346-How Do You Do It? (rerun)- TRANSCRIPT

Terry [00:00:04] Hello and welcome to the Giving Voice to Depression podcast brought to you by Recovery.com. Each week we profile a guest who shares intimate details of their mental health journey. They share because they understand that when people don't talk about their depression or other mental health conditions, those of us who struggle with them can feel like we're the only ones, that there's something wrong with us. Instead of understanding that we have a common and treatable illness. I'm Terry, the creator and co-host of this podcast. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:00:32] And I'm Dr. Anita Sanz, a licensed clinical psychologist with more than 25 years in clinical practice. I know from both personal and professional experience how significantly mental health and other disorders can impact not just our lives, but those around us as well. By speaking openly and with the wisdom of lived experience, we help normalize conversations that are often avoided due to shame or stigma. Our episodes are honest and real, and we keep them hopeful because there truly is hope. Despite what depression tells you. 

Terry [00:01:07] This podcast is brought to you by Recovery.com, whose mission is to help each person find the best path to recovery through a comprehensive, helpful network of treatment providers for both mental health and addiction treatment worldwide. This episode was originally produced with sponsorship from the AB Korkor Foundation for Mental Health. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:01:31] We recorded a couple of new interviews each month and we also replaced some older ones so that our newer listeners don't miss out on some of our best ones. 

Terry [00:01:41] Hello, Anita. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:01:41] Hi, Terry. You know how at the end of many of our episodes, we say that there's a recorder on our website where you can leave comments or suggestions for future episodes. Well, you're about to hear from Margaret, a listener who took us up on our offer. She not only shared about her life and loneliness, but asked if we could connect with someone else in a similar situation. A person who has worked out some of the hurdles and challenges of partnering and parenting with someone with depression and other mental health challenges. 

Terry [00:02:15] After talking with Margaret for this episode, we were able to connect with just such a person. So next week we'll tap into Gwen's lived experience and the ground rules and techniques that she and her husband and children follow to make living with mood disorders a little more manageable and functional for everyone in the family. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:02:36] And as background, Margaret has been with her husband for more than 20 years. They have a six year old child together. About a year ago, after his symptoms worsened, he was diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety and executive-function struggles. She says he takes meds that seem to be helping. And they have mental health support, including therapists and a psychiatrist. But it's still really hard and she often feels very lonely and unsupported. It's a story that many of you will relate to, because depression and other mood disorders affect more than just the person diagnosed. So here now is Margaret giving her voice to depression. 

Terry [00:03:26] Margaret is looking for practical advice. What works? What doesn't? How do you partner with someone whose depression can make them unavailable? What have you figured out that could shine a little light on the dark, lonely path to make it even a little bit easier to walk? Here's how Margaret asked for that in her original outreach recorded on our website, as we just mentioned. We play it, in part, with her permission. 

Margaret [00:03:54] It's really hard living with someone with depression. And I've gotten so much insight from your podcast and all of the people who have given their voice to depression. And that helps me to so much has helped me to better understand this illness. And my husband, when he received his diagnosis, it was so great to have a name and to know that there was an illness and not that it was just a person being difficult. And yet it is so hard. And I'm just curious if you've ever talked with anyone either who has depression and is in a long term committed relationship and with children. I know there are there's things that I need a partner to maintain a home and share parenting. And there have to be other people  out there in similar situations. And it would be really great to learn to hear voices and words of wisdom. 

Terry [00:05:13] Words of wisdom. How's that for a nice script flip? Realizing that the parts of our lives we probably seldom discuss in any real detail and may even hide, contain lessons that could prevent someone struggling in a similar way from having to figure it all out by themselves. 

Margaret [00:05:31] And man, that depression when it's rearing its head, it is it is just so very, very hard. Yeah. If there's anyone out there that can give advice on what to do when you're trying to do the things that need to be done or that you want to do with your spouse, life partner, person that you've chosen and the depression is taking control and that the response is just defense and pushing away. It'd be great to learn from others. 

Terry [00:06:16] It's interesting because when we hear or say, if you're struggling, reach out. I think most of us think of the person with depression. But everybody directly affected also needs support at times. 

