Hello,
I'm new here and I'm hoping that someone will understand my situation and have some advice...
I don't really consider myself to be a carer. My partner is physically able to look after himself, we're both young and generally healthy. However, I think he has depression and I think he's been feeling low and pretty desperate for over a year.
At times he appears to be fine, particularly when other people are around. If my family pop over or the next door neighbours pop in for a cuppa, he's happy and cracking jokes. The minute they've gone and we're alone, he goes back to being withdrawn and moody. It's almost as if the act that he's put on has completely worn him out.
Aside from that, he doesn't always look after his appearance, sometimes he'll go days without shaving, having a shower and properly changing his clothes. He's been depressed for a while (I think) but the personal hygiene issues have really only happened over the last 5 months or so.
He's moody, he snaps if I ask questions or enquire if he's ok. I'm trying my best to be understanding, patient and not annoy him, but it seems that whatever I do annoys him somehow.
This started when he was made redundant a 16 months ago. He was self-employed for a while, but couldn't get enough work to cover his out-goings, so gave up. Since then he hasn't worked. He refuses to talk about claiming job seekers allowance, I think this is because of his male pride. He hates the fact that he has to rely on me financially and I understand why. He doesn't make any attempt to resolve the situation though, so I don't see how it's going to change.
We have talked about how he feels, but he only allows us to talk about it very infrequently and if I push the issue he gets cross and goes to bed. He says that sleep is his medicine and he doesn't need to see his GP, in fact, whilst he acknowledges (occasionally) that he's feeling low, he refuses to do anything about it.
All of this has left me feeling a bit low now. I constantly try to do things to make him feel a bit happier, to make things easier, I avoid doing or saying anything that makes him feel uncomfortable or worse about the situation. I protect him from other people's comments, most of which are quite harsh. But whatever I do, nothing makes any difference and I feel pretty useless. The past 5 months or so have been the worst and now I'm feeling very responsible for everything and guilty for making him feel worse and not being able to help him.
I'm sorry that this has got so long, I didn't intend to type all of this, but found that once I'd started, it just flowed easily! I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum or the wrong board for this topic.
I'm hoping that someone will have experienced something similar and will be able to understand how I feel. That alone would be enough to make me feel better and less isolated.
Thank you x
I'm new here and I'm hoping that someone will understand my situation and have some advice...
I don't really consider myself to be a carer. My partner is physically able to look after himself, we're both young and generally healthy. However, I think he has depression and I think he's been feeling low and pretty desperate for over a year.
At times he appears to be fine, particularly when other people are around. If my family pop over or the next door neighbours pop in for a cuppa, he's happy and cracking jokes. The minute they've gone and we're alone, he goes back to being withdrawn and moody. It's almost as if the act that he's put on has completely worn him out.
Aside from that, he doesn't always look after his appearance, sometimes he'll go days without shaving, having a shower and properly changing his clothes. He's been depressed for a while (I think) but the personal hygiene issues have really only happened over the last 5 months or so.
He's moody, he snaps if I ask questions or enquire if he's ok. I'm trying my best to be understanding, patient and not annoy him, but it seems that whatever I do annoys him somehow.
This started when he was made redundant a 16 months ago. He was self-employed for a while, but couldn't get enough work to cover his out-goings, so gave up. Since then he hasn't worked. He refuses to talk about claiming job seekers allowance, I think this is because of his male pride. He hates the fact that he has to rely on me financially and I understand why. He doesn't make any attempt to resolve the situation though, so I don't see how it's going to change.
We have talked about how he feels, but he only allows us to talk about it very infrequently and if I push the issue he gets cross and goes to bed. He says that sleep is his medicine and he doesn't need to see his GP, in fact, whilst he acknowledges (occasionally) that he's feeling low, he refuses to do anything about it.
All of this has left me feeling a bit low now. I constantly try to do things to make him feel a bit happier, to make things easier, I avoid doing or saying anything that makes him feel uncomfortable or worse about the situation. I protect him from other people's comments, most of which are quite harsh. But whatever I do, nothing makes any difference and I feel pretty useless. The past 5 months or so have been the worst and now I'm feeling very responsible for everything and guilty for making him feel worse and not being able to help him.
I'm sorry that this has got so long, I didn't intend to type all of this, but found that once I'd started, it just flowed easily! I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum or the wrong board for this topic.
I'm hoping that someone will have experienced something similar and will be able to understand how I feel. That alone would be enough to make me feel better and less isolated.
Thank you x