How do you respond to well intentioned advice from a significant other? Advice like:
"Well, it could be worse. You could have cancer or something like that?"
Don't feel so bad. We all procrastinate."
"Whycan't you focus on the good part of your life?"
Whenever my wife says something like this I feel like I am going to explode.
Oh dear. Well she is trying to help but unfortunately she doesn't understand. There is lots of advice for family online in how to deal with mental health issues, what to say or do etc. Why not find a good site and ask her to read it?
You could also try and get her on here to read some of the posts and replies. Good luck.
Anger issues?
She is doing her best with what she has to work with. Living with someone with mental illness is hard. It is not a walk in the park. it is always a good idea to try yo walk in the shoes of others rather than live as if it is always about us and us alone.
Now reading her advise, i see some good advice there
E.g "Why can't you focus on the good part of your life?" -- you could respond by explaining that because of your mental condition it is a lot of work and time to get your mind to switch channels and you are working on just that but she has to be patient please.
learn not to be quick to anger because again, it is hard living with someone with a mental illness. I think this should be general knowledge by now.
Thanks so much for the response. In reading your post I focused on the term 'mental illness". It is so difficult for me to accept the fact that I have a mental illness. But you're right, I do. And somehow I am able to function rationally despite this. I am not expressing myself particularly well on this but it is as if the illness overlaps part of my rational thinking. It must be terribly difficult for my wife to see me in such a depressed and anxious condition.
Yes, we tend to think selfishly at times, expecting others to "understand" what they cannot see just because we say it is there. but the truth is, they aren't mindreaders and have no way of verifying our pain and our struggles. So they have to just have faith that the invisible is real. You can imagine how hard that can be.
we need to open up to them about our struggles, our pains and sufferings. Communication is key here and it needs to be regular --again you are trying to convince your loved ones to have faith that he invisible exists. 🤣🤣
Once again, thanks so much for the excellent advice.
I grit my teeth. Or try to slowly leave the room lol. I don't take people on with a counter comment usually. I'm too tired for it. Sometimes I try to answer calmly.
You don't have mental illness. Brain believes whatever you tell it to believe. Don't feed it negative. Your wife is giving you positive thoughts to uplift your mood. Why are you depressed? Job related stress? Identify the problem and solve it. Can you focus your brain on that?
Thanks for the advice. The diagnosis has been traumatic stress disorder based on not the best of childhoods....father committed suicide when I was 10, got worse after that. I'm fine until what I call a triggering event occurs. Then it's walking through hell. I've always been amazed at how painful the anxiety\depressive overlay is.
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