Q: I am needing help, guidance and steps to make some life changes. I need to get out of this depression I’m in. I don’t want to start taking anti-depressants as I feel they just cover up problems, not eliminate them. I also don’t like the side effects. I believe in counseling and I’ve always been a strong person and have always been able to make my life better with a strong will and determination. This is the first time in my life that I have felt so helpless and out of control. I can’t seem to make concrete decisions and make them stick.
My incentive to make my life better is when my 13 yr old daughter. Her counselor suggested that she needs to be on anti-depressants. This woke me up and gave me the incentive to make some changes.
Below are my stressors in my life:
-Caring for mother full-time. She is at home with me completely bed-ridden due to strokes, unable to move or speak, feeding tube and foley and is on Hospice.
· Raising a 13 yr old teenager daugher.
· 28 yr old son who is HIV positive ând lives with me and works full-time.
· 30 yr old son whom I don’t talk to anymore (drugs, alcohol and bi-polar)
· Ex-husband who stays in and out of my home (also depressed and alcoholic)
Everyone in my life, family and friends are all depressed and needy. They all come to me for help. I can’t turn them away if they need a place to stay. I feel overwhelmed and stressed out, just want to take care of me! Can’t tell them no, can’t tell them to move on. It’s just not in my character. I WANT CHANGES! Besides I can’t even find a job or keep a job but it’s no wonder if all this stress. So I let them stay with me so I can pay the bills. In my past I have found the best therapy for me has been group therapy with others in similar situations. Lot’s of good ideas and meet new interesting people I can relate with.
A: There’s a difference between being clinically depressed and overwhelmed by life. I don’t know if you have the first. I’m fairly certain you have the latter. You are trying to do far more than one person can reasonably do. It’s true that it would help if you were more assertive and able to insist on more help from your various family members. But even that takes energy. You need some practical help before you will have room for making any fundamental changes in how you think about things. So — I suggest that you talk to your mother’s doctor or the Hospice social worker about how to find out what services might be available for your various family members. Sometimes the best way to help other people is to find them some good help. You don’t need to do it all by yourself. There may be programs for your son with HIV, for your husband, and for your daughter. If you felt they had someone else to talk to about some of their issues, perhaps it would let you be “off duty” a bit. I hope you are being open with the Hospice workers about how hard it is to care for your mother. They can only help you if you are letting them know what you need.
Then - since you find groups helpful - I suggest you look into two: Al-anon to help you deal with your husband and NAMI (the national alliance for the mentally ill) to find a group of people who have family members challenged by mental illness. Both organizations have a reputation for running helpful and supportive groups for family members like yourself.
Finally, it probably wouldn’t hurt for you to be evaluated by a therapist to see if you really are clinically depressed as well as depleted. If so, you could then talk about whether medication might give you a little support while you work on dealing with your complicated life. If you don’t want to take medicine, it might just be helpful for you to have a therapist to talk to regularly to help you rethink how you are managing. Sometimes a situation doesn’t require people to work harder. Sometimes it helps a lot to work a little differently. Your therapist could help you figure out if there are some new ways to manage that would feel better.
I wish you well.
Dr. Marie
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