Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Is Your Wife Depressed Or Just Lazy?

Transcript

Is Your Wife Depressed Or Just Lazy? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi, everybody, and welcome to the doctor psych mom show.
• 0:08
  Today, we're going to be talking about whether your spouse,
• 0:11
  especially your wife, because rates of depression or higher in
• 0:14
  women is depressed or just lazy before we get to that topic.
• 0:19
  Please do subscribe, the most recent subscriber episode was
• 0:23
  one. I most recently did about
• 0:25
  checking out how your wife treats the children, if you want
• 0:28
  to understand her true potential for love within a relationship.
• 0:32
  Because if you're expecting her treat you, Or different in many
• 0:36
  ways than the kids, you're going to be, you know, wrong.
• 0:41
  So anyway, check that one out. Please do subscribe.
• 0:44
  Also follow me on Tick, Tock YouTube and always, if you want
• 0:47
  therapy, check out best life, Behavioral Health, I myself, do
• 0:50
  therapy and coaching. You can also check me out in the
• 0:53
  links as well. Okay, so what is depression,
• 0:58
  depression, doesn't always look like what you think it does.
• 1:00
  In fact, a lot of the time it looks like somebody's being lazy
• 1:04
  which is why Why I am talking about this today?
• 1:07
  So depression involves a lot of fatigue and it involves
• 1:11
  something called for women, a okay.
• 1:13
  So I have a podcast and post on atypical depression which is not
• 1:17
  a typical just the one that women have and it's contrasted
• 1:21
  with melancholic depression and one major symptom is Led in
• 1:24
  paralysis. Meaning that your arms and legs
• 1:26
  feel very heavy to the point that you just sit on the couch,
• 1:29
  you're depressed. The whole system is down, it is
• 1:33
  depressed and the most Classic term, you know, like when you
• 1:38
  depress a buzzer or something, you're the it's down regulated.
• 1:42
  The whole system of the organism is downregulated.
• 1:45
  This looks a lot like being lazy because it involves a lot of
• 1:48
  fatigue, no energy and this led in paralysis.
• 1:52
  So, a lot of men, thankfully for them have never experienced
• 1:56
  depression. They have a lot of energy.
• 1:58
  They always did when they're tired, they have a little bit
• 2:01
  less, but they can usually find something in the tank to keep on
• 2:03
  going because They're not experiencing depression, you
• 2:07
  know? And and for many men if they do
• 2:09
  experience depression later in life, they're like, whoa, like
• 2:13
  this is not. So I guess we do.
• 2:15
  I have the flu. Like it's they feel so
• 2:17
  semantically different that it's shocking and mind-blowing to
• 2:21
  that. So this podcast hopes to get you
• 2:25
  to that Epiphany a little bit sooner.
• 2:27
  If your wife is depressed because she is struggling with
• 2:31
  something that really limits our energy.
• 2:33
  It's like you In the flu, you know, it's like how you would
• 2:37
  feel if you were sick. So yeah, you may always want
• 2:40
  sex, but if you were like, literally had the flu and were
• 2:45
  on IV fluids. You probably wouldn't want sex.
• 2:47
  You know, you probably wouldn't be able to focus on work or be
• 2:53
  able to do whatever chores or home projects you do.
• 2:56
  So a lot of times women who struggle with depression, these
• 3:00
  subconsciously look for very effective, efficient men, and
• 3:04
  this Sometimes leads to the mr. Perfect.
• 3:06
  And his crazy wife Dynamic that I have a podcast and post about.
• 3:11
  And that means that the woman has low self-esteem about her
• 3:13
  ability to conquer things and to be effective and efficient
• 3:17
  because she struggles with depression whether or not, she
• 3:20
  admits that she knows that she has these times of being
• 3:23
  completely like unable to do shit.
• 3:25
  So she gravitates toward a man who can do a lot of shit you
• 3:30
  know whether it's because he's a Workhorse or because he's a
• 3:33
  narcissist or because No. So we just thinks he can do a
• 3:36
  lot of shit but but either way, he projects a Persona of being
• 3:40
  able to just knock shit out, you know?
