Stress & Depression- relationships

I have just lost the love of my life after not facing up to severe depression for years.

I became arguementative, controlling, jealous and fat/lazy. Coupled with high pressure job and money stress i cracked up.

Now I have been on fluoxetine for 4 weeks and not as tense my ex has given up and states no hope.

Has depression made anyone else jealous and controlling as I felt worthless?

[jonnywombat]

Hi Andy,

Depression is very tough on partners, and whilst most of us would relate to the feelings of worthlessness, I am guessing how that manifests itself in a relationship will differ.

Being alone at this time is not good, I hope you have close friends who can help you through. You have to respect how your ex feels at this time, but you never know what the future holds, so maybe trying to maintain a friendly contact would be good, if they feel they are ok with that.

Jonny

[Hidden]

Hi

I agree with Jonny, depression and worthlessness so often go together almost by definition because it we have good self worth then we may become unhappy but are unlikely to become depressed.

As for jealous and controlling, it sounds as though you felt desperate to try to keep the relationship which suggests issues around depending upon someone. Although fluoxetine may help with the symptoms and enable the depressive mood to lift it will not deal with issues around dependancy which are best helped within psychotherapy. I would ask your GP to refer you to the local psychotherapy service, if you are unsure where it is then you can google mental health services in your area or the local CMHT should be able to tell you. Therapy can be really helpful for dealing with severe depression and the symptoms you describe.

I do hope you find the help you need.

Sue

[Angel66]

I to have just lost the love of my life, my sole mate. He left 5 weeks ago for a break i have recently undergone breast cancer treatment and i thought that he was strugling to cope with the effects the pills were having on me (they were bad)

From what he has said we argued alot which is true, i was over protective which i can see now, didn't trust him again this is true but i never used to. I had put our down times to the pressures of running his buisness which we buillt from scratch. It wasn't until yesterday that all this has come out. I have cryed and cryed like i never have before because i now realise that for many years now i have been struggling to come to terms with the loss of my son which i think has changed me frm being a outgoing bubbly person to a over protective posessive person fearing lossing i guess but will look into it more.

I am now on citalopram hich i am hoping will help me to get myself on the road to recovery. I don't think that my husband will ever return but i do hope he will.

So the answer to your question is yes, but you are not alone.

Some words of advice:

You have to get better for you, not your ex

Everything happens for a reason

This advice is given to me, I know that is hard as it is for me.

[Hidden]

Thanks for the help. Unfortunately my ex made it clear there was no hope and she was scared due to my swings in mood. I took a knife and went to end it but was stopped by my parents.

I am now in hospital getting psychiatric help and trying to come to terms with the monster that I have become. Whilst not physical the mental abuse I can give is not something I want to live with

[Hidden]

Hi

I guess we all have parts of ourself, some thoughts and behaviours, that we don't want to live with and we all have the potential to become mentally abusive. Try not to condemn yourself as you were struggling to cope with difficult feelings at the time. Just let people help you with those feelings if they are able to. I hope your experience in hospital isn't too awful and that you get come decent follow up support.

Suex

[sasays]

Personally i found Fluoxetine takes a good few weeks to settle. Do not trust your feelings until you've given them time to settle, the first 6 weeks were personally pretty traumatic, although that is obviously me too, not just the meds! Things have to get better and to miss out on experiencing them would be heartbreaking. I'm holding on to the idea that things have to get better or people wouldnt procreate and make people go through this. We must be missing something, just hold on in there and we'll get there one day, we have to. Its obviously just taking longer than it should x