I Don’t Suffer But My Fiancée Does

I don’t suffer myself but my fiancée suffers from this awful depression.

We have been together for nearly 8 years now and every year during that time she has had bad bouts of depression and anxiety.

It was always just once a year for about 3 months at a time. But in the last couple of years it’s been more frequent. It’s happening twice a year for anything between 6 weeks and 3 months. She has only gone back to work last week after another 6 weeks.

On both of the last 2 occasions it’s been a couple of days after a holiday. Last November we had 4 days in NY,2 days later she wasn’t able to face getting out of bed. Same in June this year. A week in Oban Scotland. 2 days later couldn’t face getting out of bed again.

She’s on loads of different meds high doses of them too. Also tried talking therapy which worked for a while then she fell ill again.

It’s heart breaking for everybody most of all the person going through it of course but also for me her partner and our 4 grown up kids.

For me it’s more a disability than an illness. Nobody knows what’s going on in a suffers head only them. There no broken bones to see only a broken mind which I’m my experience is far worse.

The help is not there when you need it most. Our GP can’t be faulted she’s been amazing. But you have to wait too long for talking therapy to begin. By which time she’s normally better.

I hate mental illness with a passion. **** is an amazing fun loving person until this strikes. Then it’s all I can do to even get her out of bed,let alone go anywhere.

She has however had a lot of bad things happen to her. A divorce the kids lived with the Dad. Then her mum died in the passenger seat of a car with **** sat right behind her. Then her Dad died. In 2012 she had breast cancer and my Dad died. So you can see she’s had a lot to cope with