• 3:43
  And these are the men that often do a lot of the housework if not
• 3:46
  most of it. And, you know, the popular media
• 3:49
  would have you assume that men don't.
• 3:51
  But there's loads of men that are married to women with
• 3:53
  depression that do, you know, much more than half of the
• 3:57
  housework and childcare, but it's never really talked about
• 4:00
  as that. It's because the woman has
• 4:02
  depression. It's just within their marriage.
• 4:05
  It's a narrative that she's kind of just less efficient and less
• 4:07
  effective and even lazy. So he's not lazy because they're
• 4:12
  depressed you know, even if they don't know that they're
• 4:14
  depressed, you can be the one who's listening to these
• 4:17
  podcasts and stuff so you could be the one that figures it out,
• 4:20
  you know, if a woman gains weight eats sleeps too much,
• 4:25
  these are the vegetative symptoms when you eat and sleep
• 4:27
  too much is always kind of down sees things.
• 4:30
  Negatively is laying around on the couch.
• 4:33
  A lot doesn't seem Be able to see the forest for the trees,
• 4:37
  you know, like doesn't seem to be able to look at a room that
• 4:40
  needs to be cleaned and kind of like know what to do.
• 4:42
  Instead gets overwhelmed, a lack of confidence, a very negative
• 4:47
  world view. All of these things are
• 4:49
  Hallmarks of depression and they were probably there to a greater
• 4:52
  or lesser extent waxing and waning over the course of the
• 4:55
  woman's life span starting in puberty or adolescents.
• 4:58
  That's usually when it starts for women and she may never have
• 5:02
  diagnosed yourself as depressed because she just thinks that
• 5:05
  she's kind of in a fission or lazy or fat or something like
• 5:08
  that or just likes to nap or whatever.
• 5:12
  But if you notice that these symptoms especially get worse in
• 5:15
  the winter, or worse, after something bad happens, when
• 5:19
  there was a trigger or certainly after the birth of a baby.
• 5:24
  So postpartum depression, or after grief, it can turn into
• 5:28
  complicated grief which has symptoms of depression.
• 5:31
  If she's lost somebody close to her Etc and So for women, this
• 5:36
  usually gets worse the week before their period if not the
• 5:39
  two weeks before their period. So these symptoms do not mean
• 5:42
  that somebody's lazy. It doesn't mean that they're not
• 5:44
  trying hard enough. So just like, if you were not
• 5:48
  able to run your usual, however many miles on the treadmill
• 5:52
  because you had the flu, that wouldn't mean that you're lazy,
• 5:55
  right? And it would mean that you're
• 5:57
  sick. And so depression also means
• 5:59
  that you're sick and some women antidepressants work for some
• 6:04
  don't In a bitter irony, antidepressants change, your sex
• 6:07
  drive. So you know, a lot of women who
• 6:10
  start out with very little sex drive to begin with have tried
• 6:13
  antidepressants and can't have an orgasm and no longer want the
• 6:16
  sex to The Limited extent that they previously did.
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  So they go off it. And so, you know, this is an
• 6:22
  individual decision, of course, a cost-benefit analysis of side
• 6:25
  effects and and what they do to you.
• 6:29
  Usually it's not the only side effect.
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  Usually the same women who have one bad side effect, have other
• 6:34
  bad side effects. And some women have
• 6:36
  treatment-resistant depression. So nothing really help.
• 6:39
  So like if you're like, well, why don't you just get some help
• 6:41
  then man, it's not very easy. Like, there's very high rates of
• 6:45
  treatment resistant, depression. So, obviously the pharmaceutical
• 6:48
  companies do not advertise that the happy little Zoloft guide.
• 6:51
  Does not work for everybody but he doesn't you know, and and
• 6:56
  therapy doesn't either work for everybody.
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  It can work to help you understand it.
