Hey, I’m Lisa Canning, and welcome back to my channel. Today’s video is all about how to support a spouse suffering with mental illness. Here in Canada we have a big event coming up next Wednesday January 31st called Bell Let’s Talk, and Bell Let’s Talk is a campaign that raises awareness around mental health initiatives in Canada. So I thought given the event is coming up next Wednesday that I would share with you a bunch of frequently asked questions around how I support my spouse’s depression and anxiety and how I also support my own mental health healthiness as well.
If you are new to the channel a big warm welcome. Please feel free to hit the subscribe button and if you like this video and give it a big thumbs up. So the first question is “When did you discover your spouse had depression?” For the first time, in 2012, we had been married for a few years and I was about to give birth to our third baby. That’s three children in three years- we had a three-year-old and an 18 month old and all of a sudden my husband started just really not being himself.
In fact, like being a former shell of himself. He could not get out of bed he was really unmotivated to do things that used to really interest him and excite him. I wasn’t really bringing him much, like, happiness; the kids weren’t bringing him much happiness; and he just had, like, a general like… real like, just like absence of his normal personality. You know eventually he sought the counsel of his psychiatrist and then that led to, you know, more visits with the doctor and then just a whole plan of treatment.https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/9/5/20851020/facebook-dating-app-feature-how-to-use-news The next question is, “Is your husband on medication?
And how do you feel about it?” So when he met with his psychiatrist, and I’m fairly certain that he was put on medication right away and he’s on medication today for depression and anxiety and I found in my husband specifically it was a huge, huge, huge help. Like massive help. One thing I really want to make sure people know is that depression and anxiety and all mental illness- it’s not like a one-size-fits-all type thing, meaning what works for one person may not necessarily work for another person.
But what I would say does work is consulting actual medical professionals who are trained to handle things like clinical depression and anxiety. The next question is, “What are some of the lifestyle changes you have made to help manage mental illness in a very practical way?” So this is a huge huge, huge, huge one. There was a time when I felt like really we had no hope there was a time when I felt like “This is just like my luck in life. I’m gonna be a single mom of all these little kids and I will basically just get glimmers of my husband when I can.” If you’re a spouse who is supporting someone with mental illness, I really just want to say there is so much hope!
Hey, I’m Lisa Canning, and welcome back to my channel. Today’s video is all about how to support a spouse suffering with mental illness. Here in Canada we have a big event coming up next Wednesday January 31st called Bell Let’s Talk, and Bell Let’s Talk is a campaign that raises awareness around mental health initiatives in Canada. So I thought given the event is coming up next Wednesday that I would share with you a bunch of frequently asked questions around how I support my spouse’s depression and anxiety and how I also support my own mental health healthiness as well.
If you are new to the channel a big warm welcome. Please feel free to hit the subscribe button and if you like this video and give it a big thumbs up. So the first question is “When did you discover your spouse had depression?” For the first time, in 2012, we had been married for a few years and I was about to give birth to our third baby. That’s three children in three years- we had a three-year-old and an 18 month old and all of a sudden my husband started just really not being himself.
In fact, like being a former shell of himself. He could not get out of bed he was really unmotivated to do things that used to really interest him and excite him. I wasn’t really bringing him much, like, happiness; the kids weren’t bringing him much happiness; and he just had, like, a general like… real like, just like absence of his normal personality. You know eventually he sought the counsel of his psychiatrist and then that led to, you know, more visits with the doctor and then just a whole plan of treatment. The next question is, “Is your husband on medication?
And how do you feel about it?” So when he met with his psychiatrist, and I’m fairly certain that he was put on medication right away and he’s on medication today for depression and anxiety and I found in my husband specifically it was a huge, huge, huge help. Like massive help. One thing I really want to make sure people know is that depression and anxiety and all mental illness- it’s not like a one-size-fits-all type thing, meaning what works for one person may not necessarily work for another person.
But what I would say does work is consulting actual medical professionals who are trained to handle things like clinical depression and anxiety. The next question is, “What are some of the lifestyle changes you have made to help manage mental illness in a very practical way?” So this is a huge huge, huge, huge one. There was a time when I felt like really we had no hope there was a time when I felt like “This is just like my luck in life. I’m gonna be a single mom of all these little kids and I will basically just get glimmers of my husband when I can.” If you’re a spouse who is supporting someone with mental illness, I really just want to say there is so much hope!
