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    Maintaining relationships.

    Hi everyone First I will give a quick bit of background about myself. I have suffered with mental illness since childhood (untreated) I was deemed just hyper or possessing an overly active imagination to explain away (invalidate) my issues. It was the 70's so no surprise there. I wound up homeless at 16 and somehow managed to get on my feet and now at 47 in spite of dealing with some pretty awful mental health issues, managed to raise two amazing daughters and have been married for 27 years.

    Over the past couple of years things have gotten pretty bad. I started to experience some severe manic episodes, one wherein I couldn't sleep and was awake for 81 hours. The intense manic periods can last as long as a week or more and although I enjoy the high, nothing can stop me sensation, my family doesn't seem to care for them too much. Can't blame them for that. I have had depressive periods that last much much longer. I was in bed for almost 6 months at one point. I was diagnosed bipolar. Now that doesn't mean I received treatment unless one considers a waiting list and almost two years to be somehow helpful.

    So when there's no help you go looking for what you can find and I found vodka. I had it hidden all over the place. When the anxiety overwhelmed me and the thoughts (all 25 of them at the same time) got to be too much I would drink. Secretly. I was ashamed of course....kind of my go to position. Well then that wasn't cutting it so I started cutting. I was having dissociative episodes some as long as two days and others a few hours. In short I was falling apart, the strain of trying to appear okay was destroying me. I didn't talk to my family or my husband about what I was feeling because if I couldn't handle it how could they. I didn't want to lose them.

    Everything came out, I became suicidal (no intention to commit, just that desperate) and made a call while sobbing and parked on the side of the road and emergency mental health services came to my house. Within days I was sitting with a therapist and and starting a short DBT course with a longer one planned. I admitted everything to my husband who assured me that all he wanted was the truth. He wanted to know what I am going through. I am not comfortable sharing what's going on, it scares me.

    Now I feel that our relationship has changed. He was fine with the admission of what I had been doing but seems to lack any understanding that I am not in control of how I feel. I can't be Suzy sunshine when I'm depressed and I can't be mellow when I'm manic. I just and I mean two weeks ago. just started treatment. I started lithium and risperidone as well as clonazepam for the anxiety. I am at the clinic 3 times a week and still working 50+ hours a week. I have tried to explain it to him but he has just grown more distant.

    I'm sure that I am not the only one to have gone through this. I know it's hard to live with someone with a mental illness but I don't speak rudely to him and as a people pleaser I go out of my way to take care of others so I am not sure what else I should do.

    If anyone has been in this place and can offer either advice or encouragement it would be so appreciated.

    Thanks for letting me share a little piece of my story and thanks for letting me be a part of your online community.

    Alice

    #2
    Hello Alice21 and welcome to the forum. Please continue to share as much or as little of your story as you wish and don't hesitate to ask questions. Also , no part of the following should be taken as a criticism. Bipolar causes us enough problems without somebody adding criticism. Nor am I sticking up for your husband. I'm more telling how my life and the lives of many of our friends with bipolar have turned out.

    Nope you aren't the only one who has gone through this. Now I, and everybody else on this forum, understands that our illness can makes us do a lot of things that we didn't want to do and that you've gone through hell. However so has your husband(gone through hell) . I can look back and say that some of the things that I did were caused by the illness and thus weren't my fault, however the problems caused by my illness weren't my wife's fault either. Plus they certainly weren't what she had signed up for when she said " I do" .

    She could live with the in sickness and in health part of the vows, but there were no part of our vows that said" When your husband's personality takes a total change and he is no longer the man that you married, that you have to stay married anyways" .

    Nor could my wife understand my behaviours. Relatives , friends etc didn't help either with comments like "he's just a lazy bum, get rid of him(when I couldn't get out bed) and the equivalent for my anxiety and manic episodes. Plus my wife assumed that because I was seeing a doctor and taking meds, if this was a real illness, then I would get better quickly.

    Of course there were the yrs where things were really bad that my wife had to get over as well. Because like many, I didn't start getting treatment until the illness had really screwed up my life.

