Partner is suffering depression and autism and it's becoming alot

I feel clueless

I apologize now for how long winded this is and some of it might not seem like it belongs in this forum but i could really use the help and understanding. 

I have been with my partner for over 8 years now and I have always known that he struggled a little with anxiety and depression and even though he is on medication recently things have gone in a downward spiral.

A month or so back he got really bad, intrusive negative thoughts about himself and what others thought of him, being very withdrawn both physically and verbally, thoughts of death and possibly acting on it. I am usually well versed in how to help him with his depression and such but this was new for me, I have never seen him like that. I was so worried and panicked that my own mental health began to suffer a little. He wouldn't talk to anyone or seek help, he would t talk to his parents and let them know he was struggling and he told me not to tell anyone as well but I explained that we needed help that I couldn't do this on my own. 

He eventually agreed to see our local mental health crisis team and they saw him every day for a almost 3 weeks, he was out on some medication to help him sleep but also something he could take when ever he felt high anxiety which he could take ontop of his usually anti depressants. He also got to see there on call phycologist, who was very nice and strongly believes that along with depression and anxiety that he has high functioning autism as well.

Which now that I think back and reflect on some of our history does make science. We are currently waiting for his GP to officially assess him for autism and a diagnosis but we have been waiting for nearly 4 weeks now. 

This is new ground for him and for me and I'm currently at a loss of what I can do to help. I have done my own reading and research and applied some of this to the way I handle things and talk with him ect and some of it does help a little bit there are days where it's almost like his back to the very bottom. 

I feel clueless and helpless.

He does have a phone call with a new therapist/counsellor next week who deals with talking therapy and also CBT and the likes. I'm hoping he will be ok till that call and that this call will help us get onto the right track.

I just don't know what to do anymore.

  • I'm not really into religions, though open minded and learned about them through life.  With a church of england primary school background, you had take part in the yearly church rituals, but I didn't develop and feeling that i needed to keep doing that, or have faith in god when i needed it.

    I've realised that for me, having faith in myself is more beneficial, I think conforming can mean people lose individuality and perhaps dependent on god or others to solve things.  Also, christianity (and perhaps other religions) has maligned disabled people in the past which still lingers today..

    The comfort of rituals and concepts related to death go way back, ancient and still practiced - so still providing what people need at that time, even if it has changed or is more varied.  

    For me, hill tops and mountains are amazing places to sit, and just look down and across the landscape, you feel connected and part of bigger thing than your normal tunnel vision daily view. 

  • I don't so much have faith, or belief, as have applied the original test of asking for guidance. Repeatedly.

    "Ask and ye shall receive" apparently is true. I have receieved more than my fair share, yet still I'm not entirely with the program. 

    NOW, in the wild and wacky (and often unbelievable, these days) world of "science" they are now telling us there may be as many as twelve different dimensions to reality only 4 of which we have easy access to or can understand. That leaves plenty of room for an afterlife, or a mechanism by which your "Soul" could continue after death, or unwittingly extend into during your actual lifetime! Maybe you go into these places when you dream and that's why it's so hard to translate some of those dreams into sense when you wake up?

    The point being, if there is a god, and you have an immortal soul that extends like my avatar into a vast space that we cannot see into, and I've just used science (lite) to provide an actual mechanism that makes that possible, then even dying (with uncontrollable explosive diarrhoea after years of a hideous painful disease after seeing your family eaten by big wasps and everything you've ever touched being a failure) is just a microscopic blink compared to an immortal existence. Life may be the most gentle sharpening and preparing process for eternity that is possible, provided with love by a totally merciful god, in that context, but how the heck would we be able to know?

    Simples, although god must by definition be very complex and difficult to understand from our point of view, god must know that! It follows that if God put us here as most religious texts seem to indicate to interact with, he would also try and give us the means of interacting with him, and it would have to be completely voluntary for us.  And it is! 

    Now, I'm totally unconvinced that my particular religion, "Christianity lite", is the best of all ways to commune with and celebrate the source of our creation, but on a practical level it does seem to work well in day to day life, and my prayers for guidance seem to have been answered, so I ended up with "faith" as a side effect...

