Dealing with depression is painful. I clearly distinguish here what I personally would better call a 'crisis' - and which in common use is often also named a depression, or sometimes depressive episode, though it is not.
Crisis is to learn from, to go through a valley in order to find the trail, to reach and conquer the hill or mountain on the other side. Sometimes that goes deep and sometimes it creates a feeling as if there was nothing but this deep, shady place. But it is necessary to know the shade in order to search for the sun and what you in the future want to go for. It is healing, because we can leave and bury lots of unnecessary stuff in the valley, and lighten our luggage for the crescent on the other side.
Depression is different. Depression is when people simply don't get out of a life crisis which is meant as a phase only and for growing, and they get stuck where they are, repeating to themselves the same old mantras someone or themselves has at a point in their lifes placed into their heads and which they are unable to replace.
It is a pitiful estate, and when this hits people around you whom you love, you as an observer once more realize that there is simply nothing, nothing at all you can do to help the other one and the only control in life is the control we may have over our selves.
But we have no control over what others make from their lives and which ways the choose. They always need to go their very own ways, and it's only them who choose. Even if you both are the closest persons on this planet ever, every one has his/ her own growth challenges to face.
I found an article which expresses very well this estate.
'When a Depressed Spouse Refuses Help
You see they are in the hole and try to help without falling in yourself. Up around the edge of the hole, you find a few things that look useful. There’s a map of how other people have gotten out of similar holes, showing footholds and good ways to make the climb up. You find a long rope with knots, which looks like it could hold your spouse’s weight. You also find a few shovels that they could use to change the shape of the hole and more easily climb out themselves. It seems there are other possibly useful things around the hole as you keep looking, but you are sure one of these will work.
You tell your spouse about all these solutions up here at the top of the hole, hoping to provide some encouragement. It is dark down there and they are feeling lonely.
You throw the rope down and tell them how you think they could use it to climb up. You assure them that you and others will hold it tightly as they climb up the knots.
Your spouse tosses the rope back up. Says there’s no way.
Confused but undetered, you toss down the map of how others have climbed there way out of holes like this. You explain that the directions are thorough and they just need to follow them. You will be up at the top making sure the way stays clear of any falling rocks or dirt, and will be ready to grab their hand when they get to the top.
Your spouse tosses the map back up. Says that won’t work.
You are feeling a little scared now, but also more confused. Even a little angry. How do they expect to get up if they won’t try something? You finally toss down the last thing in your hands – the shovel. You say that the dirt looks pretty soft in some places and they could probably scoop it in such a way that they could climb on top of it and get out.
Your spouse tosses the shovel back. Says they won’t do that.
The only solutions that would have worked were if the hole didn’t exist in the first place, or if the ground shifted and made the hole shallower. They can’t possibly do anything to get out themselves.
Well, now what? If your spouse won’t come out, do you and your family just try to live close to the hole now? Do you keep throwing things down hoping something will work eventually? You don’t want to abandon them down there. But you feel torn. Your and your kids want to do things that require you to move away from the hole, things your spouse would have done, too. Except now they won’t come out unless a very unlikely or impossible solution comes along.
This isn’t pretty, but it is a problem many people with depressed spouses or partners face.
Depression and other personality traits can trap a person in their own prison. Outside influence seems to have little effect on them coming out. It’s frustrating and can be even depressing for the healthy spouse.
They are losing their life partner right in front of their eyes and can do nothing about it.'
That's exactly what it means. And it is damned hard to deal with it.
You can - I can - do absolutely nothing about it. Every try I give it just ends up in the same kind of dead end discussion.
I have seen close persons talking to me, talking completely disconnected stuff, I was pondering about what all this now has to do with me whom he is 'communicating with' and the current situation, just to find out that the person was caught only inside himself. Realizing this, I at that very moment literally saw the blinds behind his eyes, the shade that made it impossible for that person to use his eyes to look 'outside'. That one is caught, and though outside turning to another human, inside he is completely alone. He is not communicating. He is only talking to himself and his ghosts in his head.
In another case it happened that in a discussion I realized that the person is not at all addressing me, but he was similarly 'blinded' and in fact he was inside himself talking to his mother - with me as the physical person in front of him. When you realize such during a discussion, the discussion gets really weird. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to steer it into another, a constructive direction.
And now, I am experiencing the same again. A man, intelligent, in principle of high integrity though obviously torn at a point, a wonderful soul, the one I have been seeking for all my life. When it is about certain subjects, he is switching to a certain mode where it becomes clear that it is not me, the one in front of him, whom he is addressing at all while he is covering me with allegations which have nothing to do with me at all.
Falling into the trap myself to then try to discuss differentiatedly and to unravel the threads, I at last have to find that it is impossible because he understands only what the ghosts in his head say - black & white -, who ever that are and where ever they derive from. Then I can listen but with every additional word exchanged, I will once more find that he absolutely does not get what I say because he is in his very own seclusion. He only hears what his inner voices, the other person(s) he is in principle discussing with, put into his ears - but has me physically in front of himself. At a point, he will mess me up with the ghosts and accuse me that for me there is only black & white. I can exhaust myself to then, again, try to get him back on what really was talked about, with all grey scales and conditional sentences, but he simply will only more project from that point on (mostly, as I realize now, that point
is before our talk). In principle there is a kind of triangle relation where unfortunately HE does not realize anymore who is who. He is disconnected, communication is done. He is in himself, and lost connection to the world that surrounds him. Detached. Alone. All alone. And I am, too - all alone.
Painful.
I am sorry that I have no recipe for a way out. It is always only the one who suffers from that, who alone can make up his mind to go for a change. Only that person, and no one else.
In the meantime, the ones who love can only rely on themselves, love and know.
Life goes on, every day is a precious present. There are children and others who need strength. I need to remind myself of my strength, having clearly decided at a point in my life that I won't ever any more go for a relationship which is no part-nership, where the balance is uneven for long, long term and which only brings both people down in the end by more and more hurting each other. Love is for sharing - experiences, love, joy, or as usually phrased 'the good and the bad times' but not for creating bad times continuously - as if it was not allowed to be
happy together.
Having for long and many times been sacrificed for ghosts, been pushed into others' deep dips myself which hinder me to move forward.
(Maybe it looks funny for them seeing others crawling down there where they spend their lives?) I have each time regained my powers, climbed out of that, lost of loss of energies. But I survived. I know how to spread my wings again but I also know how deep and desperate it feels down there. It is unbelievably terrible if you have all your senses together. Maybe that is then why many choose to loose their senses. That, please don't laugh, happens indeed.
There is no direct way of getting the beloved one out of his very personal pit.
Sometimes, forgive me that thought, I actually get the impression they have quite conveniently arranged their lives in there. That they don't see what's going on beyond - well, maybe they don't know, or simply also
don't want to know? Maybe they are afraid to use their legs for walking, their arms to embrace the world, their backs to stretch up high and their eyes for looking around? Maybe it frightens them to stretch their limbs and feel, really
feel the difference?
No way making someone understand that there are solutions if they don't want to see any. No way to push someone to being a man - or woman, respectively. Despite all the love that is there for him (or her).
He must want it. He must do it. He must choose to walk upright, not hide in his pit in the face of life's challenges like a rabbit in the face of a hawk.
And there is nothing, simply nothing I could do about it.
At that stage, it seems I only can let go.
And that last part is damned, damned, damned, damned hard.
Lyn
