I am so excited to welcome Nemo @ Young Adult at Heart today, who is sharing her incredibly moving story about caring for someone- in her case, her husband- who is dealing with a mental illness. Nemo and her husband’s story is so powerful and moving- there are so many incredible messages to take away from this! Read on, loves!
Nemo’s Story
The Time I Called The Suicide Hotline On My Husband or ‘That Night’
I wrote a post last year introducing my husband, whom I care for, who has depression, anxiety, bi-polar and PTSD. He has sought help for this, and that makes me so proud. But we’ve had our rough moments since my post last year.
Things had been leading up to That Night for a while. In a never-ending cycle, over the past six months he’d been too sick to go to work, which meant his income was reduced, which meant he couldn’t afford to visit his psychologist and get the help he needed, which meant he continued to miss work and continued to not get paid enough to seek the help he needed.
This culminated when he somehow convinced himself that I no longer wanted to be with him. His brain wants to kill him, remember. His brain actively tries to kill him by convincing him he has no reason – including me – to live.
I can’t go too far into details because it’s too painful, but this lack of communication with me for about a month led him into a downward spiral and to what I would normally call a ‘fight’ between the two of us, except when there’s a fight there’s normally two people yelling, not just one. I suggested he temporarily move into a motel and he agreed so he could work on his brain space.
In hindsight this was a very bad decision, but neither of us knew it at the time. It gave him plenty of chances to keep messing up and sabotaging his relationship with me over and over. He had a touch of addiction which compelled him to do whatever it took to make himself feel better, even if only temporarily, and even if it meant at my expense.
Things came to a head That Night when he did something so terribly wrong that I can’t even write it down. I went to the motel, took his keys, and told him he wasn’t welcome home.
Yes, I said this knowing he had no money, no transport, no family to take care of him. My knee-jerk reaction to his behaviour was DIVORCE HIM, but after cooling down, I always forgave him. I didn’t want to throw away nearly 10 years of our relationship, not after everything we’ve been through. What he did was terrible and inexcusable and he has been atoning ever since, but I was enraged and hurt so hard my heart had broken.
However, That Night I still cared for him, and I had seen him talking to a friend online about ‘how easy’ it would be to let everything go, that ‘temptation was high’. I’d seen an empty bottle of vodka in his room and I knew he had access to powerful sleeping tablets.
I didn’t want to march back to his room and demand he hand over everything that could kill him because I still wasn’t sure how he was feeling. He hadn’t argued when I took his keys, so maybe he was OK with it. Maybe after all, he didn’t want to be with me anymore.
But even if he didn’t want to be with me, I still cared for him. I knew he was at risk, and I didn’t want him to hurt himself.
So I did the next best thing.
I called the biggest 24 hour national suicide hotline I knew of and through unstoppable tears I begged for help.
The woman who answered was very calm and kind, but I was required to explain why I thought my husband was at risk of hurting himself which meant I had to explain his suicidal thoughts last year which led to me taking two months off work to babysit him because we couldn’t afford to send him to hospital, the current troubles he’d been going through, and the climax of my taking his keys and kicking him out of our house.
She agreed that he was at risk and handed me the number of a local medical triage hotline and urged me to call them or an ambulance to take him to the hospital.
I called the local number and told the somewhat less friendly woman who answered the same story. She told me that all she could do was call him, let him know I, his partner, was concerned for him and ask if he needed help in the form of an ambulance to take him to hospital.
I sat waiting in my car for ten minutes but she eventually rang back and reported the following.
“He is at high risk. He is exhausted. He wants you to come back to the motel and supervise him taking a regular dose of sleeping tablets and then he wants you to take the packet away so he isn’t tempted.”
After I cried some more I composed myself and went back to his room. I told him he had a choice, he could either go to the hospital or come home with me but I couldn’t leave him unsupervised anymore. He chose to come home so I supervised him taking two of his sleeping tablets and then I took the packet. He packed up his room and we put everything back in my car. I took him home, made up the spare bed, and he went to sleep straight away.
It was that moment that I realised I cared too much about him to let him die. Although he had done terrible things and said awful, untrue things about me, and hurt a lot of people in the process including losing his best friend, I realised my love for him was strong enough to overcome this.
When he’d received the phone call from the local support place he was reaching for his sleeping tablets to overdose. He thought he’d lost me for good and he had no more reason to live. He was wallowing in grief and shame and thought the only way out was to end his life because his wife, the love of his life, no longer wanted to be with him.
Looking back, that moment proved to each of us how much we really cared for each other. He thought we were over, although I hadn’t officially broken up or asked for a divorce or anything. I didn’t want him to hurt himself even if he was out of my life. It was like a flip switched in his head when he realised I still cared enough about him to make sure he was OK when he wanted to kill himself. He realised I still loved him and that his previous behaviour was unacceptable and he had to stop what he’d been doing and change his entire life.
This all happened a few months ago. Since then we’ve had marriage counselling (which was amazing and basically fixed everything in one session, I kid you not), I’ve had some private counselling with a carers organisation, and he’s gone back to a new psychologist. We’re trying our hardest to communicate everything to each other and re-bond as husband and wife. It took a long time for me to recover from the pain of his actions, and every day he is sorry and shameful for what he’d done. He has got a lot of hard work ahead of him to help him fight this constant battle, and he’s got to remain ever-vigilant about his depression in case his brain tries to kill him again – which in all likelihood it will.
If it weren’t for the 24 hour suicide hotline, I don’t know what would have become of us.
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Oh, this post! It’s such an awful cycle that mental illness leads to not working which leads to less income which means no psychological help which means more not working and more less income and still no psychological help. How vicious and awful.