      

  • I was quite dismissive of religion but as I’ve got older and had more experience of life I now envy people with a firm faith. I’ve seen how much comfort it gives people, and how it gives meaning to their lives even in the darkest times. My mother-in-law died recently and I saw how peaceful her death was because she had her faith, and she completely believed that she would be reunited with her husband and son who had died many years ago. 

  • Hi.  People with autism usually have difficulty managing thoughts, and feelings, and that means anxiety can develop and worsen, and thoughts get more disturbing.

    CBT is useful, but hard work and a long-term thing you have to keep doing, a therapist will show you the way but you have to keep it going.  it starts to work eventually though and then you get to a better place.  Autistic people can struggle with it, but the idea is change your thoughts and beliefs to be rational, or healthy.

    Talking therapy can be useful but this won't usually help with autistic aspects, there are autistic therapists but not many and tend to be booked up sadly, which says it all.

    Mindfulness is good, though not for everyone, the idea though is to focus on a sense and keep refocussing on that sense - thoughts will come and go and you can't latch onto them or be affected by them.  You can't do it all day, but just 15 minutes a day helps have a break, and then you do as and when need to.  Focussing on music works best for me, if you analyse the music as it plays that is doing mindfulness.  Meditation is similar and can help, it can shift you from thinking negative or harmful things into healthy ones.

    Another thing is distracting yourself, focus on a task and not thoughts.  Best to pick something calm and not challenging, and with no pressure or end result in mind.  Just tidying up can help.  But important not to focus on thoughts while doing it.

    Natural calm places can help, fields, woodlands, parks, but not always possible I know.  Environments can calm or agitate autistic people, they may be aware and able to tell you but may not and you have to find out.  

    All the above apply to those around an autistic person who may be affected by them, which is usually the case.  

  • I’m afraid to say it’s a long process, my husband is currently 6 months into the wait for assessment with no word on how long it will actually be. I’m glad you managed to get help from the crisis team and that he’s having CBT, that helped my husband to stop his negative thoughts spiralling out of control. Have the team tried changing his antidepressant, I think we are on number 3 now. Escitalopram actually stopped him sleeping because he wasn’t feeling tired even though he actually was

  •  

    Thank you for all your words and support. It really does mean alot that my self and my partner are not alone in these struggles.

    Ideally I would rather no medication and all be it a small consideration he is on the lowest dose of his antidepressants and his meds for sleeping & anxiety spells are to be taken only when he feels like he really needs to (which touch wood he often tries to avoid taking them).

    I try my best to not be too pushy or demanding of him and honestly I cannot fault him in his duty's as a husband. He still helps around the house ect. I give him as much space as he needs but I always let him know I am there, even if he wishes not to talk I am there to just sit with him in silence if he wants/needs.

    I do believe that going back to work after being signed off sick and then a bit of an overload of social activities over the weekend has triggered this current spell.

    Im keeping my fingers crossed that things do not worsen untill his appointments next week.

  • be gentle, give him space, and don't push about things, let him slow down, doing less socialising with others is good idea

    I reckon he suffers from burnout caused by extensive prolonged masking, and possibly a traumatic event before it started, it takes long time to fully recover

    meds probably don't do him well, all I tried were making me like a zombie unable to function, or had no effect at smaller doses, and it's drugs, so kidneys are working double time, make sure he has always something to drink at arms reach

  • I tried conventional treatment for the depression, but the SSRI's made my darkness worse and somehow more real.

    If he has Autism and he gets a diagnosis the depression may end, or as in my case, change into something else entirely..

    Autism is bloody annoying, but less so after diagnosis and if you've managed 8 years of undiagnosed Autism with your partner, the good news is that it WILL get better. Apparently my relationship is improving from her side.

    The NHS process usually takes an eternity but if he is in the system already it might be quicker. Aspergertestsite did my initial one, and it turned out to be accurate.

    Careful with that medication, I have deep suspicions that one day they ill only let certain types of people take SSRI's when they work it all out a bit better. And it is drugs after all, just like the cannabis I use to self medicate, and the single dose combination of "research chemicals" with which I accidentally blew away my own tendancy to suicidal ideation a few years back. 

    The best results I've had seem to have been through getting older and working stuff out, plus taking a lot of my life advice from Jesus Christ rather than the T.V.. 