I really believe in my heart of hearts that depression can be managed. I think it’s similar in the sense of management like diabetes. So with diabetes you just can’t WILL your body to all of a sudden produce more insulin, or will your body, or like trick your mind to be like, “Today I’m gonna handle sugar okay.” It just doesn’t work that way. Diabetes is ongoing management via diet and exercise and insulin.
I would say depression is very similar in the sense that it’s something you have to manage over a period of time. There’s not like a quick fix. Certainly you can take medication, you can take certain medications will actually make you feel better almost instantly but I would say that it’s definitely more of a holistic, longer-term, lifestyle approach that is going to help a couple and a family thrive with mental illness.
So a couple of things that we did very strategically is #1: We try to make our life at home as um like we try to limit the intensity in our home, so the stress level. Now you might be thinking “Lisa you have six children! How on earth is that possible??” Okay, so obviously there are certain things that we cannot control. I can’t really control how loud my kids are, or I can’t really control the fighting and some of that kind of stuff that just naturally comes with having a whole bunch of small kids but here are some things that I can control- I can control and what size of house we live in. I can control our kids schedule.
I can control my schedule. So there was a time when I used to basically work around the clock and basically just expect everybody else to fall in line with my schedule. And I learned pretty quickly that while this may have advanced certain things in my life like my business, and how much money I made, it was not worth the expense of what it did to my family.
And so I learned that where mental health is concerned that it was so much better to have for us and our family a regular schedule, where everybody knows what time I’m coming home, and real boundaries around how long I personally work as an entrepreneur and when the time of work ends and when family time begins. And that’s been a huge, huge, huge help in terms of peace in the home and managing my husband’s depression and anxiety. Another thing we do is that we’re very careful with making plans, meaning we don’t make plans too far in advance.
We’ve learned that it is better for us to not make social engagement plans like too far in advance just to simply give us the flexibility to have a quiet night in if we are really tired or if Josh simply is not in a place to be very social with people. And so that’s been, like, really helpful to us in terms of keeping things just a bit more stable and more balanced. The final lifestyle choice, and this one’s the hardest one for me, my temperament of the four temperaments (if you’ve learned anything about those) is a choleric. Cholerics LOVE control, and I would say one of the biggest ways that we have improved our lifestyle and that has helped to manage depression anxiety is me giving up a bit of control in literally every aspect of our lives. So what do I mean by this?
Let me… let me tell you more about it. Choose a depressed person. To the anxious person, a small decision like, “What time are we gonna leave for lunch?” Or, “What time are we gonna go to Mass on Sunday?” That can actually be an overwhelming thing to decide.
To the non-depressed or non anxious person you might just be like, “Can you please make up your mind!” Like “Let’s just decide, come on!” Like, “Let’s go, like, keep up.” Like we’ve got to get the show on the road, we’ve got a boat to steer. Like, and it can be very challenging for a person who really likes to be in control to not get answers when you want, or to not have things move at the speed in which you want. And I would say from firsthand experience it just simply does not work and it literally, it’s just gonna be a recipe for a bit of disaster. So if you can give up a little bit of control, it doesn’t mean that you’re becoming some like, you know, like oh, you don’t express your preferences, you don’t state your intentions, but if you can give it up a little bit and just be okay with changes of course when needed, I have found that to be hugely helpful in our marriage and for just the general peace in our family. You might be thinking like, “This doesn’t make sense.
You have to make plans, especially where kids are involved.” And I totally get it. You know, it doesn’t mean that you don’t plan, but it’s that you allow for a little bit of flexibility in the schedule and cognitive flexibility. Meaning that you are responding in your head with, “Okay I thought maybe we were gonna go to this Mass, but no, it’s okay we’re gonna go to the later one.
No big deal.” And you just kind of, like, change it up accordingly. It requires some surrender but I truthfully, I’m grateful for it because it’s allowed me to grow as a person and not be so tightly wound in my own personal preferences. Next question is, “What supportive comments can I say to my spouse?” Bell, in its initiative, Bell Let’s Talk, has come up with five simple ways and you can start the conversation and end the stigma around mental illness and I’d encourage you to go check them out on their website. The one that resonates the most with me is the whole notion of “Be kind.” Sometimes comments like, um, you know “You’ll get over it” or “just relax” are just not helpful.