    How did we manage to survive. Marriage counseling didn't work as most marriage counselors don't really understand bipolar(no matter what they say), although it may be worth a shot. Secondly I had to become more open about what was happening to me. That was really difficult. I was embarrassed by my behaviours and I thought that if I tried to tell my wife about them it would only hasten her departure.

    I , and this was a big one, had to genuinely acknowledge that the problems were no fault of my wife's and that I was sorry that my illness was putting her all of this hell. I also had to acknowledge that no matter how much she learned about my illness, she was never going to completely understand it. (Heck I still don't understand parts of it)

    Before anyone jumps on me and say that I shouldn't have to apologize for having an illness, I didn't . I apologized for all of the problems my illness had caused.

    I had to agree to a long list of items to show my wife that I was really trying to get the old me back . It helped some when she was allowed to come with me on some of my doctors appts, that way she learned that I wasn't lying about my problems, although interestingly enough she often pointed out to my doctor where some of how I saw things were different then how they really were. It helped when I showed her a concrete "I'm going to get better plan" which is more than simply taking my meds.

    I had to assuage her fears and not yell at her when she asked questions like "are you taking your meds" (I really really hate that question )or "your mind seems to be distracted a lot these days , why". I also had to be patient with her as she slowly learned about my illness.

    I did a lot of other things too. Was it fair that I had to do all of that when I was the sick person "heck no!" , but getting bipolar in the first place wasn't fair to me when 99% of the rest of the population didn't get it. Bipolar is not a fair illness.

    My worse periods of bipolar happened many yrs ago and I have a wonderful wife, however the scares of that illness still sometimes cause her to have horrid nightmares (I have them too) . Even today after many years of not having major, major problems, sometimes a little thing like a strange phone # on our phone bill will upset my wife pretty bad and she will ask who it was too and why. It irritates me to have to explain after all of these yrs, but I realize that she is only trying to make sure that I don't have a major relapse and is not saying that I am failing.

    In short I had to do everything that I could to help my wife understand the illness and to make her understand that I was really trying hard. I was fortunate, she chose to stay with me. There were some pretty troubled times, but we worked it out. As I said, please feel free to ask any questions. Good Luck and Take Care. paul m

    "Alone we can do so little;
    Together we can do so much"
    Helen Keller

    Comment


      #3
      Welcome to the forum Alice21. What struck me after reading your post is what courageous person you are. You have been through so many difficult things and survived. Your determination to have a better life for yourself and those you care about, is truly remarkable.
      AJ

      Humans punish themselves endlessly
      for not being what they believe they should be.
      -Don Miguel Ruiz-

      Comment


        #4
        I'm going to agree with both Paul and AJ. I might just add, having been in a long term relationship with someone suffering from bipolar disorder, that your husband might be in a state of shock. Even if he's not expressing shock in typical ways, he could be needing some time to process the torment he's now realizing his wife is experiencing. I know it took me a while to even accept that my partner at the time was bipolar, let alone understand how to deal with it.

        Comment


          #5
          To all of you, thank you for taking the time to respond. Time is valuable and you have spent some of yours in an effort to help me so again, thank you.

          My husband would be the first person to say that I am kind and caring and rarely do I treat someone with anything other than respect. As he puts it "you hurt yourself not others". I think he is just starting to realize how sick I am. I am a pro at hiding pain but this has become a monster I can no longer hide under the bed skirt. I am married to an amazing man whom I cherish I just am so fearful that this will be too much. I wouldn't blame or resent it if he walked away. Seeing someone you love in constant pain would be awful. I am just wondering how others coped. How do I help him when I myself am a wreck?

          And thanks again even if I am correct when I suspect there is no real answer to this one,

          Alice <3

          Comment


            #6
            How do I help him when I myself am a wreck?
            That's just it Alice21, I'm not sure that you can. You can acknowledge how difficult this must be for him. You can be honest about how you're doing and share the steps you are taking to get better. You may even be able to suggest things he can do to help. As far as helping him, you need most of the energy you have to take care of yourself. I know it sounds selfish but you can't truly be available to him, when you have so much on your own plate.
            AJ

            Humans punish themselves endlessly
            for not being what they believe they should be.
            -Don Miguel Ruiz-

            Comment

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