Living and working with anxiety and depression 3rdJanuary 2022 Day 74

 A home where two people are going through the trials and tribulations of depression is not a good place to be.

It's like being blind folded in the middle of a minefield with punji pits around the outside.

It's one thing that Faith has put up with me being around her for 74 days so far. 

Another thing is that we are both treading on eggshells most of the time so as not to upset the other. 

But it really is a bummer when you start snapping at each other over the most innocuous of things. 

As my issues seem to improve each day I feel like I'm pulling into the fast lane while Faith is still checking her wobbly mirrors on the inside lane.

So I wrongly expect everything to be moving at my pace and to my plans. 

When they don't I seem to forget my role and it's responsibility within our little bubble.

With a single ill chosen word it's possible for me to reduce my dear wife to tears. 

Then as the cycle begins I am angry with myself for my failure to see the dynamic.

Anger often projects outwardly before finally and belatedly hitting home. By which time it's too late and words have been exchanged. It's not always the same party who reacts without thinking in these situations and similar. But it's the same dance that is performed step by step each time a situation plays out. And in our particular case we are lucky to have a relationship where these are very short interludes followed by an adult to adult conversation.

With us, as with many,  it's mainly down to exasperation and tiredness. 

Feeling helpless. 

Unable to"fix" the one you love let alone yourself. 

Seeing yourself as a burden. 

Suppressing the thoughts that are instant until they appear in a misguided comment or action.

I use the analogy of it playing out like a dance, as I do when counselling. Especially couples but often individual clients who can't understand how scenarios repeat over and over again. 

It simplifies the process and helps people understand just how their communication with their partner has become predictable and toxic.

For instance, take a fictitious couple Joe and Linda. They've been together twenty years and have fallen into a rut of repetitive behaviour including arguments. Neither of them actually makes a proactive move to change things even though they often discuss the issue.

But keeping it basic. They both know how the dance plays out. And regardless of the unpleasantness and bad feelings it provokes they will both go through the same routine over and over again. Because it is safe. The outcome is known each time. Until one day it can become the reason for separating.

Linda decides to see a counsellor who having listened then repeats the situation as they heard it, in more detail. 

The counsellor asks Linda how she would change the routine at different points as it plays out and they look at how this might bring changes to the outcome. By changing the dance steps the relationship finds new direction. 

It could well prove that the couple have actually become incompatible and a final decision needs to be made for the sake of all involved.

Or the realisation that the dance can be performed differently is welcomed by both and the changes are welcomed and positive for their relationship together.

I leave myself very open to tongue in cheek ridicule from my good lady at times when she reads these . 

But I write these entries with Faith's full knowledge and undertaking that I use us as examples for the situations others go through. 

In the above my aim has been to give some idea of the stresses and strains a relationship will experience when, in this instance depression and anxiety is a shared problem in a home. 

Saying .... a problem shared is a problem halved.... Doesn't necessarily equate on this occasion.

Take care

Pete x