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Wife who struggles with depression shares genius hack for helping her husband support her

Sometimes talking things out isn't the best way to communicate.

@Sharon.a.life/TikTok

Sharon Johnson shares a common dilemma couples face when one partner struggles with depression.

Dealing with a mental illness is hard. Loving someone who is dealing with a mental illness is also hard. When you're the person struggling, you need support from your loved ones, but you may not be able to verbalize what you need exactly, especially in the moment. And when you're a loved one who wants to provide that support, you can feel lost and helpless trying to figure out what actually helps.

This is the dilemma TikTok creator Sharon Johnson (@Sharon.a.life) highlights in a viral video explaining how she and her husband passed that impasse.

Johnson starts by acting out a conversation she and her husband often have she's in a depressive episode. She says she's sad and doesn't know why. Her husband asks what she needs, and she says he could be more supportive. He asks how he can be more supportive. In her head, she thinks, "I have about a thousand ways that I think you could be more supportive, but they're all tiny and little and insignificant, and it feels weird to have the conversation and tell you a thousand things that you could do, so instead I'm just gonna continue being sad and we'll both be frustrated."

"You're not saying anything," says her husband. "Please tell me what to do, because I don't know what depression is like and I don't know what to do."

End scene. Sound familiar?

Johnson then shares that she came up with a solution that solves this dilemma, helping her husband understand what support she needs when she's struggling. It's so simple, but not something most people would necessarily think to do.

Watch:

@sharon.a.life

Now the list is there for us to add to, revise, and to refer to! He feels more supported and capable in being supportive and actually helping and I feel more supported and, less depressed! #depression #mentalhealth #bipolar #bipolar2 #depressiontips #supportperson

Being unable to verbalize needs when you're in a depressed state is totally normal, so it's helpful to think about communicating those needs proactively, ahead of time, when you're feeling healthy.

What's brilliant about the written list strategy is that, as Johnson points out, body language and facial expressions can sometimes be misinterpreted, especially when navigating mental and emotional realities. Even longtime married couples can misread worry for annoyance or interpret a thoughtful pause as reticence or judgment, so sometimes writing things down—even clarifying questions like her husband did—is more effective.

In the age of email and texting, written communication has perhaps been overly dismissed as impersonal or as a way to avoid difficult face-to-face conversations. Certainly, it can be, but in some cases, writing things out can be preferable to verbal communication. This is one of those times.

Having those ways to be supportive written down also provides a tangible resource her husband can access any time he needs to, and that resource can also be updated in real time as needed.

People in the comments loved the idea.

"Extremely relatable as I just had a 10 min back & forth of 'what do you need' 'idk' w my partner before he was just like ok I’m making you an egg," shared one person.

"The fact that he typed out the replies shows how much he understands the way your brain works!!! 🧡🧡🧡" shared another.

"It's like the equivalent of "this could've been an email" in the workplace when they schedule a meeting. It makes a lot of sense, really!" offered another.

Many people asked if they could see her list as inspiration or jumping off points for their own, so she offered to email it to people who wanted it. (You can access that link here.)

Find more from @Sharon.a.life on TikTok.

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Kids at this summer camp go in heartbroken but come out stronger than ever.

'There isn't a simple recipe for grief.'

Liz Eddy was only 9 years old when she lost her father to cancer, but it wasn't until she reached college that she finally let herself grieve.

"I pretty much ignored it completely and tried to go back to normal life," said Eddy. "There isn't a simple recipe for grief."

Over time, of course, grief snuck up on her, and she had to face it. That's when she heard about Experience Camps — weeklong not-for-profit summer camps designed to help kids cope with the death of a loved one, free of charge.

Experience Camps campers with dog mascot. All photos courtesy of Experience Camps.

The camps were started back in 2009 by Sara Deren, whose husband ran Camp Manitou, a boys' camp in Maine. That first summer they had 27 campers, and now they have almost 400 in three different locations across the country.

Eddy volunteered to be a counselor at Experience Camps back in 2013, and she now serves on the camp's board of directors. Like 90% of the campers, she simply can't stay away.

Experience Camps give all the kids (and counselors) the chance to deal with their emotions and grief in their own time, in their own way, while surrounded by other people who truly "get it."

"Most of the kids they know haven't had someone close to them die, and it makes them feel different and alone," wrote Deren in an email. "Being at a camp like this shows them that they are not alone, gives them an opportunity to talk about their person who died, and release some of the weight they carry around with them."

Campers hanging out.

In everyday life, there's often a lot of pressure to keep grief hidden, Eddy notes, even when around family members who are experiencing it too. "[The campers] don’t want their families to hurt anymore," Eddy explained.

At Experience Camps — where there's an underlying understanding that everyone is struggling with similar feelings day-to-day — that pressure seems to melt away.

When the campers aren't working through their grief, it's also just a great camp filled with summer activities and lifelong friendships.

Human pyramids are always fun.

And there's nothing better than bouncy water toys.

One of the boys camps during College League (like color war).

Anyone who's been to camp knows how quickly bonds can form there. Whether kids are doing mundane things, like brushing their teeth, or exciting things, like learning to water ski, camp friends become their second family. For kids who've experienced a great personal loss, their camp family is often the only group of people with whom they feel comfortable being completely vulnerable.

Eddy recalled one instance were she saw a bunch of boys having a great time on stand-up paddleboards. They told her later that the excursion prompted them to go back to their bunks and show each other pictures of the family members they lost over laughter and tears. The boys ended up a whole lot closer for it.

The camps emphasize that the best way to cope with loss is often through finding a balance between grief and joy.

"It's OK to grieve for someone and still find happiness in life," Deren wrote over email.

The camp offers sharing circles where campers can talk openly about their feelings with clinicians and share memories of lost loved ones, but that's not the only place for "breakthrough moments." These moments are just as likely to occur during a rousing basketball game or while walking through a field after a bonfire.

"You just don’t know when [grief is] going to come out, but the most beautiful thing is everyone is open and aware and ready to listen,” said Eddy.

Camper and counselor on luau night.

One night, Eddy was walking back to her bunk after the final bonfire of the week — a time when many kids finally open up — with a 9-year-old girl who had been closed off most of the week ... until that very moment.

"She looks up at me and says, 'I didn’t cry,'" Eddy recalled. "I started to go into mom mode saying, 'No. it’s okay! You don’t have to cry. It doesn’t mean you don’t feel anything!' And she stopped me and said, 'No, but you don’t understand. I feel her. I feel my mom in my heart.' And we both immediately just start crying in the middle of this field."

At the end of the summer, campers leave Experience with the tools they need to continue working through their feelings as they grow into adulthood and to help others do the same.

Remembrance stones for people who've passed.

Campers learn there's no one magic way to get through grief, that everyone processes it in their own unique way, and that the feelings that go along with it are going to change over time. They leave knowing there will be great days and terrible days, but that they've got a support system that will always be there for them when they need it most.

It comes down to a story the counselors tell the campers about an invisible string: Even though they can't see it, this string ties all the campers and counselors of Experience together and acts as a constant reminder they are never alone.

Check out a video on Experience Camps here:

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