Coping with Suicide-Ideating Partner

July 16, 2024 7:29 AM

My partner is feeling hopeless, and I’m having Feelings about it. Help me deal. People who have struggled with these feelings especially wanted.

My partner is depressed and kind of doesn’t want to be in this world anymore for a number of reasons that they say have nothing to do with me. They say I am lovely and they very much enjoy our relationship, which I also enjoy.

However, I am finding it really, really hard to cope with it when they say that it feels like there is nothing left to live for. For me, this relationship has generally been very healing for my depression and has given me hope; something to focus on in an increasingly dark world. I also struggle with depression, and it makes me feel like I must not be that valuable as a partner, or I would similarly be offering them the same kind of hope they offer me.

Are there other perspectives that might be helpful?

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (12 answers total)

and it makes me feel like I must not be that valuable as a partner, or I would similarly be offering them the same kind of hope they offer me.

Oh goodness no. Depression such as you’re describing has no outside cause or cure. You can try to make their daily life more comfortable (it sounds like you feel you owe them that), but there is absolutely nothing you can do but encourage them to get into therapy. If they are unwilling, perhaps they will be willing to just pursue antidepressants, but those alone have a lower success rate.

But once again (and I am speaking as a former depressee) nothing external has anything to do with the depression.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:36 AM on July 16 [17 favorites]

I'm so sorry you are going through this. In terms of coping with the taking it personally part, it may help to remember how dulling really severe depression is. You can realize logically that you have things to live for, but your body literally isn't really experiencing any emotional reactions. It's a very flat way to be, and it can be like moving through mud to function. I suspect that is the experience he is alluding to when he discusses the dichotomy of enjoying you but feeling like he has nothing to live for.

I do hope your partner is seeking help and if possible I would recommend you get support as well from a therapist or similar. It's extremely painful and isolating to love someone with depression, and a huge part of the exercise is releasing the desire to fix it for them (which is impossible).
posted by amycup at 7:36 AM on July 16 [5 favorites]

and it makes me feel like I must not be that valuable as a partner, or I would similarly be offering them the same kind of hope they offer me.

I know it's not always cool to like, drag MeFi history into an Ask, but I know in the past you have described yourself as having a kind of nonstandard relationship to the concepts of love and limerence. It's worth considering that your specific way of relating to those feelings may be why your romantic relationship is healing to your depression in ways that are not applicable to other people.

That aside, it is genuinely hard to witness our loved ones in pain, and it's okay for you to feel the difficulty of that! I hope you have adequate support outside of your relationship to process those feelings and continue to get perspective on what is possible and reasonable for you to do in this situation. A therapist can also help you to deconstruct the narratives you may be telling yourself about what it means to be a "valuable" partner, and consider where those narratives are coming from and whether they are serving you well.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:13 AM on July 16 [5 favorites]

I also struggle with depression, and it makes me feel like I must not be that valuable as a partner, or I would similarly be offering them the same kind of hope they offer me.

Which, of course, you are, even if they're not currently in a position to say so in so many words.

Depression is a shit of a thing. Don't allow yourself take any of its lies to heart, even when they're come from somebody else's depression instead of your own.

I suffer from occasional bouts of it (in our family, depression's name is Horace, from waking up to greet the morning horrors yet again) and the truth that gets me through is that there are good days and bad days, and this is a bad day, so let's just try not to make far-reaching decisions until after Horace gets bored with sneering at whoever he's visiting today and fucks off of his own accord.

It was weird and interesting just how much less intolerable depression began to feel after I gave mine his own name, and that naming has also helped both me and ms flabdablet not take each other's depressive episodes anywhere near as personally. Instead we can now indulge in a little supportive mutual eye-rolling at the tedious lack of consideration displayed by our unwelcome, uninvited house guest even when he manages to occupy both of us at once.

Apologies to any reader whose actual name is Horace. I'm sure you're lovely and nothing like the flatulent self-important little killjoy who visits us from time to time. For what it's worth, my paternal grandfather's name was Horace and he was a mensch.
posted by flabdablet at 8:20 AM on July 16 [25 favorites]

As a depressive person who sometimes deals with suicidal ideation: it has nothing to do with you! It's not anything you're doing, or not doing, and it isn't an indicator of your partner's love for you. I promise. I know it's so hard, though. Sending love.
posted by maryellenreads at 8:41 AM on July 16 [2 favorites]

I've struggled with suicidal ideation my entire adult life. I was hospitalized once during my marriage because of this. When I am suicidal the pain is so overwhelming no balm can soothe me. There is this EXTREME and UNRELENTING desperation to get away from the pain. I can't imagine how hard it is for my partner to see me in this kind of distress and know that the strength of their love can't relieve my pain, but it's not realistic for one person to think they can single-handedly take away this psychic and physical distress. It has nothing to do with how much I love my partner. I'm so sorry you're both going through this. My heart goes out to both of you. There are days when I wake up and I'm like "I can't believe I'm still here, I can't believe I survived those awful feelings." I love my partner and family so much, but when I am suicidal, I am just in such pain it feels like there is NOTHING that can take it away, and it feels intolerable that I will continue to feel this way. It's not about my friends and family and how I feel about them, it's about my sheer desperation to get away from the pain.
posted by spacebologna at 8:58 AM on July 16 [11 favorites]

