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braveBalsam3192
90 M Embraced
PathStep 6 Compassion hearts7 Forum posts1 Forum upvotes0 Current upvotes0 Age GroupAdult Last activeFebruary, 2021 Member sinceFebruary 3, 2021
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Husband coming home from first psychiatric hospital stay
Family & Caregivers / by braveBalsam3192
Last post
 February 10th, 2021
...See more 7 years into a steady decline (mentally and physically) and culminating last year with deeply repressed memories of pretty devastating childhood abuse surfacing and now losing his mom to ALS, my husband finally walked himself into the ER and asked to be admitted for psychiatric intervention. He was sleeping nearly 24 hrs a day, utterly immobilized by depression and anxiety despite medication and 4+ years with a wonderful therapist. I have gradually become more and more completely his caregiver over the years while coping with my own decently managed but still ever present depression/anxiety/OCD/phobias/lupus. This was the first time we had been separated for more than a few days and I was shocked at how difficult that was for me even though there was also this huge relief as I got a break from caregiving. Because of covid there is zero visitation possibility and no cell phones allowed so I could not even message him or video chat, just a communal phone during certain hours but he was so drained from the intense group therapy etc he didn't have the energy to speak to me for more than a couple minutes and separation felt so profound I felt grief almost as though he had died and this stunned me. Wrestling with understanding codependency and untangling it from our relationship which is genuinely loving and close, we've been best friends for 11 years and married for 8. Now they're looking at discharging him any day now even though he is just beginning to face the big healing work ahead and doesn't feel ready to come home and I feel so lost as to how to BE once he's back. How do I support him, help him as his wife and friend, without falling back into the awful codependent toxicity/resentment cycle we had ended up in? Anyone relate? Learning about codependency I feel like the rug was pulled out from under me and I don't know what a healthy loving relationship should even look like now! I am trying to put on a brave confident face but I feel pretty lost and anxious at the thought of him coming home when he is still in the thick of this crisis.
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