Living with someone with a mental health illness is not an easy thing. Most people think that the people that are not affected by mental health don’t suffer, but we honestly do and in more ways than people think. I worry about my husband's mental state on a daily basis, how he thinks, is he worried about anything. I am always asking him are you OK? he will answer "Yes Sammy why are you always asking" …...because i care, that is why i ask, i want to know what he is thinking in that mind off his….it's not always easy to get the real answer of how he is feeling, i usually get "i am fine" in a snappy voice and i know he isn’t fine, he is just saying that to please me..
The ups and downs are the hardest thing in mental health, some days he is in what seems to be a happy mood and other days he can bite my head off for no reason, i have to sit and think it’s the mental health talking, I do get upset as i feel like i do my best to help him i am always here for a chat, i am always here to listen to him even though he tells me he doesn’t want to tell me. I want to understand his feelings he tell me that i myself have enough to deal with without his problems but what am i here for if i can’t listen to my husband when he sits and cries and doesn’t want to live anymore. When we met 11 years ago i didn’t understand mental health, i had never had to deal with any off it before so when it came out he had depression it hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought how am i going to help him with this? I honestly thought it would go away on its own, i didn’t think that years down the line it may get worse, but it may get better, it didn’t get better it got worse. The slightest wrong word he rips my head off and says he doesn’t want to live anymore. I sit there and think how can i make him feel better? he doesn’t want a cuddle, he wants to be alone so reluctantly i let him go upstairs and cry it out, i follow him upstairs and try and help him but in all the time i'm sat there i am feeling helpless thinking what can i do to help him feel OK, i think to myself just sit there and wait for him to say something, but it's me that says something and it’s usually the wrong thing. There was one particular day when we were sat together, i said something to him, it wasn't anything nasty but he flew off the handle, then gets up and shouts "I DON’T WANT TO LIVE ANYMORE I WISH I WAS DEAD" !!!!! then he walks out, i know that this is the mental health speaking and not my husband, so i follow him to make sure he is OK, he doesn’t want my help but i follow him regardless knowing what his mental illness could possibly make him do. "I AM GOING TO CHUCK MYSELF INTO THE RIVER"!!!!! He shouted, i tell him he is being selfish and to think of his family, the loved ones he is leaving behind. he tells me that it is not his problem and that he won’t be around to deal with the consequences, This is when i fear the worst, i don’t want to lose the love of my life so i carry on talking to him in my barefoot state, as i had no time to put my shoes on following his speedy departure. I cry as i try to keep up with him but he runs off and i lose him, i frantically ring a family member who he is close to help me find him. I get to the bridge over the river but he is nowhere to be seen, i couldn’t ring him as he had left his phone behind, everything is going through my mind, the worst thoughts possible. As a person without mental health It’s hard to know what was going through his mind, I contacted his friends to see if they had seen him, no one i had rang so far had seen him i was running out of options. I call another close friend of his and a wave of relief rushed over me as she tells me he is with her, After a long chat we finally return home, and for a few days everything is fine. Me and my husband do at times, speak about the past, how his Grandad was his rock, unfortunately i didn’t get to meet his Grandad, but i would've loved to have meet this great man he called Grandad, i absolutely love hearing about the happy times he had with him…but life is cruel and jamie’s Grandad sadly passed away, Jamie told me how he was working away when he found out his Grandad was ill and how he felt powerless as there was nothing he could do to help the best person he had in his life, but I love seeing the smile on his face when we talk about his Grandad and all the laughs they had together. I know what it feels like to lose a grandparent as i sadly lost both of mine at a young age, i understand the bond he had with his Grandad as i had the exact same bond with my grandparents. So this i how i feel about mental health……...IT SUCKS, not just for the person who suffers from Mental Health Issues, but for people like me who lives with someone with Mental Health, I just wish i could help more, understand more about this illness, but all i can do is be here for the rest of Jamie’s life, and to care for him and help him through day to day life, there isn’t much more i can do …. I would love to be able to sprinkle magic dust and it disappear, gone just like that, but that is not going to happen anytime soon. All i can say to people whose partners have mental health illnesses is to stay strong, don’t take things to heart, i know it’s hard and it truly is, just be there for them, i know i am and always will be, he can’t get rid off me that easy, i am here until death do us part and that’s going to be a long time so he will have to be ok with it.
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Blogger BioSammy Simpson, 27 |