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  So obviously like I've written before about like what therapy
• 7:04
  can help with and what it can't. It cannot help with biological
• 7:07
  symptoms of depression that were genetically passed down from
• 7:10
  your parents. What it can help with is not
• 7:13
  thinking of yourself as a lazy sack of shit, right?
• 7:16
  That it can really help with and help change the frame so that
• 7:19
  you develop more self-compassion and a more even positive
• 7:22
  worldview in the face of the depression.
• 7:25
  But it cannot get rid of something, like, a feeling of
• 7:27
  letting paralysis or the fact that you have PMS.
• 7:31
  I mean, just can't. It can help you acknowledge and
• 7:35
  Is it and maybe even try very hard to act slightly different
• 7:38
  or even just remove yourself somewhat from situations when
• 7:41
  you're feeling very upset. It can all edging that
• 7:44
  depression is an illness but it cannot like make you
• 7:48
  biologically less irritable, you know, like it's just like it
• 7:52
  deals with the cognitive symptoms, not the real
• 7:54
  biological ones in my experience, of course,
• 7:58
  depression waxes and wanes. So sometimes there becomes a
• 8:01
  wonderful coincidence where you've been going to therapy for
• 8:03
  like three to six, Months and your depression lifts and if
• 8:07
  that happens like once or something, you'll be like, oh my
• 8:10
  God, therapy, cured all my depression, great.
• 8:13
  And it's nice, if you think that.
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  But usually, if it's intractable recurrent depression, therapy,
• 8:18
  does not help the physical symptoms.
• 8:20
  Although, again, it can help the cognitive symptoms your
• 8:23
  self-esteem and can help you shape The Narrative of your
• 8:25
  life, engage in your relationships better, but it's
• 8:28
  not going to get you off the couch necessarily.
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  You know, if you feel that severely down physically Or
• 8:36
  medication can help you. Should definitely try medication
• 8:40
  to help with that, but sometimes it's just kind of waiting for
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  the depression to lift. This is some people's lives, you
• 8:46
  know, a lot of people who struggle with
• 8:47
  treatment-resistant depression. So as the partner of this
• 8:53
  person, if you are super energetic, high-achieving person
• 8:56
  yourself, you may be like nah, this is just lazy.
• 8:59
  You just got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and try to
• 9:01
  exercise. I remember one time when I was
• 9:04
  younger and I was a stroller strides all the time which is
• 9:06
  like an exercise class with strollers, which is actually
• 9:10
  pretty hardcore, can you just bring you don't just walk with
• 9:12
  the strollers. Like, people think you bring it
• 9:14
  over to different stations, then you do like your burpees and
• 9:17
  then you like, Ron to the next station, like all this stuff.
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  But anyway, I get depressed in the fall and winter, and I'm
• 9:26
  pretty seasonally affected. So if seasonal affective
• 9:29
  disorder, it's not really affect like that.
• 9:32
  It's a effect of mood. But anyway, Um so I remember was
• 9:36
  just like from one week to the next like the amount that I
• 9:39
  could buy a logically physically do just like dropped.
• 9:43
  It was, you know, it was like being sick or like losing, you
• 9:46
  know, a leg or something. It was just like, I went from
• 9:49
  being able to do a mile in, whatever was never very, very
• 9:53
  good 9-minute. Something like that to, you
• 9:56
  know, like 16 minutes. It was like crazy, you know?
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  And it was the first time that I had had a regular exercise
• 10:02
  program since the birth of the children because I Add three
• 10:05
  children, three and a half years.
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  So you know, basically from the time of getting pregnant with
• 10:09
  the first, until the time, the second was six weeks old.
• 10:12
  I didn't really do shit except get pregnant and her son try to
• 10:14
  take care of them. So it was my first time being
• 10:16
  like a, real adult, I was like 32 or something.
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  I was trying to kind of understand what had happened and
• 10:23
  it was the first time I had really seen the biological
• 10:26
  impact of depression symptoms and what it really changes.
