How does your anxiety affect your partner

[Johno]

I have just joined the forum to help me get through my problem with Anxiety and Depression. I have been married for 30 years this May and have been supported all this time by my fantastic wife. I have only just accepted that I am suffering from Anxiety and Depression and have been off work for just over 4 weeks, taking citalopram and having some therapy/counselling. I have never had this time off work sick and feel that I am letting lots of people down although an incident at work has triggered off this breakdown. I was in the Army for 26 years and then retired I started what I thought would be a stress free job and would be relaxing.

Unfortunatley my job is not like that and everything became too much on 11 May 11.

Since then my wife has taken the brunt of everthing and she asked me if anybodies partners where getting stressed by all the deep feelings that you have or found themselves needed to go to the Doctors for help.

Each day she worries about how I am and phones me to find out what I,m doing. I walk my dogs and go running.

Anybody got any tips or survival kit to help their loveones

[snowgoose]

Hello,Johno

so sorry to hear you are having a horrid time ...it is so bewildering when it comes out the blue .so scary and unexpected..but if you read here so common as well .

excellent you are getting meds and counselling ....believe me you will get better honest .....it took time to get you to this place of distress .......and takes time to get well . patience my friend...........and talk here ....educate yourself on the journey .

your wife will be anxious too of course ........if she wants to chat here to maybe?
i will say to her now .that I know hard it is for a partner to cope with this ....the feelings are hard while she supports you .
I am close to my husband but sometimes we cannot help each other ...we need support outside our little unit

if your partner wants to chat .........am always about usually and she can PM me anytime for a chat or my view on stuff . or just a cyber hug ....which she can pass on to you .
take care
xxx

[whizzzy]

Hi Johno, I have been suffering depresion for the last two years but only in the last coulpe of weeks come to terms with that and am now on day six of Citalopram and xanax going full dose 40mg tomorrow. Its been very hard on my wife of 8 years she has had her own problems and upsets to deal with in the past years and my condition has not helped much we have argued a lot about the fact that i always see the negative side of almost everything that i worries about things that are totally unnecessary and rarely have and thing positive to say, since seeing a doctor and getting meds she has been wonderful and supportive and happy in the fact that this all something we can fix and that i`m not just a grumpy old *******, the man she married was full of life happy go lucky positive and always made her laugh i really hope this guy comes back soon and that i get rid of this mozzarella face as i really don`t know how much more she can take. I know its still early with the meds but i am starting to feel slightly better.
How have you found your first month on Citalopram?
I told my wife i was going to post on here which she thought a good idea i need to talk to someone as i have no real friends here in Greece and i don`t want to bring her down talking about how i`m doing today, she has just opened a new shop and doing very well so she is on a high and i`m on a low, i am trying hard to share her excitement. Bring on the drugs and lets get better for all our sakes.
Let me know how your getting on and if you need to talk i`m listening.
All the best.

[Johno]

Hello,Johno

so sorry to hear you are having a horrid time ...it is so bewildering when it comes out the blue .so scary and unexpected..but if you read here so common as well .

excellent you are getting meds and counselling ....believe me you will get better honest .....it took time to get you to this place of distress .......and takes time to get well . patience my friend...........and talk here ....educate yourself on the journey .

your wife will be anxious too of course ........if she wants to chat here to maybe?
i will say to her now .that I know hard it is for a partner to cope with this ....the feelings are hard while she supports you .
I am close to my husband but sometimes we cannot help each other ...we need support outside our little unit

if your partner wants to chat .........am always about usually and she can PM me anytime for a chat or my view on stuff . or just a cyber hug ....which she can pass on to you .
take care
xxx

Hi Snowgoose thanks for your kind words I have shown my wife your reply and she realy appreciates what you have said. Today has been somewhat better as my wife was on day off from work so we were able to go out together and it was very enjoyable. We talk alot together about most things and has had to cope with how I have felt for years and I am lucky that she has stayed with me as I realise now that I have been pretty horrible.I am sure she would like to chat etc but at the moment I am the only one that has joined this forum. I have not been with for 5 days yet so cannot go into the chat room.

[Johno]

Hi Johno, I have been suffering depresion for the last two years but only in the last coulpe of weeks come to terms with that and am now on day six of Citalopram and xanax going full dose 40mg tomorrow. Its been very hard on my wife of 8 years she has had her own problems and upsets to deal with in the past years and my condition has not helped much we have argued a lot about the fact that i always see the negative side of almost everything that i worries about things that are totally unnecessary and rarely have and thing positive to say, since seeing a doctor and getting meds she has been wonderful and supportive and happy in the fact that this all something we can fix and that i`m not just a grumpy old *******, the man she married was full of life happy go lucky positive and always made her laugh i really hope this guy comes back soon and that i get rid of this mozzarella face as i really don`t know how much more she can take. I know its still early with the meds but i am starting to feel slightly better.


