I think my boyfriend is depressed

by Rahkelah Rogers
(Roanoke,Va 24016)

The Question

Hello, my name is Rahkelah and my boyfriend and I have been together for four years. When we met he was 49 and I was 23. We hit it off great, but now he is not the same man I fell in love with.

He is down all the time and I see him less and less. He has even has turned to drugs. This all seemed to have happened after his second heart attack last year. He has even been to rehab twice, which hasn't seemed to help at all. What is happening to my man??!

Noel's response

I am not a doctor, but it sounds to me as though the second heart attack has him worrying about dying, and it is making him depressed. Now that he is in his early fifties, he may be going through what I call the "existential crisis", where a person may go through a very introspective period, questioning the meaning of their life, and 'what it is all about'.