Margaret [00:06:32] Right? I thought that I sort of knew about depression, but there's so much to learn because a lot of the things that I kind of guess, just like a lay person thought of depression, like they don't really match what I'm experiencing with this person that I love and I live with. And obviously each person's experience is different. And I guess I was compelled to reach out because I've listened to it and you're like friends, and it's been so helpful. But I'm finally seeing after so many months of listening and then all of the support that my husband and I are getting individually, and then each of us and then us together, it's still just so hard. And I love how .. I probably won't get the words exactly right, but how there is hope and the depression makes you not want to think that there is. And just seeing like as I'm driving in the car listening, I'm like, are there other there have to be other people like me that are living with someone and that are by the nature of our relationship, needing to be dependent upon that person. Like I've heard some episodes of, you know, where people talk about having a spouse or both of them are there, but I haven't heard anyone that sounds like me. 

Terry [00:07:53] Margaret says the stories she's heard here have given her empathy and a better understanding of her partner's experience. But we're hoping to learn specifics. How do you do it? How do you run a household, raise children and make life decisions big and small, with someone struggling with a mood disorder? How do you communicate without making things worse? And how do you address frustrations like this? 

Margaret [00:08:19] I find myself in the moment of just like life is happening and time feels tight and I'm like, okay, we have tools but then  I'm like, Well, he's not using his tools.  And I understand not because he's being mean or but then that's the illness. And like, what, what, what do I do? 

Terry [00:08:38] What would you hope to hear? What would be helpful? 

Margaret [00:08:42] That's where I'm really struggling. I don't I don't know. Maybe even just, just how hard it is and that that there's not, like, something that can fix it. And I guess I've never heard something from, like,  a spouse with a young child, how how to get through those really hard moments when I'm just desperate for a partner. And I can understand when I pull back, that it's an illness and I shouldn't be taking it personally. But it's just so hard and so lonely. 

Terry [00:09:29] When you talked about hope, I have learned and I have experienced that depression tells us that there's kind of no reason to hope that it's never going to change. I have lived on multiple occasions with someone with a serious mental health condition, and I know that I experienced as a caregiver a similar loss of hope because you just sort of look at the situation and you think like,  is just my life forever? And I don't know that there's an understanding of how it like pervades the air in the house. 

Margaret [00:10:07] You nail on the head. Oh my gosh. And I think part of it that's, you know, my, you know, our situation here that's so hard is that, you know, I  read things that I'm the caregiver. And sometimes if I felt like I had a role.. Like my husband got a cold recently. And it was actually lovely. It felt like old times like he was just like sick in bed. And I brought him tea and vitamins and herbs and like he was clear of what I could do. He wanted to receive that. And and with the depression, it's it's not always clear like there's a pushing away from him. And so it's not clear what I can be doing. I don't feel like a caregiver. 

Terry [00:10:59] Because what kind of care can you give someone who isolates, pushes you away and likely doesn't believe that anything you could do would help because depression's telling them nothing will help and they'll always feel the way they do. It is so hard on both ends. 

Margaret [00:11:19] This is a part of him. And it's not that I'm like, okay, we have to make the depression go away. But to find ways that he can that he can engage in the varied responsibilities and aspects of his life. 

Terry [00:11:36] Even with a compassionate understanding of the illness, we can still long for  lightness, shared responsibilities and a sense of true connection. 

Margaret [00:11:47] And things between us, like there would be periods of conflicts or, you know, things not working well between us, but then we'd come back together and we'd click and it would feel, okay, there it is. That's that invisible thing that you can't see. But when you're in it, you're like, oh yeah. Like I always think I see two people walking on the sidewalk and I never know, are they two people that just met at the bus stop or are they soulmates? But those two people know what their connection is. But it became and is still longer and longer in between when we get those points of connection. 

Terry [00:12:28] Margaret says their family and friends, even the close ones, don't really understand the situation or check in to see how either of them are doing. 

Margaret [00:12:37] Not to say that they maybe inside, you know, just don't know what to say. Yeah. The support is not there, which, you know, there's I mean, I know that there's, you know, stigma. And the only way that that's going to change is people to talk about it more. 

Terry [00:12:54] Yeah, we are not taught to have uncomfortable conversations. In fact, I think most of us are probably taught implicitly or explicitly to avoid them. But if you had the power to make your inner circle at least understand some core realities about what it's like to have a husband, to have a partner with depression, to try to raise a child with that partner, and to feel all the feels that you have, caring and wanting him not to hurt and hurting yourself and being afraid how this might impact your child and all of it. What do you most wish they understood? 