• 10:29
  So when you think that your wife should just get up and exercise,
• 10:32
  there's something called exercise intolerance And it's a
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  symptom of depression frequently you know and you just can't like
• 10:39
  you literally just can't like you just want to sit down and so
• 10:44
  it's super important to understand at to conceptualize
• 10:47
  depression differently as like a chronic pain illness.
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  So like if your wife was in bed with an acute migraine and
• 10:55
  migraine does overlap a lot with depression, you wouldn't tell
• 10:58
  her to go take a run or you'd be like a jackass, you know, like
• 11:02
  who would say that to somebody. So You really can't say it when
• 11:07
  she's depressed. Like it's like the same kind of
• 11:08
  thing, believe me. She knows she should go take a
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  run. That is the thing that people
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  most want to do is go take a run or go do something like that.
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  You know, nobody wants to be sitting there like on the couch
• 11:20
  scrolling through their phone. Nobody's like here's how I'm
• 11:22
  going to be the best version of myself.
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  I'm going to scroll through Instagram for three hours.
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  Like that isn't what anybody wants to do.
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  And if you're thinking, oh, all this is because of smartphones
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  and what? If she didn't have that phone,
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  I'll tell you. There's two ways to look.
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  At it, you know, one way is these are women, who would just
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  lay in bed. And if you go back and you look
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  at novels, or nonfiction or anything, for previous errors
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  before there were smartphones way back.
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  You know, did centuries. What did people do?
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  Especially women, if they were quote ill with illnesses that
• 11:53
  were not understandable, they would just lay in bed all day,
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  you know? That's, that's what would happen
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  without a phone, you know? And without even anything
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  without a TV and those were just sick People.
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  And that's what a depression looks like.
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  It was not understood. So it was just considered some
• 12:10
  sort of strange illness. That had befallen somebody.
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  So, those were the depressed women of yesteryear and they
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  didn't have a phone and it still didn't motivate them to get up
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  because they were depressed because they whatever the
• 12:22
  imbalances whatever's going on in the brain, which psychiatrist
• 12:25
  do not understand very well at all.
• 12:28
  And there's multiple theories of what leads to depression, those
• 12:32
  woman had it, you know, and Number two, you say, well, what
• 12:36
  if the house was on fire or some guys, get really smart and
• 12:39
  they're like, yeah, but seems like she's less depressed on the
• 12:42
  day she like goes to work or the days that her mom's coming over
• 12:45
  or the days that we had, like, you know, Halloween, like she
• 12:48
  was able to go out Trick or Treat with the kids for
• 12:50
  Halloween, but then the next day, she's all depressed again.
• 12:52
  So I guess it's just like, you know what?
• 12:54
  She pick and choose when she wants to be depressed.
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  No, like here. Here's the thing with atypical
• 13:00
  depression. The which is again.
• 13:02
  What women have the mood lifts in?
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  Anse to positive events, temporarily and there's also
• 13:08
  something called adrenaline. So it's like saying why you not
• 13:11
  busting your ass to like work on the PowerPoint that, you know,
• 13:14
  is doing two and a half weeks today with the same tenacity
• 13:19
  and, you know, Focus that you are the fucking night before.
• 13:24
  It's due. Why aren't you just doing that?
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  Can't you just do that? No, of course, you can't just do
• 13:28
  that. That's not how people work.
• 13:30
  There's an adrenaline burst that that is in response to an event.
• 13:34
  If a tiger is chasing you, or if your child is stuck under a car,
• 13:38
  or whatever the examples are, you're going to have a fight or
• 13:41
  flight response that you can't just create for yourself because
• 13:45
  it would be cool. So yes, if the house were on
• 13:48
  fire, your wife, thank God would be able to get up off the couch
• 13:52
  and mobilize because of the huge adrenaline burst.
