Depression Caregivers Need Support, Too

Al-Anon has been providing support to relatives and friends of alcoholics for 60 years. Support groups are also available for Alzheimer’s caregivers. Dementia caregivers can quickly go online and find support, too. But if there is a support group for those who are married to or live with people battling depression, I’m not aware of it. Maybe there needs to be.
My wife could probably use it because I am too often preoccupied with my own challenges to give her the emotional support she needs, which she needs now more than ever. Her mother is undergoing chemotherapy treatments for cancer. Yet too often, I’m not there for her, even when I am there for her.

Those who suffer from depression and anxiety know what I mean. We get so caught up in fighting depression, which can be a tiresome, sometimes daily battle, that we forget about the needs of our loved ones. Just the other night, with the kids already in bed, my wife and I finally had a few minutes to catch up. She hadn’t been feeling particularly good, but instead of asking her how she was doing, I unloaded the difficulties of my day on her. She never had a chance to tell me how she was coping, a fact she brought to my attention a few days later. That made me feel small, and I could do nothing but apologize and promise to do better.

Helping Others Helps Us, Too

One of the sad realities of depression is that it can turn us into selfish beings. It’s not that we don’t want to help others, which is one of the very things therapists will tell you can help depression. We just tend to build walls around us for self-protection. It’s not that we are selfish, we just suffer from a maddening mental illness that tends to make us more insular and less emotionally available.

I’m grateful that my wife does have a support group of sorts, even if they don’t know it. She has a cadre of close friends who go out for coffee or meet for lunch at least once a week. And I encourage it. It’s cheap therapy.

Events of the past week have shown me that’s not enough, though. I can’t just assume that the chance to get together with other women and talk about her troubles is enough for my wife, who has been key to my recovery from mental illness. She needs me as much as I need her, but it’s too often been a one-way street in the wrong direction. Maybe being there for her—really being there—needs to be my New Year’s resolution. And who knows? It just might make me feel better, too.