Stress Center Peer Support

Is anybody having trouble getting support from their spouse?

My spouse says, that I am to consumed with me and that I'm never there for her. For example, one night I went into our bedroom to listen to my relaxation tapes and when I was finished, I felt a lot better, however, when I walked back in to the family room, she was angry that I went to listen to my tapes and couldn't spend time talking. I said, I am free now and she said, it is all about you. Well, an hour later, I had an anxiety attack.

Is anybody finding it hard for their spouse to understand what you are struggling with. My wife says, well you should be better since you are on your medication. I have struggled with depression and anxiety for the last 31 years and I just turned 40.

I am in the same boat. My husband thinks there is no such thing as having anxiety like this and thinks I should be able to just snap out of it. He is not supportive at all he thinks all I think about is me. It's like he thinks I want to be like this and feel like crap all the time. I have many many anxiety attacks daily due to this. He is the reason I first started having a problem with anxiety. I can totally relate. What to do about it I have know idea.

My boyfriend use to torture me when my anxiety was bad. He use to actually get mad at me for feeling bad. He'd say that I was not fun anymore. He would come to my house and just look at me with a mad face. I got so irritated that I had to "put my foot down" and tell him that if he couldn't act like he loved me, then he has to go away. At least now, he acts like he cares. But I still remember all of the cruel things he's said and done, and I still have a hard time dealing with him although he says it's all in the past and he will never act that stupid again,and risk losing me. He does everything I ask and more, But, we probably won't last because I know what evil he's capable of.

AD,

I am sorry your spouse is not supportive. I can remember when I was in the thick of it all, YES it was ALL about me. I was scared, shook and needed to be comforted and reassured much for the time. At first that was needed from my spouse. From there I gained a little more confidence and needed less and less of his reassurance, but I still needed him to understand and be patience with me. I needed that time to work on me. I needed time to do the program, time to do the relaxation, time to take care of me and patience, compassion and understanding from him so that I could heal and become "me" again. His theory was if you work on bettering you that will make you stronger, make me stronger, make US stronger. We are only as strong as our weakest link...my husband understood this and knew the more loving, patient, encouraging, understanding he was this would better me, better us. He also listened to the program (sneaky me played the lessons on the home theatre pipped into the entire first floor of the house! We feel abandoned with anxiety because as life goes on all happy and normal for everyone else, here we sit thinking, fearing, shaking, feeling sick, etc. It is hard enough dealing with anxiety, but to have the person you love ridicule and discount you and your feelings, doubt the way you feel can bring on the more hopelessness and can leave one feeling more isolated, unloved, abandoned, rejected and alone.

This anxiety stuff is not fun. We cannot just snap out of it, wish it away though I can say my uncle told that to my aunt . He also said those pills are stupid, that pills are just covering up whatever "it" is. Pills are not a cure all, they allow one to function and help. I used time on pills to calm myself enough to work on the program. I needed that not only for me but for my husband, our marriage. Going through this program has strengthened not only me, but my husband, our marriage, our love, our relationships with family and friends. I got so much more out of this program than I ever thought possible when I started it scared and doubting.

I notice how so simple it is for people without this dreaded issue to judge and they are SO quick to say snap out of it or you are doing this on purpose or pills are just making you deny yourself or the pills "make" you feel better. Yeah the "magic" pills cure it all ! You are not like a car with a broken alternator! You just do not get "fixed"! A human with emotions, thought and feelings needs nurturing and understanding. THEY do not know how it really is suffering with anxiety and I HOPE for their sake they never feel those dreaded, scary physical symptoms. I also hope that an anxiety sufferers fears and feelings would not be mininalized to "snap out of it!" or that "you're being selfish!" It would be nice to just "pass" an anxiety episode or two for the critical non-sufferer to experience the "full monty" of what having an anxiety attack is like , then they may be a little more understanding, compassionate, patient.

Some people just will not get it until they get it. Until then, remain YOUR own best friend. Try hard not to take to heart what your spouse is saying or doing. They want the old person back, fully functioning and active, that is what they are used to. They have frustrations with this just as you are frustrated. Two frustrated people are bound to get on one anothers nerves. You want to be better and are trying/doing all you can and they just want you to snap out of it. Well that is going to take time, there is no overnight miracle. It is baby steps. Keep taking those steps for yourself. Your needs and feelings are not to be discounted! Do not deny yourself of this even if your spouse does. Take care of your needs...if you need a relaxation tape, GO DO IT. Maybe even ask if they would like to join you. Make they can use it too. Some people are wound too tight and just those 5-10 minutes of unwinding may help them too. Win-win here!

We live in an instant gratification society. We want it NOW. We want it to be perfect, we want easy. If things do not go smoothly and the way WE want, if it causes more work, more problems, more issues if it inconveniences us and we lose our patience. We want things OUR WAY! We want it now! But we can't control everything. The spouses that do not understand I would hope would step back and see this(and maybe listen to the program to gain realistic expectations for themselves and their loved one). The more they try to nag one "better", guilting the other person, saying things to make the other feel bad just makes the situation WORSE. As an anxiety sufferer you already have many self idealizations and pressures of how you should be, what you should be doing, what others expect and require of us (or what WE think they want or require of us) and most are unrealistic! That is WHY we end up in the spot to begin with. To put more fuel in the glowing embers is just stoking the fire.

I know it is hard, but try to deflect the negative attitudes as best you can. KNow that what you are doing, the time you are investing in yourself is WORTH it! YOU are worth it!