    That last few words blows it for many people ,which is a bit sad, but credit where credit is due. That "book of stories" has been very helpful to me over the years, the guy had his head screwed on. the important thing is "knowing your place". That's roved quite "grounding". Anyway I hope there is something there that useful, or good to know. I do tell the universal type of truth, as far as I can recognise it, myself. 

  • Dear Clueless

    Well you are welcome & its good to hear that a beginning was potentially begun & that some sort of progress can take place. In those terms you are the analyst on hand and researching, so congrats on getting things moving - you've definitely altered what might have been a static position.

    If you are right that there is a key loss of self esteem he does need to deal with it his way ultimately, & you are the trapeze artist who shall be in a hapless bystander relationship with loved one if your input is zero Yes. Thus it is a seriously tentative position that requires some precision by you under duress as it'll put you in a type of love me, love me not dichotomy. In many ways life is a contradiction, therefore making those work for you both is a paraconsistent ability. I might go to risky extreme of showing the wiki for this term :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic

    And with this extract :

    ''A paraconsistent logic is an attempt at a logical system to deal with contradictions in a discriminating way. Alternatively, paraconsistent logic is the subfield of logic that is concerned with studying and developing "inconsistency-tolerant" systems of logic which reject the principle of explosion''.

    To introduce a term from logic might seem perplexing - thats because it is Slight smile. However if we look at the self loathing position it shares the dilemma of contradiction from service users perspective there has got to be a locus from which to proceed.. That brings us to see there is no reason to self despise =  contradiction. We can know that your love is in a sense - expected - to bring a inconsistency tolerance magick for purpose of avoiding relationship explosion. though not in break up context, more within an inertia related to the issues.  That means that a state exists, where your support is imperilled by the potentials of rejection as matters are not yet stable. What is love after all if it isn't a contradiction between emotion & reason ? I'll not suggest that all is fair in love & war as no doubt it isn't where contradiction gets it wicked way Slight smile Will say that love survival is almost forensic sometimes & that later years on on it all just feels like the same pure love. By a contraction it is pure love process via reason if we are still there to tell the tale & these types of demarcation are ultra subtle are they not ? It can be useful to plan ahead a way to avoid negative connotations in that respect - be delicate like Gaia.

    In a logical context resistance to 'explosion' relates to bringing in smoothing hypothesis that is an ingress that works, whilst it doesn't unsettle the entire endeavour or cause the sort of logical explosion in context in scientific settings. At the same time  the theory & philosophy of mind are a phenomenological science thus any dividing line is simply abstract. Your position might not be absolute rational science, but is a 'science of love' that doesn't need to be. Furthermore you were not able to choose the position arrived at. In your role matters relate to an avoidance to losing touch with your partners sense of proportion so he doesn't throw the dummy out of the cot so all falls down - it is clear you sense that. Then you'd both build it up again - then it falls down again - that would be very draining & i'd feel you are aware of that too. Put it this way, if you can accept that the prevailing conditions feature cognitive contradiction, where self loathing is better adjusted to self respect ( i.e he is respectable but has been affected so he doesn't respect himself = contradiction ) - then you'd always have a sense of where the pivot is for this see saw effect liabilty. Thus anything you faciliate might not overload one end - if that makes sense ? By putting in place a tangible mental topography you'd have some degrees of freedom to help with this. This is since they help the srervice user to agree to boundary conditions around the emotional regulation matters (which is what these are ) The suggestions depend entirely on if it is right to consider partner lost his self respect to degree of despising himself.  If that is the case then there could be many years of inertia. Therefore it might be so that a fear of research complexity in adopting a philosophy & theory of mind along a special broadsword armed against contradiction is the least of your problems tbh. It doesn't have to be this model, but something else will need similar elements if you are determined to be proactive like this.