I can’t even imagine how hard and heartbreaking it has to be to have someone so close to you dealing with so many mental illnesses. You’re amazing, Nemo. Your story about your husband and your’s night just cut so deep. I don’t even really have words. I’m so glad you were able to get your husband help, I’m glad your marriage is getting better. I’m REALLY glad you’re getting some counseling for yourself! It can be so hard to be a caregiver for someone who’s mentally unwell, not to mention super draining on you. Your heart is amazing for doing what you do. This was a really lovely and heartbreaking but also hopeful post, because you and your husband are able to get more help.
Dude, this is SO accurate. The cycle is one of the biggest problems in mental health. That, and so few jobs now even OFFER health insurance, and as you know, it’s expensive as fuck. (I was almost like “oh, maybe I shouldn’t say ‘fuck’ on here”, and then realized it’s my blog and I can say ‘fuck’ exclusively, if I so choose 😉 )
I agree Amber, this is so hopeful, I think Nemo and her husband’s story will give SO many people hope- for so many reasons!
We have to pay for our private health insurance privately, we don’t get it through jobs in Australia. I imagine seeking help would be ever harder in a place like the US.
Thank you, it was a really awful time but I don’t want to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. Awful stuff like this happens in the battle against mental illness and more people need to be made aware. Marriages fall apart, some people can’t deal with being a carer, and some people would have expected me to leave him. I understand mental illness and his behavior, and my husband is working so hard to get better and I’m proud of him every day.
Wow. I’m glad this story has a (mostly) happy ending. I’ve never cared for a mentally ill person, but I’ve watched my mom care for my grandma, who has a lot of age-related health problems. I don’t think I could be as patient as my mom. I couldn’t put up with my grandma’s verbal abuse and childish temper tantrums. Sometimes sick people get so caught up in their own problems that they don’t notice how their horrible behavior is hurting everyone around them.
I’m lucky on one hand that my husband’s behavior is never abusive. I just have to make sure he doesn’t kill himself. But he’s sneaky. It sure is scary when he drinks himself into drunkenness when I’m working from my home office and I don’t even notice.
This post is amazing. Thank you for sharing, Nemo. People seem to forget that the loved ones are affected too when there are mental health issues. I’ve never had to deal with this. (On either end.) But it sucks. I don’t know if I could. I’d probably break down. The two of you are so very strong. That’s freaking amazing. This just shows how love can heal.
Wonderful, wonderful post.
Honestly it is tough being a carer, we don’t get a lot of support, but on the other hand, my brain doesn’t want to kill me.
That’s not to say that love will solve every problem in a relationship, it just happened to be the answer for us.
This won’t be particularly helpful to Nemo in Australia, but National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) offers a FREE 6-week course for families and caregivers of people with mental illness. When I was somewhat in Nemo’s shoes, I found the course really helpful. It combines support group (other people who GET IT!) and learning.
It’s all a journey, and with mental illness it is more about managing it than curing it. That being said, a combination of counseling and medication have finally paid off for my family. As Shannon has said before, the amount of work entailed in getting all of that lined up is exhausting, and feels hopeless when you’re going through it. But we finally got there, and a few times a week I look around and think, ‘Wow, we could not have done this a year ago’ about all sorts of regular family experiences.
I had to break my thoughts into two comments because this post affected me so much that I want to write a book back at it.
Regarding suicide–I had always bought into the idea that it was a selfish act. Bullshit. (May I swear here too, Shannon?) As Nemo says, the brain is trying to kill you. There are two ways it convinces you that suicide is a good option:
1. I am in so much pain. I will always be in this much pain. There is no help for me. (This is where that struggle to get the RIGHT help is so frustrating, because “We’re getting there” doesn’t do much for the person who’s suffering.)
2. I am a burden to those who love me. Their life would be easier without me. Sure, they’ll cry for a few weeks, but then they can go on living the life they deserve without having to deal with all my problems and without me dragging them down. (This is where those of us who love that person scream, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!” and hope they can hear that we mean it.)
Nemo, my heart goes out to you and your husband. I am so glad you made that phone call. Thank you for sharing your story. Shannon’s event is perfectly titled–every time we talk about this, we help remove those stigmas, which makes it more possible for people to get the help they need.
You’re exactly right, suicide is more complicated than just ‘being selfish’. It sure is tough trying to get the message through about how much you care for and need someone who is convinced they have nothing to live for. That phone call was the thing that made him realise he did still have a life worth living.
It sounds like you’ve had some really tough choices in front of you, Nemo, and you’ve handled it with strength, even when it was incredibly painful. I have to applaud you for working so hard to repair your relationship with your husband. Many people would give up when things got really hard – and a lot of people wouldn’t blame you, but it takes so much more work and courage to keep trying and to get your husband the help he needs (and you too!!).
Even when I thought he didn’t want to be with me I still didn’t want him to die, even after the horrible things that happened. We’re a much stronger couple now for it, and things are changing for the better.
Nemo, I’ve said this to you before but I’ll say it again — you’re amazing. And thank you for sharing the other side of the story with us — that the caregiver doesn’t always have it easy, either. I can’t imagine how difficult That Night must have been for you, but it sounds like such an important moment for the both of you. He’s lucky to have you and I’m sure he knows.
Thanks Inge, I think the biggest issue with being a caregiver is the comparative lack of support. We have to go through a lot of what the mental illness sufferer goes through and also what they put us through and all I’ve found so far is some free counselling from a carers’ organisation. I’m yet to see it really work.