Husband and Daughter having thoughts of suicide. Overwhelmed

[jasmine68]

Feeling very overwhelmed with family problems. I feel like I'm trying hold up this huge weight all buy myself and if I drop it the family is going to be crushed. I'm a 35 yr old female with 4 kids. My husband is 38 and was diagnosed with 40% ptsd back in 1995. He can be a real bear most of the time. He has really bad outbursts when stressful situations arise and he can be really mean. Last month he threatened to kill his self. He took his gun from our closet and took off for 2 days. He was so mean about it. It wasn't like I'm so depressed I'm going to kill myself, it was like "I'll show you and you'll feel bad for the rest of your life". He even hand wrote out his will and gave it to me. I managed to get him home and calmed down and he seems o.k. but not better. He doesn't want to seek counseling for his depression because he doesn't like the fact that when he goes to the VA hospital and gets assigned a counselor that he only has that one for only 4 months and then they change counselors on him. He then has to go through his whole life story again and he said he's sick of it.

 

Second problem, my 15 year old daughter is sexually active. We just found this out about 3 months ago. I put her on the Ortha Evra patch a week after I found out that she was having sex. My husband & I also counseled her on how important it is to use a condum because of fear that she may contract an std. I told her I wished she would of waited but what's done is done. I told her it's not too late to just say no but she's decided this is something she wants to continue doing. Well, after putting her on the patch I noticed her moods changing. She started getting more irritable than normal, not eating much, not sleeping, just feeling really bad. Her grades have dropped from b's to c/c-'s . 4 days ago she told me she was having thoughts of suicide. She said that she was not happy at home or with herself. Her boyfriend also told me that he had noticed a huge change in her. I do think that the fact that my husband was thinking of suicide a month ago has an impact on her thoughts today but also think that the hormones in the patch have added to her state of mind. I took her to see her Dr. She had a physical done and the results came back normal. Except that she needs glasses. Her Dr. said that it would be o.k. to continue on with the patch and to find a mental health counselor for my daughter to see. I then spoke with my daughter's gynocologist yesterday evening after her Dr's appointment and she told me to tell my daughter to take off the patch and made an appointment for her for next week to be seen. I told my husband what we had done this morning and he freaked out that I made my daughter take off the patch. He said I was out of my mind, and that I want my daughter to get pregnant. He said I was being stupid. He said that she is not suicidal because of the patch and that she needed to put it back on or she's going to get pregnant. He even went back to see her Dr today and had the Dr call me and tell me to tell my daughter to put the patch back on. I was pretty upset that he overrided my decision without considering my feelings and where I was coming from. We both don't know why she's sooooo down. It could very well be the patch and problems she has been having that we did not know about until now. When I took her to school this morning she seemed so much brighter and happier. She told me that it would be nice to get a membership at a gym with me that way we could have mom & daughter time together and she would feel better about herself because she would be getting into shape. She was not thinking that positive yesterday before her Dr's appointment. Now I'm stressed because my husband had a talk with my daughter after he saw her Dr and told her it's her decision to put the patch back on. I'm afraid that if she decides not to put it back on that he's going to get upset again. She told me that she didn't want it on. She said she didn't like the way it made her feel.

 

3rd my 11 year old son is very sick. He's being treated for a touch of phneumonia. He's been home from school for 1 ½ weeks. He's on an antibiotic called zithromax and nebulizer treatments when he needs them.

 

Lots more issues but are minor to the above. I do exercise doing my floor stepper and treadmill but I'm still feeling the weight. I know I can't just drop everything and leave the family but when will it end? I do pray every night and do have the lord in my heart and on my mind all of the time. Would love some input. Thanks for hearing me out. I know this post is pretty off and scattered but that's how I'm feeling.

[justbrad]

The first thing that I noticed is that you seem very tired. I rememeber when I was feeling overwhelmed by the loss of my family of 24 years. Some days it was all I could do to just get out of bed in the morning. I don't think that you would have the opportunity to just stopp trying, because they all depend on you so much. But that's what I did sometimes, and it got hard to get back up again after I did. I'm really only patially recovered now.

The point is this. Post traumatic stress syndrome is contagious in a way. People who have been attacked by others become defensive and attack us. Dealing with powerful waves of emotion in others takes a lot out of us. We get to feeling worn out and overwhelmed by the daily dose of stress ourselves. Caretakers especially are vulnerable because of the inability to cope by giving up and just not caring anymore.

As one who has taken care of others all his life (including 7 years in nursing), I urge you to take care of yourself in order that you will have something to give others. So many who I have seem are worn down by the struggles of life because these struggles become thier entire life. In otherwords, they have no life outside of the daily pain of life. You must build a space in your life which is for you and which nurishes you and makes you stronger. When I went through the divorce, I spent more hours than you could imagine going over recovery websites and participating in discussion boards. The knowledge I gained helped me to deal more effectively. But the time spent in such activities gave me strength in other ways too. For one, it creates perspective. It allows us to see how our problems are like others and that some have it even worse. And then we can see that there are skillful, as well as unskillful ways of coping. Finally, by trying to help others, I found that conquering the suffering of others empowers us to overcome our own, and instills compassion in us and perhaps some gift of grace as well.

So take care of yourself. Take a long bath, talk to a friend (about any other subject). Get out and shop or go do something just for you.