YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Emotionally, I feel miserable. I came into work early to make up for goofing off the last two days, and guess what? I didn't do a damn thing... I was listening to the Tyler Smith episode yesterday and while I usually get a small lift out of the show, I found myself getting more depressed. It mainly came when Tyler was talking about how he shared his thoughts and feelings with his wife and she supported him and said she'd get behind him with whatever he chose. I had a somewhat similar conversation with my wife a few weeks back and told her that I wanted to get on medication and she flat out said she would not support me in any way, shape, or form.

I'm sympathetic to her reasons; she had a friend who committed suicide shortly after beginning to take meds, and another who ruined her life basically while on meds. My wife isn't as scientifically minded as me so pointing out that correlation does not equal causation did nothing for my case, and appealing to the idea of just giving them a chance and giving them up if it turned dark didn't help either. In her mind, if I'm on meds, she'll lose me and nothing I say will change that.

Now I feel more alone than ever. I feel like I cannot be open with my wife, my in-laws (whom I live with) will only judge me if I open up to them or just view my problems as excuses, my parents don't really reach out to me other than superficially anymore, and most of my family is religious to the point where the best advice I could expect would be to "get right with God" and being a non-theist, that does nothing for me. Funny thing is, if I thought I could convince myself to believe the unbelievable, I would consciously make the choice to follow the Bible as ignorance is bliss... kind of like plugging back into the Matrix.

I'm not really sure why I'm typing this here, I don't expect that it will solve anything. Perhaps I just needed to tell someone, but the fact of the matter is, I feel like I'm headed for rock-bottom and I've no idea how to avoid it anymore when I'm the problem to begin with...

don't let someone else's fears about medication stop you from getting the help you need.

fight to keep that job, man.

and tell that wife of yours to make you a goddamn sandwich. >.>

the cheat wrote:don't let someone else's fears about medication stop you from getting the help you need.

fight to keep that job, man.

and tell that wife of yours to make you a goddamn sandwich. >.>

Thanks Cheat. I know I shouldn't let her get in my way, but it's just that she's so integrated into my life and it's bad enough if I grow a beard she doesn't like, I don't want to think about how day-to-day life is going to be if she's afraid I'm going to commit suicide.

I also want to be clear that it was not my intent to bash her, it's just the way she is; very emotional and reactionary. With regards to the sandwich line, I know you're just joking but she has supported me in many ways that other wifes don't or wouldn't. I wouldn't have blamed her if she'd left me by now.