Seek help for mental illness
Dear Annie: I am a healthy 50-year-young woman in the midst of menopause. I also have been diagnosed as mentally ill with depression. I refuse to seek treatment. I come from a culture where the shame of admitting a mental illness is a fate worse than death. So I sleep a lot.
I have a fine husband who wishes nothing more than to be in a happy, healthy relationship with me and our two young children. I hurt everyone in my family with my mercurial temper, frequent yelling over trivial matters and causing general upset. For a while now, I have refused any intimacy whatsoever with my husband. I am completely disinterested in sex. I know I am starving my husband, and he is suffering. I’ve told him to find someone else.
What should I do? Please don’t tell me to get counselling. I have spoken to counsellors in the past, and nothing has helped because I insist I am a victim and that all of my problems are someone else’s fault. I cannot admit that I need mental health assistance. I am miserable, in every sense of the word. — Frigid in New Hampshire
Dear Frigid: You’ve admitted to us that you need mental health assistance, and we agree. You are being unfair to yourself, as well as your family. So do you want to continue being miserable, alienating your husband and children simply to avoid shame (of which there should be none), or do you genuinely want to make your life better? Whatever underlying issues you may have are likely exacerbated by menopause. If you cannot admit that you need help for depression, perhaps you would seek help to alleviate some of your menopausal symptoms. Your gynecologist can recommend medication that can do both. Please try.
Dear Annie: How do you tell a couple they have a filthy house? Up until recently, they seemed to make an effort, but lately, we find it difficult to accept invitations to their home.
They are nice people, but we are not so close that we can tell them about this.
Their two dogs have the run of the house. The cat is allowed to crawl on the kitchen counters and tables. There is a thick accumulation of pet hair that rolls across their floors like tumbleweed and sticks in the folds of their sofa.
If I confront them, I risk the friendship. If I quit accepting invitations, I risk the friendship. Is there a kind way to tell them? — Louisville, Ky.
Dear Louisville: Maintaining a hair-free home when you have three pets requires frequent cleaning, which your friends apparently are no longer up to handling. Are they in good health? Perhaps they are not physically able to clean. If you can express your concern about their health, that could be a kind way to approach the subject. Feel free to make excuses not to visit, but please invite them to your home so they don’t feel you dislike them.
Annie’s Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column. Email
your questions to anniesmailbox@comcast.net.