Pressing the Reset Button

My husband, Herb, suffered from severe anxiety and depression for years. In the anxious state, he would
complain about everything. In his depression, he cried and said he no longer wanted to live. “If I had a broken leg, people could see that I’m in pain,” he’d say. “But because there’s no blood, people don’t care!”

As a psychiatric nurse, I supposedly had all the tools to help people with mental illness. And yet I felt I could do nothing that really worked for my own husband! “I’m such a failure,” I kept telling myself.

On one of Herb’s visits to his psychiatrist, a nurse pulled me aside when she saw me crying. She said, “You’re NOT his nurse. You are his wife, and your husband is NOT your patient.” She told me I had to do something for me every day. “But I’m the one who’s supposed to be giving the help, not the one who requires it,” I said. She said, “You have to press the reset button on your brain and be a caregiver to yourself!”

I thought hard about what she’d said, and decided to try to find my reset button by joining a gym. It helped so much to take that time for myself!