cold feet or depression?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-24-2005
cold feet or depression?
4
Sun, 09-25-2005 - 11:58am

I have been with my fiance' for over 41/2 years. We just bought a house together, just engaged a month ago, and she just started a new job. We both just turned 30 this year and were very excited about everything going on. We have had a great fun loving relationship. She survived 9/11 and got out of tower 2 just in time and since our bond has grown to be stronger than ever. She has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and is on antidepressants. She just started a new drug 2 months ago. Now just in the last 2 weeks, she has completely just been irrational, she doesn't know if she is in love with me anymore, doesn't want to be a statistic about divorce, she feels like she's changing and doesn't know what is going on with her. She is not happy, she just seems depressed. She says's she feels like we're just 2 best friends living together and so on. Our sex life has been great during all this time, we are very supportive and loyal to each other. Don't know if this is cold feet, could she have just fallen out of love with me? or is this depression and fear? She has been very concerned and watches the news on katrina victims and wants to help with the red cross. She has taken the past week to be by herself without any communication. She went home to see her mom and we have not spoken. She doesn't even talk with her best friend or any of her close friends right now either. What do I do? I'm going crazy, b/c I love this woman very much and want to marry her. Could she just fall out of love with me or is there more?

Thanks.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2003
Sun, 09-25-2005 - 2:22pm
She started a new drug two months ago. This probably means the last med. wasn't working or why would the doctor have changed it? They never change a person's meds if the patient tells them they are doing well. Sound like a medical problem, the PTSD triggered by the hurricane disaster. I really think she is in no position mentally to be thinking or marriage. Just give her space, you can't love her depression and stress away. The last thing she needs is pressure from you about the relationship. I suspect she has been hiding her blues from you for awhile and it just reached a head.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-24-2005
Sun, 09-25-2005 - 2:43pm
Thanks for the response. I am giving her space and time to do what she thinks is best for her right now. I am not giving her anything but that. She wants to be alone and have time to think on her own. Hopefully she can start seeing clearly and then decide to go therapy together and work through this. I think you are right about the med. I do think these things are distorting her thoughts and not letting her think clear and harping on the negatives of our relationship and thinking she is not in love with me, when there is more to it. She says she will think about going to therapy together, but just doesn't think it is anything more than just falling out of love with me. I don't want to push her to therapy, but she needs to see the therapist that diagnosed her ptsd and also knows her history for the past 4 years while we've been together. What is the next move? She has been out of town for 5 days at parents house and has missed a whole week of work from her new job she just started a little over a month ago.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2004
Sun, 09-25-2005 - 3:49pm
She sounds like she's just in a bad funk. When our son was born, I had very bad PPD (post partum depression), and totally fell out of love with my husband. I felt suffocated in our marriage and with life in general. I used to think about just running away and not dealing with anything that was going on. Depression can totally change your mindset and make you a different person. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to save her, and I think space is the only thing you can give her. It's her choice to speak with a therapist about all of these things she is going through. The hard part about depression this bad is that we, atleast for me, don't see how bad it really is. We start to have all these thoughts and really believe them. I had convinced myself my husband was not the one for me, and I'd be much better off just divorcing him and taking our son. I actually started to loathe him at one point, though it wasn't really anything he was doing, it was just my PPD. I also had PTSD and it's pretty close to what I went through with PPD. I am glad she is taking new meds, but sometimes medication isn't enough. Meds help to regulate chemicals in your brain, but they do nothing to solve the issues that you are dealing with. You can't just take medication and expect everything to be okay if what you really need is counseling. Like I said before, it's unfortunate that the only person who can better this situation is her, and you are left just hanging and wondering. Medication helped with my PPD, I am still on it, but meds weren't enough for PTSD. I finally broke down one day and called my doctor (OB) and just told him everything. I'm not sure who is prescribing her meds, but in her situation, it would be much better for a psychiatrist to diagnose her and be giving them to her.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 09-26-2005 - 1:34am

I agree that this is most likely a PTSD disorder brought out by Katrina, and, as Novembersky pointed out, very possibly a medication issue as well.


You mention couples therapy, which is always a good idea, but these are her issues to work through, not yours; I don't know how much you'd get out of couples therapy as it pertains to these kinds of issues. What's not clear to me is whether or not she's seeing a therapist on her own? Is she seeing a mental health person or is her regular MD prescribing the PTSD meds? Obviously, she should be seeing a counselor or other qualified mental health clinician. I would strongly suggest you call him or her and report the changes and behavior you're seeing in her. Her MD/mental health clinician will not be able to discuss her case with you, but can certainly take what you report and be in a much better position to help her as a result.

There are two boards on the iVillage Health and Well Being channel that might also be good places to post your questions:
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Antidepressant Medications


Best of luck, Laszlog, this can't be at all easy for you; being unable to do much but sit and wait isn't a very good place to be in. What are you doing for you? What are you doing to keep your own stress and worry level down? What are you doing with yourself? Let us know how it goes.







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