My sister is depressed and I don't know how to help her

[falconxb]

Mods- I'm not sure if this is the right subforum, so please move if necessary.

 

My sister is mid-30s, married and has a 5yr old daughter. For the past few years, she will go through brief (several days) bouts of depression. When she is not depressed, everything is great, but when she is depressed, she doesn't go to work, hands her daughter off to my mother who lives a few minutes away, and basically sleeps or watches tv all day, and I suspect, drinks. She has at various times seen a psychologist and a psychiatrist. For a period of time, she was on antidepressants. She also takes sleeping pills - she thought that would help as she would sometimes drink, not be able to sleep and then not be able to go to work the next day.

 

With that as background, it seems her bouts of depression have become more frequent - the last one ended maybe a week ago and just heard from my mother that my sister is depressed again. Her husband is at wit's end, and he's dealing with his father, who is on his deathbed, so the last thing he needs is worrying that he can't leave his daughter alone with his wife for fear she will neglect her and allow her to just sit in front of the television all day. During her depression last week, my sister took a lot of sleeping pills at one time (I think she said 20). I have no idea if this is true as she has been lying to everyone, including her husband and her mother about things like whether she went to work, or saw her psychologist, or was drinking, etc.

 

I'm writing this because I have no idea how to help her. I don't understand what she's going through, but I do know that she is going to lose her job (frankly I'm amazed she hasn't been fired yet with all the sick (depression) days she takes), her husband, and quite likely her daughter (I don't think anyone in my own family would support her having custody of her daughter).

 

One source of stress in their marriage is that her husband wants another child, but she can't have one while she's on antidepressants, but if she's not on antidepressants, then she gets into these depressive states (though it seems she gets depressed even with the pills, assuming she's being honest about taking them). I'm not sure if my sister even wants another child - she claims she does, but seeing how quick she is to dump her child off on her mother, I have my doubts.

 

All that said, how can my family help her? I can't force her to see a psychologist or take away her cash/credit cards so she can't buy alcohol. How can I help someone who doesn't seem to want to help themselves? She is destroying her life and I feel powerless to stop her.

[alli]

Mental illness is very difficult to manage. As you said, you can't really force her to get the care she needs. I believe there is a way you can sort of "force" someone to receive mental health care. You could call a local mental health facility & see if they can give you guidance on how to do it. I think it takes several family members signing off that it is necessary. Even then, they are only held for a few days. It was something I learned about in a psychology class many years ago, so I am rusty on the details & the laws may have changed since then. And the mental health facility might hold them longer if they see it is necessary, but I'm not sure.

 

That isn't necessarily the best way to do it though. She would likely be very upset & it could break down family trust. The only other way I can think to do it is for all family members to have a united front and gently but persistently encourage her to seek help. You might even call around and see what psychiatrists are in the area & can see her soon. Do the work for her so all she has to do is say "yes".

 

It is possible that the medications she was taking before had side effects that she didn't like so she stopped taking them. It is also possible that they made her feel better, and since she felt normal she thought she didn't need them anymore. Then when she falls into a state of depression, it is difficult for her to see with clarity that she should be taking medications. Or perhaps she stopped taking them because the antidepressants just didn't work for her and she needs to stick with them longer or switch to something else.

 

Considering the ups and downs she is having, it might be a good idea to have her evaluated for bipolar disorder in case that is the real problem.

 

I hope that with encouragement from all family members she will relent and see a psychiatrist who might be more successful than the others were at getting her to stick to treatment and follow ups.

 

If you suspect she is suicidal, I would absolutely pursue the avenue of forcing her to go to a mental health treatment center. She will probably be upset but it is better than the alternative. Taking 20 sleeping pills sure sounds like a suicide attempt to me.

 

If I were her husband I would get rid of all of the alcohol in the house. Obviously she can buy more if she wants but why leave alcohol right there in front of her. It would probably be good for him to drop the kids issue. It's obviously not the right time anyway.

 

Best of luck.

[falconxb]

Considering the ups and downs she is having, it might be a good idea to have her evaluated for bipolar disorder in case that is the real problem.

She doesn't have any manic phases. Just oscillates between 'normal' and depressed.

