Posted by quilter on January 20, 2001, at 0:18:42
In reply to Re: Depression poisoned my marriage, need help » quilter, posted by Ant-Rock on January 18, 2001, at 19:34:25
Anthony, I didn't mean to give you another stick to beat yourself with. Guilt is your enemy right now. You can't afford to indulge in it, so try focussing (sp? or maybe just cussing) on the things you can do to make things better. I have a couple of corny suggestions. You might feel a bit better if you communicated to your wife how much you care about her in spite of how things have been recently. There are plenty of Valentines out right now. How about dropping one in the mail every few days? Low risk of worsening the situation, might be worth a try. Make sure she knows you are willing to work with her on ways to improve the interpersonal problems depression seems to cause.
You might also want to try one of the self help books about cognitive therapy while you are waiting to see your therapist. The one I found most useful (in spite of the absurd title) is David Burns' workbook Ten Days to Self-Esteem. Just reading about the theory didn't work like actually putting pencil to paper. Only once the distorted thoughts were out where I could read them did I see how out of touch with reality they really were. The exercises were a helpful beginning to some work I did later with the same principles. I bought mine at one of the chain bookstores, but I'm pretty sure you should be able to get it online.(check Dr. Bob's Book page)
Quilter
poster:quilter
thread:3972
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010105/msgs/4078.html