If you would like a support group, NAMI is there. I no longer go, but I used to be in sort of a unique group in that it was for people with mental illness and their family members. As a depressed/anxious person, when I was doing better, I got a lot out of hearing what other family members said
posted by kathrynm at 9:10 AM on July 16 [3 favorites]

I'm really sorry. I've been both sides of this and they're both really hard in their own ways. It is simply not true, however true it feels, that your partner's ideation is any kind of reflection of you or of your partnership. But they are not in a place right now to help you believe that.

I used to be a bit of a nonbeliever in the whole "put your own oxygen mask on first!" thing and then my relationship finally got hit with a mental health crisis so big that it really came into focus. And now I believe it fervently - you need to be taking care of yourself and leaning on your own support system, if you're going to be of any help to your partner who is in crisis. You deserve support for yourself with absolutely no qualification on that, but it is also true that it will help you support your partner better.

Please do seek support and a safe place to talk about how this feels for you. A NAMI group might work. Sympathetic friends and family might work. Hell, drop me a MeMail if you want.
posted by Stacey at 10:08 AM on July 16 [2 favorites]

I have been on your partner's side of this, and one thing that I really think would have helped both of us is, if we'd been able to have couples therapy around this issue. Therapy is an absolute must, IMHO, for both of you individually, but some kind of "how can we, as a team, deal with this" would have been huge to me. Not a "what are we doing wrong" or "whose fault this is" or any of that, just like... the way you would get therapy -together- if you were both facing some difficult, painful situation like a loss or a bad medical or financial situation.
posted by The otter lady at 10:37 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

I'm a therapist, so I feel more comfortable talking about this than I've found the average person to be (no judgment, just explaining this is something I deal with more than most). Here's what I think about when someone is feeling suicidal. It's like there's a burnt out lightbulb in their brain. They can't make themselves see through the darkness. You can wave the biggest sign with the best, most loving message in front of them, and they're not going to see it in the dark. Suicidality is a symptom, but it can seem to the sufferer and others like a puzzle to solve (i.e., how do you make yourself stop wanting to die?). I think it's important (along with other precautions, obviously) to remember that this feeling of wanting to die is a symptom of their depression, just like pain is a symptom of a physical injury. If your partner were in physical pain after a bike accident, you'd want them to not be in pain, you'd want to do what you could to get them good care, but you wouldn't see yourself as a failure because of their pain. It is normal and understandable to feel sad, helpless, and eager to find solutions in a moment like this. Please don't take this as criticism, just a reframe--you're doing a hard thing, and it hurts, and maybe you could use some support of your own (support group, more time talking to friends/loved ones, individual therapy).
posted by theotherdurassister at 1:18 PM on July 16 [20 favorites]

I really like theotherdurassister's answer here.

I think you know, that your partner's suicidal thoughts aren't your responsibility. But knowing that doesn't help because it hurts so much that you can't help them.

I'm going through a suicidal ideation spike right now. For me at least, and I'm guessing for a lot of people and maybe for your partner, it's not so much that I actually want to die, as that I want the pain to stop and my lazy lizard brain immediately goes to "if I wasn't alive, there would be no pain".

Like theotherdurassister's says, that's a symptom of my depression and anxiety, of my brain chemistry.

My husband can't help me directly, he can't make the pain go away, but just the fact that he's there, being himself, actually does help me tremendously despite the fact that the suicidal thoughts still hang around.

And one of the things that helps me most, actually, is being able to help him, and feeling useful as a partner and a human being.
posted by Zumbador at 10:28 PM on July 16 [1 favorite]

This is so hard. I’m sorry this is happening.

makes me feel like I must not be that valuable as a partner, or I would similarly be offering them the same kind of hope they offer me

May I gently suggest that you start here? With looking at the evidence against this? Your value as a person and a partner exists, even if your partner can’t access their ability to feel it right now. Their bulb is burned out (to use that image, from above). The burned out bulb is independent of your worth (though yeah, it’s easy to confuse the two, especially when you suffer from depression and in the context of a relationship). With support in my heart, I am reminding you that you need to change this story about yourself in order to preserve your strength. You are good people. Don’t forget that.

If you are watching your partner because you are worried about what they might do, remember that this is exhausting. Are there ways you can find respite? Being outside, having a friend over, getting both of you in a situation where you don’t have to expend quite as much vigilance? Are you getting breaks?

I know that self-kindness may feel difficult and insufficient in this context, but…oxygen mask. You need your strength and clear thinking in this fraught situation. Sending you hope; MeMail me if you need to.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:56 AM on July 18