 

If you suspect she is suicidal, I would absolutely pursue the avenue of forcing her to go to a mental health treatment center. She will probably be upset but it is better than the alternative. Taking 20 sleeping pills sure sounds like a suicide attempt to me.

 

If I were her husband I would get rid of all of the alcohol in the house. Obviously she can buy more if she wants but why leave alcohol right there in front of her. It would probably be good for him to drop the kids issue. It's obviously not the right time anyway.

You're right about the kids issue, but he knows time is running out due to her biological clock. She buys alcohol and hides it. He's discovered a couple of small bottles.

 

Her husband is resistant to the idea of taking her to a mental health facility (voluntarily or involuntarily). He's worried that once that gets entered into her health records, current or future employers might see it. She works in the health care industry with children, so perhaps such employers have heightened access to employee/potential employee health records?

 

Even if we took her to such a facility, what can they do that a psychiatrist isn't doing, apart from preventing her from committing suicide while she is in their custody?

 

So it turns out it wasn't 20 sleeping pills, it was 20 antidepression pills (Prozac). I don't think she is seriously trying to kill herself. A week after that incident, she took another 10 Prozac, which she obviously knew wouldn't kill her, but that's all she had left. The overmedicating, which I now suspect is a regular thing, also leaves her without pills for a period of time until she can refill her Rx. So obviously that's not helping either.

[relevart]

Someone needs to talk to her husband. It'd be a monumentally bad idea to bring another child into this mix. (For starters, it'd be another child to pass off to her mother when she got depressed again.) Someone needs to help tis woman out and it doesn't seem to be her husband. I know he has a lot on his plate wither his dad being on his death bed, but what his wife is going through is every bit as real as what his dad is going through. He needs to see that.

 

Also, worrying about what future employers think of her mental illness is, well, frankly, wrong. First, as a mother, she has a built in excuse for being out of work a lot -- her child. I'm not saying to lie about it, but fudging the truth might be OK. But, really, it should be the last thing on anyone's mind because if she ever does kill herself in one of these depressive episodes, well, there won't be a job to worry about anyway.

 

If she's on medication for depression, then she's obviously seeing a doctor. It's time someone sees her doctor and tells him or her what is going on.

[falconxb]

A few weeks ago, we convinced her to go to a mental health hospital. She was there a few days and then they released her. They had changed her meds while she was there. Seems she was feeling a little better than just before we brought her to the hospital. Over the last couple of weeks, she's been somewhat functional - not deeply depressed, but not 'normal'. After a fight with her husband yesterday morning, she left home and we haven't heard from her since. The police have been notified. I have a terrible feeling about this.

[alli]

That's not good. I hope she is alright and things start getting better for all of you soon.

[falconxb]

That's not good. I hope she is alright and things start getting better for all of you soon.

Yeah, I hope she's just holed up in a hotel nearby. According to her husband, she didn't seem as down as she sometimes gets. Plus, when she's really down, she rarely leaves the house (or even her bedroom). But she does have a tendency to get really upset when she and her husband argue, so who knows.

 

It's hard for someone like me who has never experienced depression to understand how she can be so myopic, but clearly in her depressed state, she can't see anything but her own seemingly never-ending pain or hopelessness.

[alli]

Yeah, I hope she's just holed up in a hotel nearby. According to her husband, she didn't seem as down as she sometimes gets. Plus, when she's really down, she rarely leaves the house (or even her bedroom). But she does have a tendency to get really upset when she and her husband argue, so who knows.

 

It's hard for someone like me who has never experienced depression to understand how she can be so myopic, but clearly in her depressed state, she can't see anything but her own seemingly never-ending pain or hopelessness.

 

I can relate. My mom has bipolar disorder. It is hard to understand her sometimes. It's so hard just to see it from the outside sometimes, I can't imagine how it must actually feel to experience that every day. Mostly I just feel sad for her.

[falconxb]

Found her last night at a nearby motel. Going to see if we can get her admitted back into the same mental health hospital we took her to a few weeks ago.

[alli]

Found her last night at a nearby motel. Going to see if we can get her admitted back into the same mental health hospital we took her to a few weeks ago.

 

Oh good. The whole thing must be so stressful but a relief to know she is safe right now.

[chitown9]

It sounds like her medz need to be regulated...chi