me that often the genuine wife/husband of a depressed person is shoved away; the depressed person can no longer tolerate the intrusion (as he sees it) of 'help'.
"Those they need the most, when they need them the most, they push them away."