My spouse doesn't get it either. Bless his heart, he will listen to me but as soon as I stop talking he is out of there. He isn't trying to be unsupportive - he just doesn't know how to deal with it. He is so uncomfortable with any type of emotion. I don't fault him for that - I knew what I was marrying however, it makes it incredibly difficult for me. It is like I am in it alone even though I know that he would like to help.

I don't know if it is women in general, but I get the opinion from the tapes and from society at large that men are to be strong at all times, no weakness, especially not anxiety or depression. And if you lose your job and can't work, you are totally without worth. Those are the messages I had to overcome to get better.

The truth is we are doing the best we can and some of us had better life circumstances than others. Listen to your tapes when you decide to and forget about your wife's complaints. If you don't work on yourself, it can get bad enough that you won't have any love or energy to give to her period. Work the program, get better, and you'll have emotional energy for her and anyone else in your life.

No one has ever told me they believe in me or believe in my capabilities to rebound, but I did and I have again. The tapes and a few books were my salvation, literally, for crawling out of a hole of depression and getting off of anti-anxiety meds completely after being on them for 27 years. I've been free of them for 4.5 years and have never needed them since going off of them.

It's okay if our spouses don't support us. Forgive the perceived or real lack of support and seek to get better. We don't need anyone but ourselves. It sounds like the tapes are working for you. Great!!! Keep truckin'!! Good luck to you.

Don57,

Thank you for your kind words and support. This morning I woke up feeling very depressed. However, after reading your reply and others, I feel a lot better.

Hope to converse with you again!!! Take Care!!

AD

Glad it helped. This is what compassionate thinking does for us, it helps us recover. As we learn to give this to ourselves and believe in ourselves (have to stop beating ourselve up at the same time) we begin to recover. Friends on this forum helped me start being compassionate to myself. Please, please start being loving and compassionate to yourself, AD, no matter what the wife thinks or says. You do that and at some point her words will be rendered powerless and you'll find the ability to forgive her and love her inspite of herself.

This personally has happend to myself in the last month. I had regressed after leaving a job in late 2006. A small med change early this year is what has worked for me. (Made the adjustment myself, doc leaves it up to me, thank you very much) Now I'm feeling normal again and ready to look for work. However, my wife was never critical of me, never said anything negative to me. But, this last weekend on a trip I suggested I was being too negative and thought I had been for a while and asked for her input. She agreed. So I am working on that. I knew I had been a lot more up and didn't speak as negatively until about a year ago. Things have turned around with continuing to work the principles of the program plus meds.

My meds have been dropping for 4.5 years now. I was at 215mg a day then, now I'm at 40mg a day, a huge difference in my ability to think, exercise, decrease in appetite. It's taken me about 6 months to find the right level of meds again. In late May of last year I was on 70mg a day and knew I needed to decrease significantly. I'm on two anti-depressants, so which one or both do I decrease? It took me six months to figure it out. That was January of this year. Yeah!!! Feeling good again.

It's okay to be who you are, good traits and bad traits, we all are imperfect and all share both types of traits. I don't love everything about me, but I accept everything about me. I accept my darkside while seeking to improve. Make sense? Works for me! (Famous quote by Fred Dryer of former "Hunter" tv series from late 1980s and early 1990s) Keep truckin'. You will make it.

I think there are a lot of spousal dynamics that go into this topic. Some spouses are unable to be supportive because they either don't get it, or don't want to, some try but their way is not what we want (an opportunity to go back over the expectations CD), etc.

For me, my husband tried for a long time to be supportive but his way wa to try and "fix it" for me. So he would tell me I was fine, and that it would go away, and that I needed to just "stop thinking that way" (my anxiety is around illness and death---oh that I could just stop thinking that way!!!) So although he was trying the best that he could, I did not derive support from it and as a result I pushed him away from me. Over the past year I have finally begun to communicate better with him, and really explain what I feel and how he can best support me, and I can say that for the first time in a few years my husband is my best friend, my support system, and my inspiration.

I guess my point is that sometimes our spouses do not support us the way we would like because they do not really understand what we need from them. And communicating effectively when you have anxiety/depression is tough. I'd say keep trying, and don't give up on your significant others too quickly, unless you really know they are not for you.

Good luck!

Hi everyone. I was so happy to find the topic of spousel support. Just today I told my husband that I was starting this program. I told him that there was a dvd that was meant for spouses and family members so he could start to understnad what I am dealing with. There was no response. I have tried to talk to him about what I am going through and that, in and of itself is stressful. When I am upset he tells me to get my medication adjusted. I have trouble with driving and when we got the credit card statement one month it was a lot more than normal. That is because I avoid highways and bridges. He told me that I need to get over it because our gas bill should not be that much. There was a time a few months back when I had a bad panic attack. It took everything out of me. When he got home from work he wanted to go to Lowe's and get some stuff for the house that we were building. I told him that I had a bad panic attack a couple of days earlier and I told him I didn't know if I could even go inside of Lowe's. He just shrugged it off and said to or son, 'come on let's go.' He was going to leave me there, feeling aweful. All I needed was for him to say that he would help me get through this one little trip. And he didn't. So now on top of the anxiety I already deal with, I have this incredible anxiety everytime my husband comes home. He is a truck driver so that is mainly on the weekends. Now we are moved into our new house and I feel like I can't truly enjoy being here because I worry everytime he comes home. I think about what he might say to me this weekend to make me feel worse than I already do. It's so depressing to live this way. And I can not believe that as my husband he will not support me. It really makes me sad.

Any advice that you can give me would be greatly appreciated. I really don't know what my next move is. I need help. And I need someone to care.