[Khym]

Most of my adult life I have been involved in care giving for someone I loved. My first wife had a neurological condition that didn't appear until some years after we were married. She eventually died from it. My present wife is bi-polar and has several medical conditions, all of which have left her so incapacitated that I'm unable to care for her. She lives in a nursing home. Even if I were able to give her all the care the nursing home staff do, which btw, has been excellent, I'm too emotionally exhausted to do so. I don't have anything left to give to the relationship and, I'm mentally unwell myself. I also had myself maneuvered into quitting a good paying job I had for years. Admittedly, I wasn't doing the job as well as I had been before my wife became so sick and I was a difficult employee for the Administration to deal with but the circumstances of my departure were badly handled and they still do bother me. On top of everything else, I've always been depressed and have suffered from it for years. These days, however, what with all that has been going on, the depression is worse than ever. I have regular counseling and participate in a support group for the friends and families of the mentally ill. I have been on various medications but currently I'm just using things like rhodiala, holy basil and the like. I guess they help but I'm not certain even massive doses of prozac would lift the mood I've had for the past couple of years. In addition to depression and all the symptoms that come with it I'm anxious about everything and feel as if any of the good relationships I have with people who are important to me are in imminent danger of collapsing due to my unhappy history and messy emotional state.

[Sam2]

Originally Posted by Khym

Most of my adult life I have been involved in care giving for someone I loved. My first wife had a neurological condition that didn't appear until some years after we were married. She eventually died from it. My present wife is bi-polar and has several medical conditions, all of which have left her so incapacitated that I'm unable to care for her. She lives in a nursing home. Even if I were able to give her all the care the nursing home staff do, which btw, has been excellent, I'm too emotionally exhausted to do so. I don't have anything left to give to the relationship and, I'm mentally unwell myself. I also had myself maneuvered into quitting a good paying job I had for years. Admittedly, I wasn't doing the job as well as I had been before my wife became so sick and I was a difficult employee for the Administration to deal with but the circumstances of my departure were badly handled and they still do bother me. On top of everything else, I've always been depressed and have suffered from it for years. These days, however, what with all that has been going on, the depression is worse than ever. I have regular counseling and participate in a support group for the friends and families of the mentally ill. I have been on various medications but currently I'm just using things like rhodiala, holy basil and the like. I guess they help but I'm not certain even massive doses of prozac would lift the mood I've had for the past couple of years. In addition to depression and all the symptoms that come with it I'm anxious about everything and feel as if any of the good relationships I have with people who are important to me are in imminent danger of collapsing due to my unhappy history and messy emotional state.

Its a shame that companies are still fairly clueless as far as working with people who have personal problems. Caring for someone who is ill, either physically or mentally can take its toll. When you have your own problems on top of it, I don't know how you do it.

I don't blame you for being anxious about any relationships collapsing. Most people are either scared or problems, don't know how to handle them, or just plain don't want to hear about it. In the beginning, friends are willing to stand by you, but when the problem doesn't go away, they start to back off. That is when you find out who your real friends are. If you are feeling guilty about your second wife being in a nursing home, don't. There is no way that someone so profoundly effected can be safely cared for at home, even by someone who is emotionally sound.

Your comment about not having anything left to give to a relationship is something I can relate to. Though I miss having a family, between the depression and chronic pain, there just isn't anything left to offer. It can be a lonely existence.

Right now, you need to get yourself back on your feet. Even if it sounds selfish, its not. You can't help anyone else if you don't have your own peace of mind. We are so used to Dr.s knowing what to do with our physical problems, its frustrating that so much of our emotional pain goes undiagnosed or there is nothing that seems to work. All we can do is keep going forward and try not to give in when things get bad.

Sam2

[Rohag]

Originally Posted by Sam2

Right now, you need to get yourself back on your feet. Even if it sounds selfish, its not. You can't help anyone else if you don't have your own peace of mind.

Sam2 says it perfectly.

Originally Posted by Khym

...I'm anxious about everything and feel as if any of the good relationships I have with people who are important to me are in imminent danger of collapsing due to my unhappy history and messy emotional state.

Are these important people - or some of them - the kind of folks who would respond sympathetically to your sharing a bit of your situation with them? I do realize different people have varying capacities for honesty from friends.

[Khym]

At first I was anxious about my wife finding a means to force her way back home but recently she told her care team, with me present, that she knows she will never go home. Having been afraid she was going to come back I should have been grateful to hear this but all it did was make me sad. Now I really am going to be alone, again. My friends, pretty much all women and pretty much all people I've known for years and shared my problems with or listened to their problems, are sympathetic but there isn't anything they really can do that will rid me of the sadness I feel most of the time. I have interests, activities, mundane chores and daily needs I can tend to but none of them do more than just distract me for short periods of time before the depression comes roaring back into my life like a storm. The idea of being alone with only this as company is not pleasant.