5 Sessions for Mental Health and Marriage

Session 1 –

Symptoms of Mental Health:

Anger, Anxiety and panic attacks, Bipolar disorder, Borderline personality disorder, Depression, Dissociation and dissociative disorders, Drug use, Eating problems, Hearing voices, Hoarding, Hypomania and mania, Loneliness, OCD obsessive compulsive disorder, Paranoia, personality disorders, Phobias, Postnatal depression & perinatal mental health, Post traumatic stress disorder PTSD, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder PMDD, Psychosis, Schizoaffective disorder, Schizophrenia, Seasonal affective disorder SAD, Self-esteem, self-harm, sleep problems, Stress, Suicidal feelings, Tardive dyskinesia and Trauma.

Acknowledging that you have mental health challenges:

Our mental health affects how we think, feel, and act so it will most assuredly affect how we think, feel and act towards our spouse.

Our mental health helps determine how we handle stress, relate to each other, and the choices we make in dealing with each other.

Over the course of your life, if you experience mental health problems, your thinking, mood, and behavior are often affected.

Often times in society we make mental health seem like leprosy and because of this people who suffer with their mental health often try to hide it and don’t seek the help that they need.

Many factors contribute to mental health problems, including:

· Biological factors, such as genes or brain chemistry

· Life experiences, such as trauma or abuse

· Family history of mental health problems

And though none of these are your own fault, they all effect how you relate to your spouse over the course of your marriage.

Session 2 –

How can you detect possible mental health challenges?

Experiencing one or more of the following feelings or behaviors can be an early warning sign of a potential problem:

· Eating or sleeping too much or too little

· Pulling away from people and usual activities

· Having low or no energy

· Feeling numb or like nothing matters

· Having unexplained aches and pains

· Feeling helpless or hopeless

· Smoking, drinking, or using drugs more than usual

· Feeling unusually confused, forgetful, on edge, angry, upset, worried, or scared

· Yelling or fighting with family and friends

· Experiencing severe mood swings that cause problems in relationships

· Having persistent thoughts and memories you can't get out of your head

· Hearing voices or believing things that are not true

· Thinking of harming yourself or others

· Inability to perform daily tasks like taking care of your kids or getting to work or school

Session 3 –

Ways that mental health effect your marriage.

5 Ways mental illness effects marriage

Isolation:

Feeling isolated is almost a given. Life is different for us, and it feels like no one can possibly understand. That feeling can easily pull you into loneliness, and a sense of being separate from others—even people who love you. That puts an even greater stress on the marriage because you aren’t building a community of support for difficult times. That’s especially true right now.

Stigma:

It can cause you to feel ashamed of something that is out of your control, and shame causes you to hide and withdraw. The person with the mental illness may withdraw from their spouse because they feel like they’re the cause of so much upheaval in the relationship. Either spouse may feel like they’re being blamed for the illness. Stigma makes a heavy burden even more difficult to carry.

Grief:

For the spouse without a mental illness there can be grieving process because the relationship can no longer be what it used to be. There are times where the person with mental illness is not presenting with symptoms, and you experience a glimpse of what things used to be like, only to then have it disappear the next day or week. There’s also grief for the person with the mental illness, processing the diagnoses, the symptoms, and the stress.

Over functioning or Under functioning:

Murray Bowen, the psychologist who describes this distinction, says that this dynamic throws us into a mutually reinforcing trap. The over-functioners feel they’re coming to the rescue and will bend over backwards to fix any situation they’re presented with. It’s all about taking action and protecting themselves from being helpless or vulnerable. Their spouse may reinforce this “dance” by acquiescing responsibility. The under-functioners, facing a crisis or difficult marital situation, feel anxious and overwhelmed. They withdraw, step-back, and feel like failures. Doing this allows the over-functioner to step into the superhero role. But at what cost?

Intimacy:

All of these challenges will affect your overall intimacy. It’s difficult to feel close to your spouse when they’re withdrawing, feeling guilty, resentful or just plain exhausted from all the stress.

Recognizing the impact on your marriage is important, but it’s just the first step to finding the strategies that will help your marriage become a strong safe place.

Let’s remember what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4:1-3

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Session 4 –

Mental illness not only effects the marriage?

What are the effects of mental illness on the children?

A well-known actor Matthew McConaughey wrote a book called Greenlights which explained in his words the way he saw his parents love one another through a lot of chaos, abuse, and also passion.

His parents’ broke bones on each other, divorced twice and re-married each time and he says it was all part of the way they loved each other.

In an interview he was challenged by therapist Amy Morin LCSW that the way he says his parents loved each other was not a good way to love and doesn’t really show love.

She was even concerned that he might be promoting physical violence through the way he depicts his parent’s relationship as a love story.

He argued that he was neither promoting their relationship style nor judging it but just telling the way it was.

But he did say that he chose not to love his wife and children in the same way as his parent’s did.

What are the effects of mental illness on the finances?

What are the effects of mental illness on your social life?

What are the effects of mental illness on your intimacy?

Session 5 –

Steps to Recovery

· Health: Overcoming or managing one’s disease(s) or symptoms and making informed, healthy choices that support physical and emotional well-being.

· Home: Have a stable and safe place to live.

· Purpose: Engage in meaningful daily activities, such as a job or school, volunteering, caring for your family, or being creative. Work for independence, income, and resources to participate in society.

· Community: Build relationships and social networks that provide support, friendship, love, and hope.

Written recovery plans are also very helpful

· Enable you to identify goals for achieving wellness

· Specify what you can do to reach those goals

· Include daily activities as well as longer term goals

· Track any changes in your mental health problem

· Identify triggers or other stressful events that can make you feel worse, and help you learn how to manage them