Margaret [00:13:34] I wish they understood how lonely and hard it was. I wish they'd pick up the phone and call. I wish they'd ask. And I guess, you know, the whole casserole, if it was a different illness. I had cancer a bunch of years ago. And so I know what that support was like. And yeah, and I know the way that we communicated with our our friends and family and how that circle grew. It's so much harder dealing with something that, you know, there's not like, okay, well,  we're going to have surgery on this date and then this procedure is going to happen on this date. But yeah, if people understood like like how lonely it is and how how it affects everything. I mean, oh my God, everything. Like, you know, there's, there's nothing in this house that it hasn't touched. And, and I don't mean that to say oh we have to do something because he's broken, but he needs support because  he's not able to thrive in his best self. 

Terry [00:14:52] Margaret says in the decades of their relationship, they've weathered a lot of life together, creating new normals like when they became parents. She'd like to be able to manage this mental health journey as a team, too. 

Margaret [00:15:05] And that's something that I like to be able to do with him. And that's where it's like so hard because the nature of the illness is for him that we're not working together most of the time, that there's not an interest in let's figure out how to how do we support each other in what our needs are right now. 

Terry [00:15:27] Okay. So your needs right now. What would you like to say in closing to anybody who might be listening, who might have insight into your experience because they themselves are in similar situations or they know someone who is, or they know of an organization or foundation or something that might be able to help. 

Margaret [00:15:48] I'd love to know suggestions that people have for essentially a single parent that has very little free time. Your social network has gotten smaller and.. this so hard. It's kind of like, it feels like when my husband and I are talking/arguing and it's like, what do you want from me? And it's like, I want that thing that's like, I can't give myself.. And I've learned enough that there's not just like a solution, that it's learning how to get through each moment and trying to do that in a way that you can be proud of. And so I'd love to hear  things that other people think that or that help them get through those little moments when you can't be in a meeting or with a group and it's just lonely and hard. I wish I could say something that feels really eloquent. 

Terry [00:16:54] There's no need. This is not an eloquent situation. Yeah. Yeah. You just want help. Yeah, I'm trying to get it. 

Terry [00:17:11] I loved that comment that she made there where she said, I want that thing I can't give myself, which I actually did think was eloquent. Because, yeah, you know, if we can do it ourselves and we can give it to ourselves, if we can pay somebody to do it, you know, all those kinds of things. But there are those intimacies when you're partnering with somebody that you can't give yourself. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:17:32] Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think it's so important. You know, for for Margaret to to be validated at how isolating and lonely and scary an experience it is when you are trying to keep a household running and parenting and, you know, maybe work responsibilities and all of the things that are hard enough for  anybody to do and then to be worried about your partner, for your partner not to be able to or know how to step up and help, you know, to to get those things done. I think it's a really, really tough situation to be in. And I'm really glad that Margaret was willing to share what that's like for her. I think many people are going to relate to that. 

