Dear Dr. Respler,
I have been reading your column for many years and am hoping you can help our family.
My husband suffers from anxiety and depression; he takes medication and sees a therapist every week. This month he will be seeing his psychiatrist again.
While he is able to cover up his problems enough to function at work, he has a hard time getting out of bed each morning and has mood swings regularly.
His family is unaware of any of this and thinks that he is reliable and sensible; in fact, his whole family turns to him for any problem. He has helped his parents and most of his siblings emotionally or financially in some way. Although I admire his willingness to always help, I think it takes a toll on his emotional well-being.
Dr. Respler, doesn’t he need to take care of himself before solving everyone else’s problems? I can see how he is affected when someone comes to him with a problem.
What should I do?
A Confused Wife
Dear Confused Wife,
Being the one person everyone in your family looks up to comes with a whole host of positive and negative emotions. On the one hand, it probably makes your husband feel good when someone comes to him for help, on the other hand, it’s obviously causing him a lot of stress.
Ask your husband to consider what would happen if his siblings could manage without his help. Don’t discourage him from helping them; just ask him to try to change his perspective. Taking the weight of everyone else on his shoulders is obviously affecting him negatively, so ask him if he can envision a new reality in which he does not worry about his family all the time. Just changing his perspective may give him a modicum of relief.
Then he should ask himself these questions:
- Whenever an issue or argument arises in my family do I get uncomfortable?
- Do I feel like I need to be the one to fix everyone’s problems?
- Do I get uncomfortable when others get upset?
If he answers yes to these questions, it’s likely that he has to strengthen his inner sense of self – this will help him develop the ability to self-regulate and better manage his anxiety.
The term “sense of self” refers to the perception you have of yourself (i.e., your self-image). If someone has a strong sense of self, he knows who he is and is happy. However, if a person’s view of himself is dominated by an inner critic, unhappiness prevails.
The first step in developing a strong sense of self is focusing on your own needs and how you feel. The next step is to accept who you are. Yes we can all feel good about ourselves when we are successful, but self-acceptance means feeling good about yourself even when you make a mistake or aren’t doing well. It means not allowing your inner critic to tear you apart. The third step is to create boundaries. Yes, you can be a nice guy and do everything for everyone even when it comes at your own expense, but then you will be miserable. Creating boundaries will help you ensure that your desire to help others doesn’t come at the expense of your own mental health and well-being. This doesn’t mean that you cannot help others; it just means that it shouldn’t be done at your own expense. The final step is not letting anxiety get the best of yourself. To do that we use a great deal of self-talk – focusing on the positives and reminding ourselves that we can manage life’s difficulties.
Try to help your husband work on his sense of self and self-esteem. You mentioned that he is seeing a therapist. This is an area in which the therapist can be helpful. While he has to get his anxiety and depression under control, he also needs to strengthen his inner core – that is what will help him in the long run.
I wish you much hatzlocha.