135 Couples Told Scientists How Depression Affects Their Relationships

(Photo: Neil Bradfield) By Melissa Dahl Depression can feel isolating, like it's you -- and only you -- against your own mind. And yet, the mental illness affects the people closest to you too; this is perhaps especially true if you're in a long-term romantic relationship. In a new study, highlighted today by BPS Research Digest, a team of psychologists consider the impact the mental illness can have on a relationship, by doing something novel: asking couples about it. Related: Kristen Bell Writes About Her Experience With Depression Previous studies, as it turns out, focused on individuals, but for this report, three researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign gathered stories from couples -- 135 of them, to be exact, of which either one partner, or both, had a history of depression. The people within the couples ranged in age from 20 to 83, and had been together as little as six months or as long as 46 years. It's a qualitative study, meaning no wacky experiments necessary, thank you. Instead, the researchers simply recorded the experiences of each couple, who together tackled the not-so-simple question, ''In what ways, if any, do feelings of sadness or depression affect your romantic relationship?'' Many of the answers, not surprisingly, focus on the hardships of trying to maintain a healthy relationship under the specter of depression. Some wrote about how one person's depressive symptoms can trigger the other's; others wrote about their struggles c...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news