How have you found your first month on Citalopram?
I told my wife i was going to post on here which she thought a good idea i need to talk to someone as i have no real friends here in Greece and i don`t want to bring her down talking about how i`m doing today, she has just opened a new shop and doing very well so she is on a high and i`m on a low, i am trying hard to share her excitement. Bring on the drugs and lets get better for all our sakes.
Let me know how your getting on and if you need to talk i`m listening.
All the best.

Hi Whizzy,

Your story is so much like mine. When everything started to fall apart I was still very reluctant to accept that I needed to go to the Doctors, get time off and take meds as I thought that how I was, was the normal me. I have always found lots of negatives when do lots of positive things especially when we go away on holiday and could easily ruin it by with that attitude. I realise now that you have to make the best of every day of your life and hopefully the Citalopram will push my happiness up to that level where I do not get upset or anxious when small things go wrong. I am the same as you regarding friends as although we have lived for 20 years in the same town I do not have real close friends, only work coleagues. My wife is my best friend but sometimes I realy push her too much.

With regard to the Citalopram the first few days on 10mgs was fairly bad, headaches, terrible stomach, feeling hungry, spaced out and panicky, fidgety,slurred speech, being forgetful and clumsey. Also I started to feel neutral sort of neither up or down and not realy worrying too much about things. After two weeks of sleeping bad and being angry and suicidal sometimes I went to the Doctors and he upped it to 20mg. When the amount changed for a few days I went through the same side effects as before but after two weeks things seem to be a bit better. I am now up to 5 weeks and am hoping to go back to work in two weeks time. My Doctor says that the meds can take 4 weeks or more to work and I think when you change the doseage that that takes time to work also.

I am happy for your wife and that she is doing well perhaps you could make her a nice meal as a way of thanking her for her support. I now exactly what you mean about trying to get Mr Happy back as its hard to remember what that was like. Lots of people say that Citaolpram is good but you do realise I hope that you have to stick with it for months as to come off can cause you terrible anxiety problems. I have always avoided tablets and loathe take paracetamal but am happy to take my 20mg tablet each day as I am little scared that I will drift backwards if I miss it.

Anyway keep positive I know that when I talk to my wife about how Iam feeling It seems like its me me me so I ask her how she is. When she is at work I go and see her when I walk my dogs.

I will keep an eye on this thread for any replies and we can talk again.

[Tyke]

Hi Johno

It is tough for our partners, I think the best thing we can do is just see that they can have plenty of support too, time with their friends, a bit of pampering, lots of nice treats, anything to keep their spirits up while we concentrate on the important job of getting ourselves better so that things can return to some kind of normality.

Tyke

[Johno]

Hi Tyke,

Excellent you are right a bit of pampering will go a long way. I have had a good day, got stuck into cleaning the extractor on our cooker. It was realy greasy but all clean now. Had a bit of time with my youngest son who is on leave prior to going to Germany on posting. Helped him with his car changing a bulb. Cooked tea for every body that was very pleasing my wife was pleased.

[snowgoose]

Hi Johno

good days work ..........and distraction .........heck cooker extractor ?

your son is in the armed forces too ? bet he enjoyed the time with you fixing car and talking ..........the little things that bond .
you and your wife have obviously strong bond and love ....she will be fine as long as you keep talking about how you feel and tell her you love her and appreciate her
you have been together a long time and will come through this .
now then get pics of dogs on pet thread Johno ......

and you look after you as well xx

[ScaredCaz]

Hi Johno. Sorry to read about your problems hope things are getting better for you. I know it has been a while since you posted this but I just had to reply my husband is having depression at the minute and to be honest for the most part I have found it quite hard mainly because of his behaviour I have a thread on here called "please any thoughts" if you would like to read it. I have found it very hard to deal with how he talks to me and how he behaves around me and the kids sometimes. I also feel guilty because I feel like I am being selfish if you read my thread you will understand I hope youu get better soon :-)

[Johno]

Hi Johno

good days work ..........and distraction .........heck cooker extractor ?

your son is in the armed forces too ? bet he enjoyed the time with you fixing car and talking ..........the little things that bond .
you and your wife have obviously strong bond and love ....she will be fine as long as you keep talking about how you feel and tell her you love her and appreciate her
you have been together a long time and will come through this .
now then get pics of dogs on pet thread Johno ......

and you look after you as well xx

Hi Snowgoose,

Thanks for those very kind words. The extractor was challenging but I got it done an am well chuffed. My wife and I are in bed today as we both have dodgy tummies, my other two sons are fine so have no idea where it has come from. She had to phone in sick. We keep talking and I am tyring to be calmer. I will get some pics of our dogs from other computer in a few days.