feeling lonely and lost

[mon]

Hi All,


I have been looking at this forum for the past few days, and you all seem to have a first hand experience with Bipolar. Well...now I am getting it too.

My husband just went manic a week ago and I am completely lost. We have been married for only a year and I have never seen him this bad. Good news is he is in a hospital getting treatment bad news - there has been little improvement. I need to mention that he's been struggling with the illness for over 10 years, so nothing new to him.

During the first 2 days he went manic he managed to get a lease on a 7-year-old Porsche and spend a few hundred bucks on assorted things (clothes, laptop). Luckily on the morning of day 3 he was taken to the emergency room. I thought ...moneywise nothing bad can happen now right? I mean I can cancel the car lease and all will be good. Well on Friday he managed to book a trip to Fiji (only for himself of course, I am staying put) over the phone from the hospital. And now he is planning to keep the car, build a vacation house in Fiji, and a house for us in another town in Canada on a land he owns.

Normally he is very frugal and does not spend much on anything. It seems to me that now his hidden dreams are coming out and taking shape ... at least for him. Of course I am not included in much of the planning of our future.

I suppose I need guidance as to how to deal with this myself. I hope he is in good hands and will get better some day but I am finding it more and more difficult to cope with. Any tips, suggestions? Any ideas on how to talk him out of the trip and the car? (With the car he believes it to be a great deal because then we can re-sell it in a few years for more money.... yeah. )

Or maybe I should go with my gut feeling and cancel everything behind his back? Anything will be highly appreciated, thanks

[Woody]

Hi Mon and welcome to the forum

Sorry to hear about the trouble you are experiencing.
I am not a spender when manic so I cannot suggest anything other than maybe taking away his charge cards and id in order to curtail some of his spendings.

I did work for an auto dealership and I would not wait in contacting them ASAP. Most dealership have a policy that once you drive over that curb, it is yours. So you might want to talk to a lawyer first.

[paul m]

Hello Mon and welcome. I am a spender when I'm manic and when I am really manic I'm full of money making schemes, none of which will work out. I will not listen to reason and I will agree to behave etc just to get people off of my back and then immediately spend more money.

As Woody sez, take his debit and credit cards. Empty any joint accounts and close them. If he runs up an overdraft on a joint accout you may be libel.

In regards to breaking a lease the best people in Cda are lease busters, but they will charge you a fee. http://leasebusters.com/ .

I suggest that you make it mandatory that you have a meeting with his doc. Depending on where you live you may even get yourself appointed as Subsitute Decision Maker (SDM) which would give you control over all of his financial decisions.

When someone is his manic they are not going to make sense in a lot of ways no matter how normal they may seem. He may be looking at hidden dreams, but I never, every manic episode I was capable of coming up with new and bizzare ideas. Start by talking to his doc, then go from there. Take Care. paul m

[gtchamp]

Hi Mon and welcome to the forums. I, too, like Paul remember spending alot of money during one of my phases. It was recommended that my husband take my debit card and all credit cards. He had them for a long time and any time he thinks I am starting to go, he asks me to hand them over. It is a bit humiliating but better that then a load of debt. Sounds like Paul and Woody have good advice, you will find that from others here too. Good luck.

[mon]

Hi

Thank you for your posts. I have to admit that we had been talking about getting an account where we both have to sign on on any withdrawals etc but we never actually got anywhere with it. I would like to look into the Substitute Decision Maker and would appreciate suggestions for any similar "tools" that would help us keep our money during any future episodes.

As for the dealership - I did contact them already. They are willing to work with me if I provide doc certficate. The deal is that the lease was not completed - thanks God. The car is still there and only a small amount of money was paid. My husband did not manage to complete the down payment, though he still talks about it.

I have another question though. Have any of you been in a hospital? If so, did you have free access to your personal items (ie wallet, cards etc) and phone during the first days/weeks of an accute state? As I mentioned before he managed to book a plane ticket over the phone on his day 5 in hospital and I am considering sending the bill there actually. I mean he was in their care and shouldn't they be responsible for the costs? I may be talking crazy here myself but I am quite angry for that.

gtchamp - how did your husband managed to talk you into handin in your cards? It is my experience that no reasoning works and such suggestion would only cause mine to get angry when manic. He did manage to make some sound financial decisions (like giving me all the casch he had) over the couple days before hospital but I think it was a rare lucid moment he was experiencing.

paul m - thanks for the tips. I did already talk to one of his docs but did not really know what questions to ask. what should be the most important ones (other than how he's doing etc)?

thanks again for all your help

[paul m]

Hello Mon. Unfortunately when someone is an accute phase they usually will not listen to reason. My wife and I came to an agreement when I was reasonable normal that she would handle all the money for a while.

Most pysch wards allow you access to a pay telephone and they generally allow access to your wallet after a couple of days. Even if they don't there are ways of getting your credit card number or a new one and a lot of people have their bank acct info memorized.

Questions to ask. What meds will he be on, how will I know if he is taking his meds, (blood tests etc for some), how long before the meds take effect, what other types of treatment are available, (CBT etc) , what should he not do, drink etc, what about diet, high caffine or sugar intake etc, what support groups are in the area. What triggers do you know about.

