Re: Am I helping or hurting?

[Guest guest]

The best thing you can do for him is love him and guide him to support groups

where he can talk to someone who understands what he's going through. As a

person who lives with fairly disabling pain in the back, I can't work but I do

try to enjoy life at home. I can tell you that I began to understand myself when

I got involved with a support group and sought out therapy and help with my

depression.

Depression and pain make a person feel useless and sometimes drives a person to

suicide. I just needed to ask for help.

Jennette

>justeccentric42 wrote:

I have two very different questions as a spouse of a person with chronic pain,

so am going to post them separately. However, they are somewhat cross-related

so am mentioning it here.

[Guest guest]

I agree with Jenette. You need to honest with him that you are concerned about

his depressed mood.

Tell him that pain is worse if you all do is lie around and think about your

pain. Activity will help manage the pain better.

I set myself at least one goal to accomplish each day. Slowly I

have been able to become more active. I now volunteer as a fire police officer

and am working on re-certifying my EMT.

I was in the same place as your husband. I became more and more miserable and

feeling sorry for myself. The less I did, the more

I felt that I couldn't do anything.

Tell your husband to check out the site butyoudon'tlooksick.com

It is great site for all types of chronic conditions. He may find some

suggestions for managing his pain and support. He will see that he is not alone.

See if he will talk to his primary doctor about his depression.

Hope this is a help.

Tami

--- TIA wrote:

> But I have to wonder if I'm just enabling him to lie around every day feeling

sorry for himself. I've asked him to voluntarily take

on more, and he says he will, but for each individual task either there's a

reason why " not that one " or he says he will, but doesn't. He's significantly

depressed but refuses to take antidepressants,

see a psychiatrist, see a psychologist or join a support group.

>

> For these and other reasons I'm just about ready to call the marriage quits.

But I can't do that until I'm sure I've tried everything to make it work.