Caring for Someone with Depression

I have suffered from depression and no, no outing or affection is going to magically heal her. Depression like this is a chemical imbalance and they need to find the right medication in the right dosage. I can understand why she decided to try getting off of the meds if she was feeling better, the medications make you level, but that is where you stay, the lows are gone, but so are the highs. But unfortunately she appears to need the meds, and they do take time to work. Just support her, but please don't expect her to just snap out of it or take it as an insult that time with her grandchild doesn't somehow heal her, its not her fault. Just be there for her and keep showing her love.

Fumbles,

She might have more than depression going on. Please get her to her PCP and have her tested for other issues - have her iron level checked to see if she's anemic, have her A1C checked to see if she's diabetic or blood sugar issues. She needs a FULL metabolic panel run on her. She doesn't just need a therapist. She needs to see if she has another medical condition that is causing her body to be out of whack.

I saw all of this ^^^ because my mom was depressed....but she wasn't. She was dying. No doctor checked her and just kept giving her meds instead of checking her body. Once I pushed HARD? She was tested for EVERYTHING - she had pancreatic cancer. When your body is messed up? It will mess with the chemicals in your brain. PLEASE. I urge you to have her FULLY CHECKED FULL blood panel and tell the doctor to REALLY examine her - even if it means a CT scan or something else. My mom lost 50 lbs in five months. Your MIL can't afford to lose 50 lbs. I pray it's ONLY depression for you.

Some people who are anti-depressants don't like NOT feeling. They say that's what the meds do to them.

She should NOT be self-medicating and she should NOT be drinking either. I am sure you know this. Just clarifying that alcohol is a depressant as well.

Have you tried asking her to write out her thoughts?
Or even PAINT? Painting can be a way for people who suffer from depression to get it out...because they don't have the words to get it out. I know that sounds weird, but there are times when people just can't form the words to HOW they are feeling - painting, writing - even incoherent - helps.

It is great to be in communication and keep an eye on her. Keep doing that. My MIL has bipolar disorder which means both manic and depression episodes are possible.

You can't entertain people out of clinical depression. Nothing you are doing is able to make her happy at this time because her brain chemistry won't let that happen. On this front, you can't fix the problem because she needs physical medical care for it.

If things seem too urgent for the wait to see her psychiatrist, take her to the hospital as a psychiatric evaluation. The key with that is getting her to do so voluntarily. If she talks honestly about how things are, she can get help right away.

Adding: Wild Woman had good words too, about looking for other medical issues at the same time. That is often the case especially in older people. MIL had health issues in addition to her BPD but the BPD often led her to neglect taking care of things and ignoring issues until they were dire.

I have clinical depression. All you can do is keep her safe until she's stable on meds. Try to get her to spend some time outside every day. Take a short walk with her. If she wants to sleep, let her sleep.

You have to learn to accept the person as-is. You can't fix this any more than you could reverse someone's high blood pressure or cancer. It's a brain disorder and you need to leave this to the medical professionals.

Don't put the burden on yourself or anyone in the family to fix things. That's the hardest thing to accept when you're dealing with brain disorders. You just want the person to "snap out of it." The medical specialists are in the best position to get her back on track -- they have the advanced training in this, not you. It took me years to wrap my head around the fact that I couldn't make things right.

Keep up the family support. That's certainly beneficial. Just understand you are not going to make the depression go away.

I have a family member with depression. She went off her meds because she felt flat on them she said. It's hard. She has the kind with manic periods. For me, I accept her as is. It is very difficult because the manic periods can be draining. You want to be there but at the same time, you have to have boundaries. You're not a therapist. You love the person and want to care for them - but you can't fix them. I keep things light. I listen - but I have to limit it after a certain point. Offering suggestions doesn't help because they just need to know someone cares. The therapist (or psychiatrist - which is sometimes needed) is better for that.

Sometimes depression is not permanent. I have a good friend going through that now after a severe loss. I listen. She is not on meds either. She has good cries. It is getting easier but very slowly. Each day is still hard. Just phoning and letting her know I am there, helps I think. We are all doing this. But letting her know it is ok for her to feel this way - that we aren't going to abandon her - that we're ok with her being in the depression is key.