• 13:54
  And if something wonderful happens, like her mother comes
• 13:58
  to town who's finally. Going to help with these damn
• 14:00
  kids or, like whatever. Then her mood lift and some of
• 14:04
  the The physical symptoms lift. So yes, then she does get up for
• 14:07
  some women and that are anxious and depression cords with
• 14:11
  anxiety frequently. The anxiety of not being a good
• 14:16
  mother on Halloween is like so overwhelming that that
• 14:20
  adrenaline, you know, and cortisol release can get them
• 14:23
  up. But then, of course, because
• 14:25
  they're dealing with a chronic condition, it just goes back the
• 14:28
  next day and they may even have an emotional hangover from the,
• 14:32
  you know, from from, from the massive effort.
• 14:34
  That it took to mobilize the organism in the first place.
• 14:38
  So I promise you in the description, then I would tell
• 14:40
  you what is a look like with somebody's actually lazy.
• 14:42
  Well, I'll tell you what somebody's lazy that means that
• 14:46
  they are just really not doing what you want them to do.
• 14:49
  Because it's very subjective or like lazy is.
• 14:52
  So, a guy who like really values, like, I need home, I
• 14:55
  gotta like some ex-military guys and stuff.
• 14:57
  Like, those fuckers are really neat, you know?
• 15:01
  And, and their wife, could be really sloppy and they're Oh,
• 15:05
  she's so lazy. Well, what did lazy mean?
• 15:07
  Lazy usually means you don't value, they don't value what you
• 15:10
  value, you know? Like that's kind of what it is.
• 15:13
  Like lazy is very, very subjective.
• 15:14
  Some people think that somebody that that a child who gets a B
• 15:18
  on his report card is lazy. Some parents think that as long
• 15:21
  as the child is in failing out than they're doing a good job,
• 15:24
  it's super super subjective. So what you mean by lazy is that
• 15:29
  you and your wife don't have the same value system and that you
• 15:32
  do not prioritize the same things and maybe This is an
• 15:35
  incompatibility that cannot be resolved and maybe it's one
• 15:38
  where you could learn to meet in the middle and maybe it's one
• 15:41
  where you could hire somebody to clean up the mess or whatever.
• 15:45
  The equivalent is for, whatever your situation is that you're
• 15:47
  arguing about whether she's lazy about, but I'll tell you
• 15:50
  thinking of people as lazy as not usually good for your
• 15:53
  relationship at all. So that's that, you know and
• 15:56
  it's the same with kids like thinking of kids as lazy as not
• 15:59
  very helpful either because I never met a situation where a
• 16:02
  kid is quote lazy. That was not in a Able to be
• 16:05
  such by one or both parents and then on a dime, the parents,
• 16:08
  which so like everything's good about never cleaning your room
• 16:11
  until your, you know, 9. And now, we decided you're going
• 16:15
  to clean your room. And it's like, we're from what
• 16:18
  how, you know, and what are you even going to do about it?
• 16:20
  And why are you making this, my problem?
• 16:22
  And that is a really understandable reaction, you
• 16:27
  know. And but I could get into that at
• 16:30
  a different time of start, as you mean to go on with
• 16:33
  parenting, but The point is this lazy is not a there's no blood
• 16:39
  test for lazy, you know what's one person's, lazy is another
• 16:42
  person's hard working, and having Grace and empathy is
• 16:46
  always going to help your marriage.
• 16:48
  So if you walk into the door and then your wife's a stay-at-home
• 16:52
  mom of small kids and the house is a wreck and the kids are
• 16:56
  screaming and she didn't get dinner on the stove yet.
• 16:58
  Why don't you? And she's on the couch instead
• 17:00
  of thinking. Wow, she's so fucking lazy.
• 17:02
  Like she hasn't made in the shade here.
• 17:04
  With me, making money. And what the fuck is this?
• 17:07
  Instead be like, would anybody want to be this person?
• 17:10
  Would she want a video of this sent to her friends?
• 17:12
  Fuck no. She's probably terribly ashamed
• 17:15
  and embarrassed. If she looks up, she's like, oh
• 17:17
  my God, this is on like terrible.
• 17:20
  But what can I do about it? Nothing, I have no energy.