Terry [00:18:15] Now, since I'm the only one between us who knows what Gwen has said for next week. Her husband does not have that symptom of pushing away, you know, So I'm wondering, I'm sure you've encountered this in your therapy, but when you're trying to run a household and somebody is saying like, you know, get away from me, leave me alone. How do you do that? 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:18:38] What I what I would normally say in a situation like that is when we know that it's an expression of the depression. We know that that  angry, irritable, pushing away, saying leave me alone. When we know that that's from depression, it's kind of like we we would handle it differently than if we felt like the person was, like, really, truly angry about some something that had just happened, you know, like more of like a response. And in that case, when we know that a person is acting that way out of depression, we would want to go back and think about, well, what would I do under any circumstances if I knew somebody was really depressed? So we want to give people some space when they're angry. Yes. But depression is sort of controlling the person in a way by isolating them because they're using their anger to withdraw and push people away. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:19:35] So we kind of don't want depression to when we don't we don't want we maybe want to give a little bit of time for somebody to, you know, to have to themselves if they're saying, just leave me alone. But I don't think we just go with that. I think we have to recognize that that's depression saying leave me alone. That's probably not the person saying leave me alone. And it's probably really good to do this ahead of time to say, you know, when you get really depressed and you say, just leave me alone, I can be okay with that, but for 15 minutes, half an hour, and then I'm going to become anxious. I'm going to be worried about you and giving you so much time alone when I know that you're feeling really badly and that's what's causing it. So when you say that this is what I'm going to do. And I'll even tell you, fine, I'll check back with you in 15 minutes. I'll check back with you in half an hour so that, you know, I'm doing what we agreed on here. And then I'll come in and then I hope that we can talk or we can figure out a solution to if there's something that I need from you. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:20:40] We want to be respectful of the person, but we don't need to be respectful of depression. We don't need to respect depression. Depression doesn't care. Depression doesn't care about anybody. So we don't want to respect when it when we really do think it's depression pushing people away, you know, But just because nobody wants to deal with an intimate partner situation where it can escalate into violence or, you know, that person, losing control because they're saying get away. And then we keep being in their face. I think  a little bit of time and then being able to to come back because you've agreed or at least you said, this is what I will do when, you know, if you do this, I will do that. If you ask for this, I will do this. So it's not like you're making it up on the fly. You've discussed it. You've planned it. The person knows that. And my guess is most people, when they're depressed and they say, leave me alone, they don't really want to be left alone. They just don't know what else really to do in this situation. They're overwhelmed by the depression as well. So we don't want to let the depression overwhelm us as caring friends, family members, partners. We want to respect the relationship and keep nurturing that. Keep allowing that to be strong. Because the stronger that we can maintain connections and let somebody know that we love them, we value them even when the depression is really bad. That's better than just going. 

Terry [00:22:12] It's hard not to take it personally. Yeah. Yeah, it's. It's hard. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:22:15] Like you said. I'll leave you alone. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:22:17] It's reminding me of, like, the WRAP plan, the wellness recovery Action plan. You know, having these things decided before, it's like, okay, you go in your room and you slam the door. Here's what I'm going to do, you know, And to talk about those things on the front end when you're both right, calm and more, well, that then you have a plan and it's like, okay, so it's been a half an hour and I'm back. Yeah, the kids still need to get to school. I still need dinner. You know what? I still eat dinner like, Hey, hey, hey,  I didn't mean like that. I mean, we still need to have something to eat, and, you know, it might be peanut butter sandwiches tonight, but we need to have something to eat. Whatever it might be. So, yeah, that's that's helpful. And I appreciate you sharing what you have learned from your many clients over the years, over the decades and from your training, because most of us are, you know, just doing it alone because nobody talks about it, you know, So we don't even know if some of our friends who we might be able to have this conversation with are perhaps encountering the same or similar situations, and we could help each other out. So it's this is one of those boxes that's good to open and let some light in and and some air so that it can breathe. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:23:30] Yeah. Again, that's what I'm thinking is we plan this ahead. And yes, that's the Wellness Recovery Action Plan in In Motion. So I'm so glad that you said that. And maybe we link to that, you know, for this episode. You know, we either link to that podcast or we linked to the remember the whole can like template that we gave for the. 

Terry [00:23:50] And if we put depression or any mood disorder into the category of a medical illness. You know, it's preparing for its symptoms rearing their ugly head. You know we might have to carry an EpiPen because we know we might need it. Yes. And you know, it's that that same preparation that's putting it in the same category and not having it be some big, ugly secret thing that it's so easy for it to be. 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:24:17] Yeah. You know, nobody wants to be depressed under any circumstances, but to still feel like your family cares about you and wants you in whatever capacity that you can be there in that moment just is a little bit better. Feels a little bit, you know, like I have some value than if you're not a part of anything. You're isolating again in that darkness. So yeah, meeting somebody where they're at and with whatever they can do and really, if the only thing they can do is just, you know, sit while other people are doing things, but you're including them  and you want them to know that they're that they're wanted and needed and valued, that's really, really helpful. So that all or nothing thing, we have to we have to get rid of that. We go with what's like you said, what's the smallest step of what I can do? What can you do? 

Dr. Anita Sanz [00:25:15] We truly hope that our podcast brings a little more understanding, helps you better articulate and reflect on your own experience with depression, or better understand how to support someone else who is struggling. 

Terry [00:25:28] If this episode has been of comfort or value to you know that there are hundreds of others like it in our archive, which you can easily find at our website. Giving voice to depression.com. And remember if you are struggling, speak up. Even if it's hard if someone else is struggling, take the time to listen.