    Going forward it'll be clear that the world will not change in front of you partner significantly. It can show separate characteristics among select tribes of human via enhanced forms of understanding we learn. But the facts surrounding the corporeal world are pretty set in stone. Whatever the truth is here considering your partners actual state of mind, he cannot afford to lose his self respect permanently. Therefore it would be clear that the path from A to B shall feature strategies that help him cope = regain balance. It is a shame that our social engineers are minded toward the goals they have & not the potential for adversity their manipulative ways bring. If your partner is of above average intelligence he may be sensitive to that form of sociological wrong doing. Such things are beyond the pale of help by your individuality or his and say mine as we are not masses entities of whole democracy but units of it. I mention this as a general safeguard concerning any  big picture scenario, not that one in particular. For it suffices it to say that should an inner conflict be entwined with the world at large, during this form of dilemma, that is a force to be reckoned with aside from any one on one examples that bound together to = loss of self respect. In which case there would be two topologies to juggle i.e personal experience leading to X & perceptual leading to Y. Each when present might combine to overwhelm someone. Furthermore concerning any personal experience that built up, such potentials will remain out there in public. Therefore the recovery could only feature the way of personal adaptation & more residence.

    If the basic topography you perceive as relevant gets put in place & is a love science that works. Then it only remains that your partner somehow finds a way to openly discuss what it was that upset him into such a dark place. We cannot know if any part of an outlook above can do this, that is more of a way to experience a strategy someone else may put in place. It shows a way to add a type of virtual tangibility as the vital element, whilst you endeavour to consider the actual architecture you'll feel is best.

    Usernames like Clueless are so endearing when used by someone who'll elucidate elements of thier thought process and research. In that sense some of the above will help and some won't. You should be confident in your explicit love science Clueless, there is a sense in the air that whatever you need to do it will be chosen wisely.

    Stuff worth browsing :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_self-evaluations

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_learning

    See the 10 step reintegration ladder in TL.

    Go Well

  • Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

    What you are saying makes sense and it has definitely giving me some food for thought. 

    I agree that I think he has lost all hope in humanity, he has made comments of such but he also thinks very negatively of him self and assumes everyone else things negatively about him also. 

    I have been doing alot of reading and research about autism in adults and both autism and depression coexisting together. I'm pretty sure I've not even touched the tip of the iceberg... But I feel it's giving me a slight better understand of how I can handle things when they do go south.

    Im hoping that his appointment next week with the new therapy centre can asses what would be the best thing for him currently and also if he does get a diagnosis of autism that they can then alter and tweak things.

    Is hard to not feel helpless and like I am not doing enough when they are being closed off. But I also know he needs to feel what he is feeling and deal with it in his way also. 

  • It sounds like a very disorienting dilemma & so many things could be at the traumatic leading edge here. Considering the prospect of an autism diagnosis is the way the condition has sociological dimensions, perhaps there is a ready made context to be had in that respect. I'd doubt that this might be the only theme for consideration by far - however. From its standpoint it could be true to say that autistic people who live in & around built up areas, ( for instance ) seem to be experiencing greater amounts of intolerance by others at large. In recent times i have certainly detected that there is a increase in general public unrest, that seems to erupt to the surface at the least cause  in shops and so forth. Some staff in shops anbd other establishments have become aggressive in my area, so much so in my case that it has prompted me to begin looking at autistic I.D strategies closely. In speaking in this ay it may not seem to your good self that it could possibly link. Similarly you may receive more replies with separate ideas. But nevertheless if the conditions are that perhaps high functioning autism (HFA) is rushing up as a reality, then it is just as possible that some intense negative experiences may have taken place in public  or have built up over a longer time span unnoticed. Difficulty in social matters is already a central theme for autistic individuals. I cannot vouch for every area of the country, but in mine its getting much harder to avoid conflict situations. Thus if a keynote of your partners being  is to be a recognition concerning autistic, then he might have been enduring some difficult issues in public over time & this could have eroded his self esteem. 

    Having offered this possibility it would not be a good idea to believe that this is the reason. Better to gather what you can & feel your way through it all until something emerges that makes sense. Try not to seem stressed even when you are. If there is one thing you can do that'll help it is to seem cool and somewhat detached ( from losing your own noodle over this ).

    And just maybe the above is at least a start with uncovering what is wrong. They way you worded it it feels like your partner is exasperated and in despair of something that has got beyond his reasoned understanding of the world - could be losing faith in humankind rather than himself ? We can if people will not refrain from insulting us.

    People do talk about topping themselves when a certain threshold is breached in that way. And if he is political maybe its time to have a rest. The rhetoric & neuro linguistic adaptation to reality that go on there are about the worst thing there is for this state of mind.

    I hope things settle.