So instead, really kind expressions, and empathetic ones like, “Wow, like it sounds like it’s a really hard day today.” Or, “Wow, like that must be really difficult. Do you want to talk about it.” I find that’s a much better approach both for the spouse of the person with mental illness as well as with for the person who is going through depression or anxiety. So what do I say to my husband when he’s having bad days?
We are now out the other end so I do feel like now… meaning that, like, we were in the throes of it, but now we have “survived it,” if you will, and like, gone back and survived, and gone back and survived ,if you will. Like we’ve we’ve come out the other end with a lot of hope. Like we have seen the trench and we’ve climbed out of the trench and we’ve kind of just repeated that many, many times, and so we are now at a place where I can say to my husband, like, “We’ve been here before and we’re gonna get out again.” That’s one thing that I really want to tell all spouses of people who have depression and anxiety.
There was a time that I did not think we would make it. There was a time when I just hated everything about depression. But I have learned now, you know, five years out that there is so much hope!
That you can live with mental illness and have a great job. You can live with mental illness and have great relationships. You can live with mental illness as a family and be happy. So now what I say to my spouse definitely, like now we’re definitely in a place where I can say, “You know we’ve been here before, and you’re gonna be okay.” I also am very sensitive to my husband’s cues. Like he even has like physical tells, like I will see he’ll get overwhelmed and he actually, like, scratches his head.
And so when I even see those physical tells I try to, like, curb it before anything happens. Meaning I’ll just be like, “Why don’t you go and lie down for a while and I’m gonna take the kids downstairs to watch a movie.” Like I will I will try my best to be proactive in in moments when I can see that he’s gonna get overwhelmed. The other thing that I try to remind my spouse- because this is a real bad cycle that a person with depression and anxiety can fall into- they can fall into a bit of a cycle of (thinking), “I’m such a burden on everyone.” And so I try really hard to just literally, like, remind my spouse of how much I love him, how much I value him.
I try to affirm when I see that he’s like having a great day like, “Wow, you’re having a great day today.” Or you know, “Wow, I really noticed that you know, one of the kids did this and you you really didn’t get that overwhelmed.” So I do try to, like, point out the positive. But really just there are times that there’s a vicious story that gets told in the head of someone with depression that they are a burden on everyone. And so I really just try to say things that remind my husband how much how much he means to me. And that’s why I, as I mentioned in the lifestyle section, like what our lifestyle changes that we’ve made going on regular date nights with my spouse has been, like it’s it’s it’s vital like, it’s not even something I put to the to the wayside, like it is vital because that connection and that regularity of investment in our relationship, and I find it’s like almost like another dose of medicine or another, you know, part of the the medical treatment. Like it it is helpful in our relationship… and this is helpful to all marriages where each spouse feels valued, each spouse feels heard, and I just find that it’s been very helpful for us.
So this next one is a little bit difficult, and I want to be very, like, sensitive about it and basically to paraphrase the question, it was “How do you not resent your husband?” And the person basically just shared, like, “I love my spouse and want to support him, but I can’t help feeling isolated and alone and feel so much resentment.” So I really like, it is hard like. I just want to say it, it is really hard to be the spouse of someone with mental illness. And the real the real truth of it is that you are the rock holding your family together. You are the person that they are coming to for support, whether it be, like, “Where is my medication?” “I’ve lost the prescription.” “I can’t find the car keys to go to my doctor.” “What time is my doctor appointment?” Like, you’re the person trying to keep things stable and organized and not stressful for your spouse.
If you are a mother, you’re also the person who is managing a lot of household duties and child carrying duties on your own. And then of course you’re the person who, if this is early in your relationship with mental health you’re the person fielding all the questions from parents from friends from work colleagues like, “How come we haven’t seen you at, you know, whatever lately? You guys have seemed to really dropped off the map, like what’s happened?” Like you’re the person who’s fielding all those things. And that can be hugely overwhelming, that can be such a burden and so I just want you to know like you are not alone.