• 17:22
  This is all getting away from me.
• 17:24
  What is this anyway? Like, I don't even know what to
• 17:26
  deal with first. Oh my God.
• 17:28
  And then, he's going to come home.
• 17:29
  And he's gonna judge me. And then it makes her feel even
• 17:32
  worse. So if you are in this situation,
• 17:34
  it Possible that your wife is depressed.
• 17:37
  If you frequently come home into complete chaos, not cats,
• 17:41
  according to whatever you're super high, standards are.
• 17:44
  But like real chaos, like the diapers aren't being changed and
• 17:48
  like the animals are barking. Like one kid is like we don't
• 17:51
  know where an outside and crawling around.
• 17:54
  I mean, if you do come into a chaotic situation frequently,
• 17:57
  this is usually a Hallmark that things are getting away from
• 18:01
  your wife because of postpartum depression or some form of
• 18:04
  depression. Oppression.
• 18:05
  So, this isn't a time to be like, oh my God, my wife so lazy
• 18:08
  because look at her. Does she look happy?
• 18:10
  That's like another, you know, really easy.
• 18:13
  Way to figure out if she's depressed or just lazy, right?
• 18:15
  If she just like, I'm fucking, you know, like I'll just let
• 18:18
  this house, be total shit hole and not feed the kids at school,
• 18:21
  you know, I don't know any woman like that at all, but if she
• 18:25
  looks happy about it, then you have found your own personal
• 18:28
  lazy sociopath but the majority of cases she's like, oh my God.
• 18:31
  Oh my God, what's happening? I don't know the day, got away
• 18:34
  from me, I No, I don't know and she looks super shames.
• 18:38
  Super unhappy. She looks like she doesn't even
• 18:42
  know where to start with things totally overwhelmed.
• 18:45
  That's usually some form of depression.
• 18:46
  And that's when you come in and you say, you know, I think we
• 18:50
  need to get somebody in here to help with some stuff.
• 18:52
  This is obviously super hard. I couldn't do it myself.
• 18:56
  God will forgive you for that lie.
• 18:58
  And so we need to get somebody in and another thing is, is I
• 19:02
  feel like you've not been very happy for a long.
• 19:04
  Time and I'm so sorry about that and, you know, maybe we need to
• 19:09
  have, you talk to somebody. So, I think what I'm going to do
• 19:11
  is schedule an appointment for you with a therapist that is
• 19:14
  actually something that most women that I talked to, who are
• 19:16
  depressed, wish that their husband would do.
• 19:19
  And the husbands are like, oh no.
• 19:20
  Oh my God. If I ever did something like
• 19:22
  that, she would be so offended. Why don't you try it?
• 19:24
  If you listening to this podcast or any others makes you realize
• 19:27
  your wife is struggling with depression or anxiety and put in
• 19:30
  previous podcast, why don't you just do it schedule?
• 19:33
  An appointment with a And say Here's when your appointment is,
• 19:37
  you know, I want you to go the everything nowadays is video
• 19:40
  anyway. So I mean, you know what, she
• 19:42
  what can't you do? You stay home from work.
• 19:44
  She can't go talk to somebody in a different room for 45 minutes.
• 19:47
  Yes, she can. So make that happen if this
• 19:50
  really spoke to you, which sometimes it does.
• 19:53
  When guys really don't understand what depression is
• 19:55
  and then they hear that, it's like feeling all over the place.
• 19:58
  Lost overwhelmed, everything goes to shit, you feel like shit
• 20:02
  about yourself, you know, you're like laying Around like a slug
• 20:06
  and like, it seems insurmountable to get up.
• 20:08
  Yeah, that is depression. So it would be incumbent upon
• 20:11
  you ethically, as the person, who loves your spouse, to try to
• 20:15
  help them get treated for it. All right.
• 20:17
  So hopefully this was an epiphany for some and at least
• 20:21
  moderately useful or interesting for others.
• 20:23
  And please do subscribe, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 20:27
  Have a great day.