You haven’t mentioned if she’s currently getting any formal treatment or support (though you did mention health insurance, which suggests that you are both looking into it), but that’s the first thing that anyone is going to have to mention, so I’ll mention it here first.
In essence: explore and investigate the possibilities of getting professional help.
My own thoughts on this (at the moment).
Tricky things about being human:
- Our limitations (e.g., psychological, perceptual, emotional, cognitive, etc.,) are invisible. You can’t look at me and ‘see’ my memory capacity or directly observe my resilience and stress tolerance capacity. All you can see are whatever behaviors and expressions I, intentionally or unintentionally, display to you. Despite the fact that we cannot actually perceive our own and others’ objective limitations, we, nevertheless, often make some pretty confident assumptions and conclusions about them.
- Our limitations are not static; they are actually shifting, morphing, and changing all the time. So that even if you managed to have a clear and relatively accurate sense of what you or someone else can handle or can accomplish, over time that sense may no longer be the case.
These two points are important because when it comes to happiness, mental health, and wellbeing, one huge factor to deal with is our own expectations and assumptions about what we (or someone else) “should” be able to do or “should” be doing.
Most people who are experiencing depression will tell you that, not only do they need to deal with the primary depression, but, on top of that, they also need to deal with shame, anger, guilt, and so on about being depressed. These secondary burdens can become just as oppressive as the primary one.
(That is where self-compassion (a la Love Bomb for Humanity) comes in.)
Anyway, the point of a well-qualified professional is that (if all goes well) this person will be a bit more systematic, tentative, and well-informed when it comes to generating hypotheses about a person’s limitations, their needs, and their current capacity. This can lead to a more efficient and solid change plan (better goal-setting), as well as leading to identification and use of more situationally-appropriate strategies and methods of working with/working through the challenges.
Subs are always going to help with the secondary issues. My reactions to my reactions. For the primary processes of suffering? I think they can also help, but the degree of suffering, and the causes and contexts of suffering will make a big difference.
A man with one arm will get majorly strong using Spartan, but it’s not going to make the arm re-grow.
In addition to running subs, it’s important to have a frank and accurate assessment/evaluation of the person’s evolving situation. That’s where a (well-chosen) professional can make a difference.