There’s a whole bunch of us out there- spouses who support someone they love with mental illness. So you’re not alone, and there’s so much hope! There’s so much hope. So that’s the first thing I want to say. The second thing I want to say is that you need to get support, too.
So one of the things that we learned pretty quickly was how important childcare was for us. It was a non-negotiable. Like we just really discovered that that was another key in the mental health management, to make sure that I got breaks even in the beginning when we didn’t have as much money to afford child care. Like when I knew that, “Okay, tomorrow you’re gonna have a break, and you can go do whatever you want.” That was always like so helpful to me and really helped to curb a little bit of that resentment and that feeling burdened and not feeling alone.
And I think too, like you’ve got to also accept help when it’s offered. I still really struggle with this but, like, just like when somebody says, “What can I do to help? I know you’re having a hard time right now.” Take it! Take the meal that they’re gonna prepare for you.
Take the babysitting that they’re gonna offer. Take whatever favor that they’re going to do for you, whether it be something as random as like fill up your car with gas or you know, take you for a coffee even if you don’t feel like it. Just, like, take the help because it’s just helpful to feel supported by a community as well as to get some of the practical things. Let someone else clean your house.
All those kinds of things. And at one point I got my own counseling because I was so overwhelmed by just the the weight of everything, and I really felt like I needed to talk to somebody, and that really helped with a lot of my resentment, absolutely. It just, like, to be able to talk… and that’s another thing that like Bell Let’s Talk, the whole day is called, like sometimes you just need to talk to get rid of the stigma like to just to not feel shame and guilt so I would say that’s another way, like, if you can if you feel comfortable and brave enough to be open about what’s happening in your life and just to share it with people that you trust and ask for that help, that can be really really helpful too.
But probably the biggest thing that I would say in terms of resentment is if you can look at everything coming out of a place of love… but this is what I try to remember and I mean this coming from a place of such like love and good intention and I don’t mean to minimize a situation of another person so please just here with the truth of my heart and what I’m about to say, but I’d like to think of it like if I had a child who had a significant challenge like they were in a wheelchair for example I would amend my life, I would adjust my life to suit the needs of that child. So for example if they were in a wheelchair that would mean that I’m taking wheelchair ramps when I’m out in public that would mean that I would adjust the way I bathed the child, that would probably mean there would be adjustments in the kind of car I had, there would probably be adjustments in the kind of people that I could have to babysit my child, and potentially in the way we travel but we would make these adjustments because we want to see our child thrive. And I would say that mental illness is the same- I want to see my husband thrive. I want to see him live a happy life, and so I will do ANYTHING to help him to thrive… and it’s so hard sometimes… but if you can literally come out of a place of of love and sacrifice that this is the person that you’ve you made babies with, this is the person you’ve committed your life to, this is the person whom you love and you admire and you rejoice in, who you love to see at the end of the day… if you can remember all those things when it’s really hard and operate um your thoughts and your actions out of a place of love and a desire to see your spouse thrive, I really believe that that can curb a lot of resentment.
It doesn’t mean that you haven’t… it doesn’t mean that you you, you, you don’t take care of yourself. It’s so important, I’m not trying to say that we become these, like, you know, just like sacrificial lambs without any sense of our own mental health, that’s so important, but the same way that like I would not resent a child because they had some kind of physical limitation, I’m not gonna resent my spouse because of some of the challenges that he has in mental health. And so I think for me personally, that’s the way I look at it, and yeah, I just like… when we can operate out of a place of love in all things, I think there can be great outcomes. Okay, those are the questions that I get most frequently asked about mental health and how to support a spouse.
I have a video that I’ve recorded with my husband that I will link in the cards, and that we recorded I think last year around this time for Bell Let’s Talk, as well as I have a couple of blog posts on this topic especially around supporting a spouse with mental illness. And yeah, really just like, if I could tell the thing I wish everyone knew, the thing I wish every spouse supporting someone with mental illness knew is that there is so much hope! There is so much hope. We live in a country where there’s also so much support, and you are not alone. Thanks so much for watching and please feel free to share this with anyone who you think might benefit especially someone who is the spouse of someone suffering from a mental illness, and just, cheers.
Cheers, cheers, cheers to designing your beautiful life.