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Dear Asrianna,
I’ve been married to a wonderful woman for nearly thirty years. She’s creative, dynamic, a loving wife and mother and a hard worker. To the outsider she’s confident, funny, strong-willed, and engaging. But the truth is that as long as I’ve known her she’s struggled with severe depression. At times she completely withdraws and except for her work and the daily interaction with our daughter, she hardly talks, eats, or shows the slightest sign of enjoyment in any other area of her life.
It tears me up inside to see how devastated she often feels and I don’t know what to do to help her. I see her as exceptionally courageous because I know what it sometimes takes for her just to get out of bed in the morning. From what I’ve read some people can’t even function on a daily level when severely depressed and yet she gets up and puts on a warm, receptive face even when it takes everything she has to do it.
I’m not writing this because I’m an unhappy husband. She tries very hard to show me I’m loved and the guilt she feels over her depression and how it limits her is so sad. Sometimes I get so angry over how unfair this is and I want to just strangle something, but of course there’s nothing and no one to hold accountable. We can’t tell our family because in the past whenever we’ve attempted it, they respond by disbelief (“Oh but she always seems so upbeat!”), or simplistic ways of fixing it by “thinking positive.”
What can I do to help this remarkable woman? How can I make her see the beauty in herself? Is she, as she often says, doomed to this for the rest of her life? She’s on medication and sees a wonderful therapist, but is this the best it’s going to be?
Signed, Desperate to help
Dear Desperate,
A 2008 National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) statistical analysis found that roughly four and a half percent of adult Americans experience some form of serious mental illness. Approximately twice as many women are affected as men, and a growing segment of sufferers are those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. And all indications are that this trend is growing rather than diminishing. While this points directly to the populace with mental health problems, it doesn’t begin to factor in the toll it places on loved ones and care-givers.
With this admittedly limited data in mind, one of the first things any support person can do—and you’ve already addressed this in your letter—is to get the depressed individual professional help. This holds its own difficulties as it’s not always clear to those involved that depression or mental illness is present. There are many online sites providing checklists to help identify depression or other forms of mental illness. While I don’t intend to promote one site as superior to another, the NIMH or WebMD websites offer checklists to help identify a need for assistance.
So many people simply suffer silently, feeling that chronic depression is a character flaw or weakness. Getting professional help, which can include medical evaluations, various forms of licensed mental health therapy, as well as complimentary methods of healing is a vital part of moving toward health and understanding and can diminish the personal feelings of shame and immobility that so many who experience depression can feel.
While I’m quick to note that I’m neither a physician nor a licensed mental health provider, over three decades of psychic mediumship work with my wonderful clients has taught me that almost inevitably those who suffer depression—and I’m just speaking of depression now—are those individuals of high emotional sensitivity, possessors of immense gifts of the heart. I’m not speaking of the way our culture typically uses the word “sensitivity,” which often translates to being made to feel over-sensitive, over-dramatic, or overly prone to taking things too seriously. Those implied character flaws are nothing more than ways of continuing to blame the sufferer and do nothing to promote wellness and joy.
Rather, the sensitive spirit first processes everything through the heart rather than the intellect. In talking to countless people with emotional ways of sensing the world, I’m struck by their compassion, love, empathy and care. They often shoulder an inordinate and additional burden of sadness because their caring can be irresistible to those who need help, guidance, or simply non-judgmental listening and understanding.
Yet this deeply feeling individual often pays a high price. They take on others’ suffering as if it was their own, and in doing so can see the world as a place of potential pain and struggle. These are often people who find it difficult to be in busy places, locales with too many people or sensory stimuli. This isn’t a weakness, rather it’s a very real sign that they’re wide-open to the emotional energy around them and lack a protective filter helping them to remain calm and centered.
Know that this isn’t to throw the towel of “what causes mental illness, nature or nurture,” into one camp or the other. It’s my personal belief that for the foreseeable future we’re unlikely to be able to say with confidence that an individual is either born with a physical propensity toward mental illness or that, conversely, they were raised in a manner that created mental problems. More than likely it’s a combination, but I certainly believe that the emotional sensitivity that I’ve spoken of is a part of that mysterious mix.
You’ve already seen that along with her depression your wife possesses amazing gifts. Those, too, are often an accompaniment to emotional sensitivity. One woman I knew many years ago, in talking about her chronic depression, said that it wasn’t that she saw the world as anything other than beautiful and miraculous, it’s just that she felt it was a party she wasn’t invited to. This same woman could lose herself in true moments of bliss over the unfurling of a flower, her grandchild’s giggle, or a hawk flying overhead. Yet her moments of despair were profound and it took everything she had to endure them.
You already know this, dear Desperate, and your wife is blessed to have a companion who sees beyond her depression to the heart of her precious nature. One of the first things I’m going to suggest in your path of nurturance for you wife, is that you take care of your own nature and needs. This often seems counter-intuitive for a care-giver, but the “well” analogy is never so appropriate as in this situation. If you can see yourself as a deep well from which thirst-quenching water is drawn, then you’ll understand an empty well cannot provide sustenance no matter how many times the bucket is lowered.
You’re not being disloyal to your wife’s suffering by engaging in life sustaining moments. Indeed many depressed individuals speak of the guilt they feel in seeing their loved ones’ sacrifices, in recognizing the effects their mental illness has on others. I’m not suggesting physically leaving your wife, if she’s in an emotional crisis leading to potential self-harm. Yet there are times when it’s a necessary priority to do something that lightens and enlivens your precious heart and soul.
Not only does this fill your personal energetic well, but it also offers the very real opportunity of drawing your wife into her own moments of refreshment and healing as she sees the joy it affords you. Sometimes when the heart feels bleak it sees only the darkness and that becomes the single reality. You can provide a counter-balance to this one-sided viewpoint.
There are so many variables to this dynamic, so many types and levels of mental suffering. I can’t possibly cover every potentiality or avenue of action. Yet, a frequent frustration depressed individuals talk about is the burden of trying to verbalize their pain, especially if they believe they need to somehow alleviate their loved ones’ fear. While getting professional help is crucial, sometimes the greatest gift you can give your wife will be your loving presence.
It’s normal to want to fix her problems. It isn’t always possible nor the most beneficial avenue of healing, however. So let her know you’re there for her, be patient in allowing her to find her own way of expression, don’t offer quick, meaningless platitudes out of a desperation to say anything, and affirm her courageous effort at healing and growth. Throughout it all, do not give up hope. Take care of yourself and don’t forget your own need for happiness.
No one, not a psychic, not a licensed health professional can predict your wife’s future, but I’ve learned the greatest peace often comes on the heels of the greatest challenges. May you both find that joy.
Many blessings, Asrianna
Asrianna Dameron is a Psychic Medium, a Certified Hypnotherapist, and a Certified Past Life Regressionist in private practice. She offers individual sessions and gallery readings as well as workshops and speaking engagements on the topics of Psychic Development, Mediumship, Energy Management and Shamanic Healing. Asrianna can be reached and your questions answered at
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, by visiting her website at www.asrianna.com, by visiting her at Facebook, or by calling (603) 892-1268.