Triggers can be a big factor in a persons illness. For me if I so much as think about going into a strip club, I had better go see my doc because going in will almost always trigger an acute case of mania. Too much coffee will trigger mania for me. I have a lot of problems with crowded areas(weddings, dances christmas parties for example), spending too much time in crowded areas will case my anxieties to flare followed by depression. Alcohol doesn't bother me, but it does trigger depression in many people. Not everybody has triggers, but it cannot hurt to ask.

Alcohol in any amount destroys the effectiveness of my medicine so I rarely drink, but that is just me. Although I havn't found too many people who have been really successfull with this illness who used very much booze or pot or other illicit drugs. Take Care. paul m

[uni]

Welcome to you, Mon. There are definitely people on this forum who know exactly the kind of thing you're dealing with, and with good listening ears. I wish you well.

[AJ]

Just wanted to say welcome Mon.

[gtchamp]

Hi Mon. Just have a few minutes but thought I would pop on to see how you are doing. You asked how my husband got me to hand over my cards and such? Well, I never suffered an acute stage of mania, however, I did suffer hypo mania and spent $500 in a dollar store over the course of a month. Then because I was cleaning so much, I threw all the stuff out! Once the medication started in my system (about a week), both the doctor and my husband mentioned to me that the spending was a sign of my hypo mania and that it would be a good idea to let him handle the finances or we could end up in trouble. By that time, I was lucid enough to understand. It's kinda like what Paul and his wife decided. I wish you all the best. Gotta go but I'll be back to see how you are doing. Take care. Tracey

[A.E.V.]

welcome to the forum mon!

[mon]

Thank you for all your warm welcomes. I am still surviving but have to say that although most of the time I am ok-ish, each time I go and visit my husband at the hospital I get very angry and easily irritable. He sees that and complains that i should be happy and supportive but I just cannot get all those bad thoughts out of my mind. i know he is ill and things that he said or did may have not been intentional but.... it is hard not to remember them when I see him.

Yesterday he had the bright idea of calling his boss and giving her a piece of his mind.... I had the fortune to have a meeting with her shortly after he had called and she played the message to me. He started by admiting openly where he is (we tried to keep it a secret) and stating that the reason for his condition is us not getting along and getting a divorce...sigh. His whole message was quite out of character and dishevelled. When I confronted him later that day, he said that it was quite ok, he knew exactly what he said and was quite reasonable. Obviously I was not intended to hear that message and especially the divorce part. And he thinks if he uses that excuse more often people will believe that it caused his nervous breakdown and not the bipolar part (he tried it with his pdoc too!!!)

Did I mentioned that occasionally he thinks his boss is planning to kill him?

I know this is all the illness but when will he get better?

I am sorry for all this ranting but I suppose I just need to get it out of my system and try to stay sane.

[gtchamp]

Sorry Mon to hear that you are going through this. Hang in there if you can. My husband did and I am ever so grateful. I even remember telling him several times that he could leave. I also thought he was having an affair and divorce has crossed my mind too but never his. As for coming on here and ranting. I don't mind listening. It is good for me to hear the other side of the coin. I'll be thinking of you. Tracey

[Woody]

Mon, when will it get better? Short answer is either his mania phase peaks and he goes back down or they find a cocktail of meds that is going to stabilize him.

Given recent events, you might want to ask the hospital staff to curtail his phone privileges. They can do that.

You are going to need to separate the man from the illness. This will not be an easy task.

Here is a pamphlet from the 'Here to Help' people. It has some information you might find helpful. It also has contact information for your area. Or you can call the CMHA directly and ask them for support for 'family and caregivers support groups' in your area. I go to both groups in my area, for myself(mood disorder) and for my son(support), and there is definitely a different perspective in both groups. What I am trying to say is that you have to take care of yourself too because you are just as important.

[mon]

Thanks gtchamp and Woody,

The reason I am asking the question "when will it get better" is that I am also getting a bit frustrated that it's been over a week and there is not much progress. You see he has been seen by a pdoc only twice so far, and that was on his day 1 and 5 at the hospital. Yesterday (day 8) he was moved to a different ward, which means a new pdoc and he will not meet the doc until tomorrow!!!!!!!!! So as of today he has no doctor assigned to him and there is no one I can call and ask about things except for his nurse. Is that normal? I assume finding the right coctail when there is no doc might be a challenge.

Woody, I have asked the nurses to ban him from the phone but the message was not passed on when he was moved to the new place so I was quite freaking out yesterday when I heard the message he left his boss. I mean I put that ban for a reason, how could they "forgot" to mention it to new nurses???!!!!!

[Woody]

Mon,

A lot of factors could be coming to play.

First his history with mental illness. Second is probably what set off this event. Did he go off his medications or did something cause the relapse so on... Third is what medication they have him on. Some meds start working withing right away and other medication they take longer, sometime week. Someone (husband or nurse or pdoc) should be able to tell you what course of treatment they have decided on and give you some kind of idea what do expect. In most cases if you do not ask the questions they will not volunteer the information. Every case is different.