She is not letting us down. I think she feels helpless to change and I think she feels ridiculous at times. We tell her it's ok, it's natural for her to feel this way - and we are here for her. In time, things will improve. She continues to see the doctor in case it does not get better.

But acceptance I really think makes them feel that they are understood and not alone. I don't think they can snap out of it. You don't want them to feel pressured.

You can't help her if she doesn't want the help. Take a break and take care of yourself.

Please get her seen by a doctor, not just a therapist.

You can't help someone who won't help themselves.give yourself a few days off,then talk to her and tell her she needs to go back on the meds ,if she refuses, take the rest of the year off ,then try again

If she's always been on antidepressants then her condition isn't temporary - it's ongoing and chronic.
There may be no answer and it might be something she (and her family) lives with the rest of her life.
It's good she's working with her doctors and will be seeing a therapist.
Seek out a depression support group for family members.

Sounds like she has biological depression, this means she needs to take her pills every day for the rest of her life.

Medication that is taken for the long term builds up in a person's system. This keeps them stable when they might miss a pill or something due to illness or forgetfulness.

When she was doing well that first month that was because her meds were still draining out of her system. Still affecting her but less each day.

Now she's feeling the full effect of her depression.

It will take a couple of months for her meds to build back up into her system and she will need to just continue taking them. They will get there, it just takes time.

If they gave her the same thing then she might need to switch to a different med family. A body can build up resistance to a continuous medication and it not have any effect anymore. They can tell after she's been taking the meds again for a couple of months. If they are giving her the top dose in that med they have to switch her. She might not like this transition phase but she did this to herself by going off her medication without it being under a doctor's care. Her body is in crazy places right now. Not knowing what to do with the things going on inside.

Just be patient and re-focus her back to this moment, when she is feeling her worst. Then remind her that going off her meds is what started this and that it will take time. Then she needs to stick with her meds in the future.

You need to remember these times so that you can remind her later on if she ever starts talking about going off them again.

This is not about her "not wanting" the help. This is way beyond that. This is a chemical imbalance and a true medical condition. As Jill says below, you can't entertain people so they snap out of it, any more than you can tell a nauseated pregnant woman to think about something else or a sick chemo patient to just cheer up or someone with pneumonia to just stop coughing. It's equally fruitless to tell someone addicted to drugs (legal or illegal) to "just stop and turn in their drugs." Same with cigarettes. It's just not simple like that.

Checking in is a good idea so that you can hear any cues that she's nose-diving and in need of immediate medical support, but that's about it. Also, people with severe depression are often exhausted, so these outings or play time with an active child can be a huge physical strain on them. None of this can be expected to "get her out of her funk" or "work" against a disease resistant to treatment.

I'd be curious about what's in the shakes and what types of vitamins she's taking. Some are great and others are totally ineffective and just throw off the balance even more. If the shakes are full of emulsifiers, for example, then she could be filling up on stuff with no nutritional value and that's blocking the absorption. Most commercial vitamins, especially in pill form, have too little included or too few ingredients to make a significant difference. I did take some phenomenal shakes that helped me beat my depression, but I had great customer support and was able to stick it out for 5 months to get great results. Expecting things like that, or even medications, to work in a few weeks just isn't reasonable 99% of the time.

I do think it's a good idea to have other conditions ruled out to be sure there aren't multiple factors at play here and also to be sure that drugs for one condition won't interfere with another illness. Make sure there's a good team working together and sharing information (with all consents signed). If possible, have someone go to every medical appointment and take notes. When my husband had a very mysterious disease (looked like heart failure but wasn't), the only thing that tied everyone together was my big 3-ring binder with copies of test results, names/numbers of every doctor, dates of service in several major hospitals, and 5-times-daily blood pressure readings. Sometimes hospitals/doctors don't fax things in time or files can't be opened (can't tell you how often that happened), and it was my extensive record keeping and ability to almost disengage emotionally in order to focus on facts (which wasn't easy, believe me) that provided info to new doctors right there during the visit. That helped them tie things together and find a very rare condition that mimicked heart failure - so my husband was sent to the right kind of specialist in a totally different discipline. So whoever goes along should not be so wrapped up in the emotional aspect of this that he or she can't be objective (and I totally get that it's highly stressful and worrisome and frustrating).

