Hellobee Boards

@Lindsay05: honestly, I think your husband needs to go with you to your doctor and hear you explain your symptoms and what the doctor says. Ask the doctor right there in front of DH, "Is this something I should be able to control on my own? Because I feel I can't, but my husband thinks I'm just not trying hard enough".

I mean, you and I know it's NOT something you can control on your own, and you shouldn't even be trying to--but maybe your husband needs to hear it from a professional.

I could give you articles, but you can't force him to read them. Even without your husband's support, I hope you get help

Tell him that all you need from him is to listen. He doesn't have to fix you or understand. Just listen. Also, (if this is true for you), tell him that normally you can control your happiness, but that now the hormones have gone crazy and you can't control it. That you don't know why you are sad and anxious and that it's really scary. That's how I felt anyways.

I think taking him with you to the doctor is a great idea.

@Lindsay05: This must be so hard for you! I'm pregnant with my first, so while I have not been through this before, I have had depression in the past. Every so often, I will have a bad a day or a few bad days, and I will have to explain it to my SO who "doesn't believe in therapy." Now, I'm a social worker, so you can imagine how I love to hear this.

In the end, I tell him that whether he believes I should be able to control it or not doesn't matter. The truth is that it isn't being controlled. I tell him that I feel that I need help controlling it, and the only thing I need him to do is support me in that. I make sure to explain that it's a chemical imbalance in my brain, and not that I am simply sad about something.

When I tell him that, he is able to listen and to understand...and he becomes much more supportive...especially when I tell him exactly how he can support me. Listen to me and comfort me, but don't try to fix the problem. Don't ever tell me that I'm being too sensitive, because it only makes me angry. If I ask you to do something that I can obviously do myself, it's because I need a little extra support that day. So please, just say okay.

I also needed to learn that although he can understand it, he will never empathize with me. He will never actually know what it's like to be depressed...which is a good thing. But, I needed to change my expectations of how he would react and handle the situation. I see that he does what he's capable of, and that's all I can ask for. For the rest of the support that I need? I call my BFF. She gets it.

My DH can be a very positive thinking/look on the bright side/you chose how you feel type person too.

But when I explained with my first, with ppd, that there is just a huge hormonal crash that interferes with your ability to control your emotions, he got it. Getting on antidepressants helped me gain the ability to control my emotions.