Depending on others

[Slate]

So I have a question for those out there. How do you handle/manage being the one that needs help? I am a father of two children and have a wonderful, supportive and dedicated wife. I feel like a drag on their lives. I went through an enormous and life destructive depression in 2018. It was the most difficult time in our marriage and my life. I came out of it and was doing better until now 2021. I struggle with being emotionally dependent on my wife and don't feel like I give much to my children in what they need. I know most have problems because there are toxic people around them, but for me, I feel like the toxic one taking joy from those happy around me. I'm not used to being the one in need.

[Marysblue]

Our depression can exaggerate our negative feelings about ourselves ,our circumstances. Sounds like you have a loving supportive family. We all need help sometime. It's only temporary. There are brighter days ahead .

[Hidden]

Hi there! As Marysblue says, we all need help sometimes.Needing help doesn't mean you're weak, toxic, selfish or taking joy from anybody. It means you're human. You are in need right now and that is okay. It's okay to feel what you're feeling.

Sometimes I feel a burden to my husband because of my emotional issues. I actually keep apologizing for it. He says he's fine with it, but it doesn't make my feeling of being a burden go away. So what do I do? I think back to what I do for him. Marriage is about both giving and taking.

I hope this helps.🙂

[Slate in reply to Hidden]

Thank you it does I don't feel right unless I'm doing something loving for my spouse. It can be hard to admit you need the support and so much of it but hopefully I can be there for her when she needs it too

[Hidden in reply to Slate]

Glad to hear it!🙂You are absolutely right! It is hard to admit that we need help at times; I know for a fact that you are definitely not alone in this.

Maybe you can think of it this way: you need to take care of yourself first and foremost (I always do this🙄) before you can fully be there for your wife and kids. For example, if I don't have all my faculties in order first, I'm a mess and not able to think clearly enough to be of much (if any) help to anyone.

[Gentlespirit]

It is very hard and can be exhausting yet love endures. Hope. Have you talked with a therapist?? Sounds like your family loves you and is being patient and hopeful for you to recover. Can you be patient with yourself too while you recover? Its not easy for you yet family is family and its ok to need help. You are a man yet noone says you have to be Superman. We are all humanand I think your courage to speak and be honest is admirable and I respect and understand where your coming from. Take care

[Lazy_dog_lover]

I know it is very hard to be in that place. I have lost friends because of it. I actually have kept my family mostly clear of much involvement in my mental health. My family is very opinionated and it would make things worse.

I have mostly depended on outside help. It took a long time to accept the help. I am fiercely independent. Spring of 2020 started with a major car accident. This month started with a follow up surgery. Basically 2 years in physical therapy... I reached out to an online life coach and I have my regular therapist in telehealth. I am very stoic and have a very dry sense of humor. People don’t always get me in person, so I express it in one-liners or jokes on FB. Exercise helped me a bit, but my coach started me on breathing exercises and meditation due to my injuries.

Try journaling for a few weeks and focus on what you did to make the days and nights better for your kids and wife. Change things up. Look for patterns when you reflect on the day at bedtime. What worked. What did not work. Sometimes, it is just spending time, or just listening. Try not to vent and dump. Things are not in their control to make better.

Peace and best wishes.

[Lettercutter]

Hi, what you are describing sounds somewhat similar to my situation. I have suffered depression at varying levels of intensity for a long time, but it's been at its worst since our two kids grew up and went off on their own. One lives across the state, the other lives across the country. I try to compensate by communicating regularly with them, and I lean very heavily on my wonderful wife for emotional support. But it's become clear that I am depending on my family to make me feel better. It's a frightening, weak position to be in. I spent a lot of time in just the past two hours reading online about emotional dependency and how to solve it. But the advice there seems so hard to follow when you're starting from the condition I'm in right now.

All I can think of is to take small, gradual steps, combined with plenty of self-encouragement. It helps me to remember that my family members love me, wish they could "cure" me, but are only human and not sure what to do for me, want nothing more than to see me get better, and that my relationships with them will improve not by my clinging harder, but by becoming healthier and stronger and allowing them room to breathe and relax. Ultimately, I want them to be able to be proud of how I got through this successfully, and let it be a good example to them as they age -- but I'm not there yet.

I don't know how helpful that is, but I'd be happy to discuss it further with you, in the hope that we can help one another. Sending my best wishes to you.

[Slate in reply to Lettercutter]

Thanks Lettercutter, I meant to get back to your post earlier. Your words help and I thank you for that!

It's been such a long ride. I've hidden my depression since I was 16 years old so over 10 years ago. I never felt like I could share to the people around me and burden them. When I got married I hid it for as long as I could always putting on a good face and hiding my feelings. Since 16 I had also suffered from a severe porn addiction as a way of coping with my issues and as a distraction. Everything exploded around 2018 when my second son was born and I couldn't hide my downward spiral anymore. My porn addiction had caused ED and took away my ability to love. My depression took away my hope. I became a shell for almost a year and wasn't there for my wife or kids. Only a burden.

I worked hard and cut porn out of my life. I loved my wife more fervently and genuinely then I had ever in my life and I became motivated to live again in earnest. That was a good year. 2019-2020

But then in 2020 I fell again and more rapidly then ever before. It's a horrible feeling being dependent on others and not being the one they can depend on. I can attest that there's a feeling of being scared of the future because I can't seem to embrace the present. My mother suffered from empty nest syndrome really bad and I know here now as a father I feel like I depend on my family for emotional connection.

[Lettercutter in reply to Slate]

Hi Slate,My depression also has its origins in my teens, though I am considerably older (60) than you. I know what's it like to try to keep it to yourself, so that you're not burdening other people with it. I've since earned to share more about my illness, but I'm still concerned about overwhelming my family members with it. They're often not sure what to say to help me, so I worry that they will get tired of supporting me.

I also have experience with the porn addiction, especially in the years immediately after we first got home Internet in 1996. For the most part, I kept it from affecting my family, but there were days when I didn't get up as early in the morning as I could have to interact with my kids before they left for school, because I had been up so late on porn sites the night before. I still have some guilt about that.

For what it's worth, I'm trying to learn to be more objective in observing my family's reaction to my communications. On Sunday evening, after FaceTiming with my daughter, I was absolutely convinced that she was tired of hearing from me about my problems. But on the very next night, she willingly texted with me for a long time, even ignoring two of my invitations to cut it off and say good night -- she just kept on texting. So when I'm assuming that my family is tired of me, that's originating in my own head.

Let's keep talking and hopefully it continues to help both of us.

(BTW, I do my best lettercutting in slate, as it's an easy stone to carve.)

[Lettercutter in reply to Lettercutter]

*learned to share...