One of the things that was so hard for me in the depths of my depression was task completion. I could start things, but not finish. That left too many things undone, and that was another cause of stress. You might look to preparing small meals that can be frozen (to take away the cooking/shopping stress and even the "what's for dinner?" dilemma that can throw a depressed person into a tailspin. If you can get a little cleaning help or yard work help, whatever is left undone and making her upset, that can help. If she's stressing out about holidays, maybe you can do something to help. Take over Thanksgiving prep for her? Do labels on the computer for her Christmas cards? Then just tuck a card into each envelope, and maybe she can write one every 3 days, just holding them to mail a week or 2 before Christmas. If the grandson can make her a picture or a craft or just paint rocks to make a paperweight, sending that with an "I love you, Grandma" note can be a perfect little pick-me-up. Anything that creates a smile, even if it doesn't seem to perk her up more than that, can be a great thing.

I hope she gets in to see a good psychiatrist and that they find a good combination of medication and therapy, as well as rule out (or rule in) other factors that could be contributing.

My mom has had clinical depression since I was in kindergarten so I guess I can say I have experience dealing with this. It sounds to me like therapy alone will not be enough for your MIL. She must also take antidepressants. She must see a psychiatrist who will help her find the right antidepressant. It may take a while to find the right medication (there are so many out there!) and dosage, which will frustrate her and make her want to give up. But don't let her! Keep a close eye on her during this time in case she has suicidal thoughts. Eventually, a psychiatrist will be able to find the right medication and dosage; as long as she takes it as prescribed, she will be fine.

With that said, the tricky thing with mental illnesses is that once the person takes the medication for a while and stop having symptoms, they think they're "cured" and stop taking the meds. Once they stop the meds, they will start to experience the symptoms again and must start taking the meds again. It's a cycle. It's extremely important for family members to be aware of this and keep an eye out for it.

Until she can get to her therapist and the medication dosage gets straightened out to the right med and the right dose that's effective for her, there's not much you can do except to be kind and supportive and help with the things she can't do. She has a chronic, long-term illness that isn't being effectively treated right now. You'll all have to cut her some slack until she's back to her better self again. With the holidays coming up, it can be especially draining for someone whose depression has flared up, so be understanding if she's not up for a big event, a long day with family, going to see the kids at a winter concert, etc. If she doesn't have the energy to decorate but would like to see her regular seasonal decorations up, then help with doing that or make sure someone else takes care of it. Depression can make people physically achy and tired so if she needs to cut something short or decline an invite, respect that. If she normally does the cooking, cleaning, or other household tasks, make sure that her husband is picking up the slack or if he can't, pitch in there with some heat-and-eat meals, etc. The root of the problem is that she has an illness and it takes time for therapy and medication to help get the symptoms under control.

My ex had a kind of depression that would result in short-term manic episodes that would last a few days or a week, followed by a depressive state that would last for 6-10 weeks. Luckily during his depressive states, he could at least function well enough to go to work and spend a few minutes a day with the kids but otherwise, he was drained. He had to sleep a lot, would bail on social engagements, didn't eat well or exercise, and was nasty and hostile to people (which is common for men with depression). He was very private about it, so I had to cover for him socially and do everything around the house. He usually had an episode this time of year with the change of seasons so that meant that I had to rake all the leaves and do the fall yard cleanup without his help because he was sleeping all day. Looking back, I wish we had shared what was going on with people so that we could have accepted help and I wouldn't have been so stressed and he wouldn't have felt so guilty about not being able to help out. From my perspective, there isn't anything you can do to help her get well, but you can provide emotional and practical help while she gets back on her feet.