How to cure depression of your Partner after marriage

How to cure depression of your Partner after marriage : A couple things to not do is to not look at them as lazy, to not look at them as broken, to not look at them as worthless or dirty, or they’re not able or capable to follow through in a long-term kind of way. They might be having some short-term issues, just like if a person had the flu and they’re in bed and they don’t have any energy or they’re bundled up because they have chills, they’re not able to function in that moment. That doesn’t mean they’re broken eternally or permanently in the process.

They already have a very self-critical, self-judgmental, ashamed, guilty mindset at that point, so we don’t want to heap a critique on them or take this disease state and make it seem like that’s who they are, that’s what their identity is, and that’s how we’re going to see them. So trying to be very cautious of, yes, they are struggling, yes, they need help, no, they’re not their self, but that’s not their identity or who they are, and that’s not a characterization of who their personality or identity is. Things to be able to do is to try to help them, partly just in those daily activities, what is their nutrition? Their brain isn’t functioning real well at that point.

There’s synapses and there is a disease process. Their brain just isn’t functioning well. There’s obviously some psychological and spiritual elements too, but in order for them to start to kick in psychologically or spiritually, we have to get the brain functioning better.

So just getting good sleep and being able to have good, healthy sleep, being able to get good nutrition and good nutrients to the brain so the brain can work better. Exercise, exercise is a nice antidepressant in and of itself, but it also helps blood flow to the brain so the brain can get oxygen and it can get the nutrients that it needs to the brain, and then also to wash out the waste products from the brain as it uses and cells decay and those kind of things. Exercise, sleep, and nutrition are three basic things that we take for granted, but real important.

How to cure depression of your Partner after marriage

Being able to take care of self-care, whatever that encouragement that you can provide, what are those sort of baby steps to help with structure of the day so that not sleeping in until 10 or 11 and then the day feels already half gone and they feel like, oh, I’m so far behind or I’ve wasted so much, a chunk of the day and I’m just a loser, I’m a failure. As a spouse, physical touch is a very healing thing. So put your arm around, hold hand, to sit next to while you watch a movie, again, they’re feeling isolated and that they’re not worthy, that they’re not connected.

So to be able to become more connected with them in your comments, your encouragement, but even just physically how to feel and allow them to feel connected and like there is somebody on their side, there is a teammate and a partner in life with them in this valley. And then certainly if something’s going on for a period of time, three, five, seven days where their decision-making, their functioning is really being compromised, to really look at what is that professional help, what is a therapist that they can access and a psychiatrist to be able to look at what kind of psychiatric medications can help them with that brain chemistry. The Bible talks about renewing our mind and there is a way to renew our mind with that psychological and that spiritual application of those principles.

But sometimes it takes two weeks, four weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks to work. And so sometimes we need a quicker patch to help lessen that depression so they can have more energy, more concentration, more focus, be able to think, understand the spiritual and the psychological principles that they’re either in their own Bible study, their own devotional time, time with you as their spouse, connecting with them spiritually and psychologically or with their therapist that they’re working on to be able to allow those to bear fruit. Sometimes medications is a real helpful thing in that depressive process to patch that brain chemistry to allow them to take in the information that will be the long-term cure for them.

Now whenever you go and visit the therapist or psychiatrist, obviously you want to have your spouse have their privacy with that professional to be able to divulge whatever and there might be things that they feel uncomfortable divulging in front of you that they could tell the therapist. But it’s also important for you to talk to your spouse about you conveying information to the therapist about what your observations are during the day of how your spouse is doing. Sometimes we don’t know some of the things that are important to tell the therapist or tell others about how we’re doing or how we’re functioning.

Whereas as the spouse, sometimes you have observations of they’ve retracted from a lot of activities they used to be involved in or we play card games with the kids or the grandkids and they just don’t enjoy it anymore. After a couple of hands, they leave early, whereas before they used to play for a couple hours. So you’re able to give some of the subtle information that maybe your spouse, just because of the depression, just doesn’t have mind space or psychological stamina to be able to offer or to think about or remember some of those items.

But you have a wealth of information that, as a psychiatrist, would be very helpful for me in being able to make a diagnosis and come up with a good medication treatment plan and a good therapy treatment plan for either me, the psychiatrist, or the therapist that’s going to do therapy with your spouse. So being able to make sure that you have some time that your spouse, you’re able to tell your spouse, hey look, I’ve got some observations that would be really important for your therapist and psychiatrist to know about so they can help you the most. And I would like to present them in front of you so that you hear all the things I’m saying.

So you know I’m not saying anything in front of you that I wouldn’t say to you. It’s very common, depression. So having an understanding of it, being able to see it as not a failure.

But this is a season, a trial that somebody’s going through. Just like in the Bible, we see various people, whether David, whether Saul, whether Jeremiah, whether Elijah, there’s been various Bible characters, great guys that were in the Hall of Fame of the Bible, struggling with significant psychological struggles. Nothing to be ashamed about, nothing to feel guilty about.

God has answers. If you’re the one struggling, how to be able to reach out and connect with your spouse, with your family members, with your people at your church that you trust, and professional guidance. And if you have a spouse or any family member or loved one that’s struggling, hopefully some of these tips will help you understand and recognize some of those warning signs a little bit earlier, so you can catch it as soon as possible.

And then you as an encourager, as a helper to jump in, helping them get to professional care if need be. There’s a lot of resources available, Focus on the Family, being able to call the counseling department here. They can connect you with a therapist in your area and a bunch of resources.

There’s a bunch of other online resources as you go to the website that we can connect you to as well in the process.