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108
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Apr 21, 2022
✨POV✨: When loving is the easy part and the hard part is nurturing the relationship, you are questioning if it is even possible to overcome depression with someone by your side.
It is definitely possible.
Dealing with depression while in a relationship can be challenging, to say the least. A relationship, like any other aspect of our lives, takes effort and work to sustain. Unconditional love is an ideal we may strive to achieve someday, but until then, we have expectations and needs that deserve to be met, as do our loved ones.
Mental illnesses can pose a roadblock to developing and maintaining healthy relationships. Clinical depression affects every aspect of life, including the relationships in our life. Depression symptoms like social withdrawal, outbursts, loss of interest, and lack of motivation directly affect the energy one has to invest in the relationship. To know more about how depression affects relationships, click here.
One's mental energy reserves may entirely be redirected to surviving when dealing with mental health issues. This takes away from one's ability to meet needs, articulate their own needs and resolve any relationship issues that may crop up during that period.
The saving grace during tough mental health phases, for many people, may be their relationships. While for others, their relationships might be furthering the stress on their mental health and depression, with constant nagging thoughts like ‘I am not happy in this relationship’. Whichever our case is, relationships play an important role in mental health.
The road to take in such situations - if we're the ones struggling with depression or we are with someone who is struggling - is to build awareness and acceptance. Taking a step towards understanding mental health and its struggles opens many doors to mental health treatment(s).
difficulty sleeping talk therapy
Depression in Men 💔
Depression in men is receiving more and more attention as time passes. For a very long time, depression in men was thought to be uncommon, if not impossible. Today, that non-serving notion presents itself as high numbers of undiagnosed and untreated depression in men.
Severe depression (aka major depressive disorder) in men is a lot more common than other types of depression because depression in men has not been acknowledged or accepted until physical symptoms show up.
Other mental health symptoms like feeling sad, hopeless, helpless, or suicidal have, for very long, been perceived as signs of weakness by men themselves and society in general. And because such psychological symptoms have been dismissed, depression in men is often expressed as irritation, frustration, anger, or controlling behavior.
Our social way of being, which placed a man's ability to not be emotional in high regard, is now being undone so that the men in our lives can express themselves as human beings who are vulnerable and need help every once in a while.
🆘 If You Are Struggling With Depression
Reminder: Struggling with depression is not a sign of weakness.
Depression, in itself, is confusing enough. We are lost without stability within ourselves and without the energy to regain our equilibrium. When a relationship is added to this equation, it is even more confusing - do we tell our partner, do we need our partner to help us cope, and how do we excuse ourselves from meeting their needs while we figure our mental health out?
What It Can Look Like 🖼️
It can help the relationship a lot if we communicate to our partner that we are struggling and coping with depression - and hurt a lot if we don't.
Because depression is a subjective experience, our first instinct is to turn to ourselves and not burden anyone with our struggles. This turning away can look a little extreme to our partners, even though it might just seem like we're taking time off to catch our breath.
Because depression makes us more sensitive to the world around us, we may need more love and support from our partners. We may hope that our partner intuitively understands our minds and knows how to help us when we are going through a depressive spell. And when our needs are not met, because the stakes are higher, we can get extremely disheartened and question the value of our partnership. Communicating our needs, especially in a testing time like this, can help build intimacy with our partners, not to mention having more of our needs met.
Because depression involves a lot of overthinking, negative thoughts, and stigma, we may tend to villanize our loved ones whenever something goes wrong or when we feel triggered. This may lead us to pick up negative coping mechanisms to subdue our emotions. We may blame, shame, stonewall, or gaslight our partner in the heat of the moment. In such moments, it's important to realize that it's the depression talking and not us and make sure our partners understand that. Even though these are common coping mechanisms, we need to unlearn them because they can be quite damaging to our loved ones. We all make mistakes, the key is to take accountability, and accept and learn from them.
🫂 If Your Partner Is Struggling With Depression
Our mental health is also equally important and as much as we want to be there for our partner, we cannot pour from an empty cup.
When our loved one is dealing with depression, we are affected too. At times, we may understand their patterns better than they do themselves. And we may be tempted to relay all our observations and suggestions, with the purest of intentions at heart, but many times, it can backfire. Because depression has a stronghold on our partner's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, we need to be gentle in breaking down the mirrored bubble. Straightforward solutions (as effective as they may seem to us) may not be the need of the hour for our loved ones within the hurricane inside their minds.
Our greatest role in helping our loved ones cope with depression is in being there. Because depression is an individual experience and challenge, showing solidarity and support can be a tipping point in healing. And to be there, we need to be there for ourselves. Our mental health is also stressed when we see a loved one struggle to enjoy life and its glimmers. So, when we find stability within ourselves and remind ourselves of all the great moments of love shared between the two of us, we are more able to authentically be there and of support.
How Relationships Can Help Treat Depression 🤝
Connection and intimacy in relationships have a therapeutic effect. They can act as a cushion to the spiraling effect of depression. This is the reason that a type of talk therapy, known as interpersonal therapy, is designed to harness the healing power of healthy relationships.
To know more about healthy relationships heal depression, click here.
Last Word on Mental Health 🤍
Love is all you need. Word.
Once there’s love, we step up and learn the best way to love.
Throughout history, love and war are seen as contraries that cannot be separated. Everything is fair in love and war. But it may be noted here that it is in such war situations that love is the sweetest and warmest, enough to keep the soldier's spirit ablaze.
And because depression is a war-like situation, connection & intimacy hold a great place in the healing journey of depression.
Note on Mental Disorders 🚩
If you have depressive symptoms or thoughts of self-harm, please use the NIHM (National Institute of Mental Health) national suicide prevention lifeline or contact a mental health professional to seek treatment options for treating depression.
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