#18 Anonymous for Today: Much of your story sounds just like mine. I too often feel as though I am taking care of a child rather than spending my life with a partner. I’d happily start up a blog for support, if you think it would help. Anyone who would want to participate (or would read it/thinks it would help) send me an email. I’ll start thinking about it and finding some resources. I think we could do it in a way that we would remain anonymous ourselves. My email is seenatalierun [at] yahoo [dot] com.

My husband of 12 years has had mental health problems since his childhood, but they weren’t acknowledged/diagnosed until about 3 or 4 years ago. As his wife, it has been difficult to balance his need for privacy and my need for support. I’m grateful to have found some wonderful people who have been kind and helpful. I agree with the other commenters who stressed the need to do things to take care of yourself and to find happiness and peace outside of your role as the caregiver. It is so important.

His treatment has been problematic. We’ve yet to find any medication that seems to make a difference–he’s tried 7 or 8 different kinds. Things got bad enough for him 2 years ago that he had to take a leave from his job and enter a day treatment program. But once we exhausted all of the time our insurance would pay for, he was left to figure things out for himself. I’m grateful his current counselor seems very committed to helping him get a handle on his problems. She believes his depression is secondary to his ADD and since he was never diagnosed with ADD until his 30s, it kind of mushroomed into all these other problems–depression, anxiety, OCD.

Day to day living has been a huge challenge for me. He is so dependent on me that I often feel suffocated. He hasn’t been able to keep jobs for longer than 2 years and this has added financial stress on top of everything else. It’s hard to see that things will ever get better than they are now. I know that my resentment increases as the years pass. I often feel like I am raising another child rather than having a ‘partner’ in life. I feel like I’m reaching my limit in being able to deal with all of his problems and still keep myself healthy and maintain stability for my kids.

I’m grateful for the discussion here as it helps me see that there are other people dealing with this too. There’s nothing worse than feeling alone.

I wasn’t specifically responding to your comment. We have had several Church members tell us in no indirect terms that if my wife only had enough faith, she wouldn’t have her illness.

It got to the point where we had to move, since there were members in leadership positions spreading the word that my wife was “faking” and could control her symptoms. When we moved, the Stake President made me promise not to specifically identify the place where it all happened. I had made a few comments on the web, specifically complaining about the treatment my wife and I had received from these so-called “saints.”

I hope you can find the peace and the healing you are looking for. For the most part, we have found ours, but we had to move to find it.

The following sentence brought something to mind that I just read.

I wish the church had a program to support the wives/husbands of those who struggle, not just the 12 step program for those who struggle themselves.

On a recent post submitted to Mormon Women (a woman shared her experience overcoming a porn addiction), this comment was made:

“Thank you so much for this article. I am a Church Service Missionary in Addiction Recovery, and lead two 12-step meetings each week. The first is for the wives of porn and sex addicts (while my husband meets with their husbands), and another night I meet with sisters who are addicted. I would encourage everyone to seek out a meeting in your own area. Go to Provident Living.org, then Social and Emotional Strength, then Addiction Recovery Program. The Atonement DOES heal, and this program certainly helps. ”

Sounds like they DO have groups in the Church’s program to help the loved ones of those w/ addictions. FWIW.

I have a friend who went through this w/ her spouse, and she says that Lifestar saved her, so that’s another option…although I think the Church’s program would be free.

anon–I don’t know if you were referring specifically to my comment or talking in general terms, but let me assure you I am not talking about healing as in removing the illness or the pain. I’m more of the same mind as Lydia, who said:

“But the atonement can strengthen us to endure, with peace and even happiness.”

And that is what I meant when I spoke about praying for the atonement to heal my family.

Then after some triggers, he had a breakdown and ended up trying to quit his job (they wouldn’t take his resignation) and in bed and in crisis. The depression was so terrible that we couldn’t avoid dealing with it anymore. That was the bright side of a horrible time.

This is what we learned: the mental health system is in major need of an overhaul. It took him months to find a decent psychiatrist and counselor, months to figure out medications that would help, and we were too embarrassed to talk about it much. If he had been diagnosed with cancer, we would have had support coming out of our ears. As it was, he was horrified about what was happening and didn’t want me to discuss it. Eventually it was so bad that we ended up being upfront with others about it, but it took a long time to get there.

I also thought that the diagnosis of depression and anxiety was almost a death sentence to life as I knew it. We have a family member who has been unable to live a normal life due to her mental illness, and I thought that was the only way we’d end up. Because so few people talk openly about their depression, I didn’t know so many people who I respected and admired had beaten the beast until they came forward to talk to us. Hearing from respected members of our community that had dealt with it made me feel reassured that we might have a fighting chance after all.

For the next six years we battled the depression. There were times I honestly thought he’d take his own life. We got life insurance a couple of years ago, and I just thought, “Is there any point? I don’t know if he’ll make it two years (the policy requirement for paying out) without killing himself.” Really. That’s how bad it was. Sometimes he was so despondent he’d cry for hours and hours a day. Sometimes he was so angry he’d destroy things. Sometimes he’d spend money we didn’t have (and I worried he might be bi-polar). For months and months at a time, I was only a care-giver, not a partner.

And then at the end of 2008 he went back on the medication he’d started with (and left because of how much he hated the side effects) and we have been normal. NORMAL. I never really thought we’d be normal again. That’s not to say it’s perfect. He still deals with times he’s extremely down and depressed, but they don’t last for months.

I love him dearly, and I think I really learned to love him through this. I loved him despite his actions. I learned to bite my tongue when I was being treated COMPLETELY unfairly. I learned to forgive, even when the other party would never be able to ask for forgiveness. I learned that it was OK for me to give 100% all the time. I learned that if I DID have to give 100% of the time, I’d likely need to find other sources of support because I’d break if I did it all alone without help. I learned that running could give me sanity. I learned that Heavenly Father doesn’t answer prayers the way we want.

It really sucks. I mean it. It’s so so so so hard. I sometimes have thought that spouses of those with depression really need a support group, but we don’t know where to get that help, and when we’re in the middle of it, we can’t leave our spouses to GET it. But even though it sucks, there are some beautiful gifts from it. I honestly can say that now. I used to wonder if I would still have married him if I had known what we’d have to endure. The answer now is yes, absolutely.

But if anyone wants to start a support group, I’m all over it. I’d love to help anyone just starting out with this. Sometimes you just need to know that there can be a happy ending.