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Part VI: A primer on medications As I mentioned, Joanne tried a wide assortment of medications. Off the top of my head, she had been on Seroquel, Geodon, Abilify, Ambien, Tegretol, Fish Oil, Trazadone, Lamictal, Lithium, Zyprexa, Strattera, and a slew of others I’m sure I’m forgetting. She bounced from medication to medication for years. Some doctors aggressively tried to keep switching drugs until something seemed to click, while others were very conservative and were afraid of unbalancing things and making it all worse. Switching between these drugs is not a trivial matter. Most require you to ramp up slowly, over weeks or months. This doesn’t sound too bad, but is a bit agonizing when you know this means several more months of emotional issues, just for a shot that something might work. A lot of drugs can’t be dropped immediately either, but must be gradually ramped down. Many require blood tests several times a year because their concentrations can randomly spike or decline and put you in serious danger. Some have fun interactions like making birth control ineffective or putting you at serious risk if you eat grapefruit. Immediate side effects can be all over the place. Difficulty sleeping or severe drowsiness are very common. I mentioned the issues with TD and hallucinations earlier. Basically every side effect is possible, and reading each drug’s list of potentials will cause nausea (which, of course, is on the list). Many of these side effects can pop up years after starting to take a drug, and of course, if you’re on six different drugs, it can be very difficult to determine which is causing the issues. Almost every one of these drugs is harmful if you’re pregnant. There are a few that are thought to be relatively safe, but every person responds differently to different drugs, so if those don’t work for you, don’t plan on having kids. Basically all of these drugs are known to destroy your kidney and liver over time. All cite an increased risk for death by something. Many drugs haven’t even be tested for long term treatment, but doctors will still prescribe them to you for the rest of your life; after all, it beats being insane. Some drugs have been out long enough that you can get cheap generics for $10. Many, however, are new, and the new ones are often the most effective ones with the least side effects. This can cost anywhere from $200-$1500 for a month’s supply. Of course, if you have insurance, you only have to pay the co-pay, but even then that can be $50 a month, and certainly that adds up when you’re taking six different pills. To top it off, most insurance companies will constantly try to convince you to take cheaper drugs, and require written letters from your doctors saying “we’ve tried such and such drug and it doesn’t work, so Joanne needs to take this.” Whenever you switch doctors or insurance, this whole thing usually starts over again. After all that, the question of whether or not a drug works cannot be easily answered in most cases. Many doctors will tell you that they measure progress on six month or year timescales, which means if a drug didn’t work, you’ve got a long time to wait. This is all confounded by the fact that bipolar symptoms tend to wax and wane on their own; maybe you’re feeling better today due to the drugs, or maybe you’ve just cycled away from your depression. Several years into her treatment, Joanne decided on a cocktail of about six drugs and refused to change them. She was tired of being a guinea pig. She wasn’t perfect, but anything beat taking something new and worrying about what it’d be like. She would often talk about how she knew that the many drugs she was taking would one day be the end of her. She always wanted to be a mother, but felt that this had been stolen from her. So yes, the drugs will save your life… but they won’t necessarily bring you back to where you started. FunWithWombats fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Dec 7, 2013 |
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Dec 7, 2013 17:31
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You're probably going to get to this, but has your wife ever had quality behavioral therapy from a behaviorist?
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Dec 7, 2013 18:16
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FunWithWombats posted:I can’t imagine a more harrowing experience than being in a place like that, and my heart goes out to any who has spent time in a mental hospital. I don't know if this will help or not or maybe make you feel better about the people you saw there, but honestly, checking myself into a psych ward when I was very suicidal was, hands down, the best decision I've ever made. Being in a place where you know that you will not be able to kill yourself or self harm allowed me to actually work through poo poo that I'd been avoiding out of fear of what I would do to myself. It was scary, yeah, and I am very very grateful to have gone to a good place in the same city as the psychiatrist I'd had for 8 years who was able to make sure I would be alright, but I really can't express how glad I am to have gone. Also, your descriptions of your wife after the hospital does explain a lot about the other folks I was in the ward with. Seeing someone that deep into the depressive side of bipolar is something you don't really just forget easily and likewise with someone in a full blown manic stage.
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Dec 7, 2013 19:02
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Thora posted:You are familiar with the sound of hoofbeats/looking for zebras analogy, yes? Late teens early 20s is a common age for a first psychotic break. What leads you immediately down the neuro path, and what are you looking for? Just curious. Of course. The one thing I found very atypical is the severe memory impairment she had initially. The reason I bring up neurology is because so called 'organic' causes of psychosis must always be evaluated for before a primary psychotic disorder is diagnosed. That workup always includes a CT scan or MRI of the brain, basic bloodwork and if there is a suspicion, EEG. This would not be the first time I have seen temporal lobe epilepsy or brain tumor being diagnosed as a psychotic disorder. It sounds like these causes have been evaluated - I just wanted to make sure. Indeed one cannot write an order for "placebo" in the modern era however I can write for gabapentin for any number of problems. It might work, so strictly speaking it is not a true placebo. Nor are the nurses lying and saying the patients are receiving Ambien. But they might say to the patient "this is a medicine for ____." This is ethically questionable but most physicians do this at one point or another.
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Dec 7, 2013 19:58
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FunWithWombats posted:Anyway, a month after leaving the hospital, the doctors tried out the drug Tegretol, and miraculously, her short-term memory was restored in a matter of weeks. Oh man, Tegretol is the poo poo. I had been misdiagnosed as clinically depressed for a number of years, and tried all sorts of fun anti-depressants. I always stopped taking them, because I thought they just made me really, really angry at everyone for no reason. I told this to... I think my fourth or fifth pill-giving head doc, she started listing off symptoms I hadn't even told her, like she was reading my mind, and put me on a low dose of that. Worked like a charm. Granted, being the wonderful idiot I am, I stopped taking it a while back because I'd been forgetting doses and not seeing any negative effects. I did not know, at the time, that the whole bipolar thing can disappear and resurface, so now I get to go find someone who'll put me back on it. Thank you for posting, OP, it's cool to see how things like this play out from the point of view of the people on the other side of the fence. Angry Guacamole fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Dec 7, 2013 |
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Dec 7, 2013 20:12
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Thanks for this thread FunWithWombats. Dealing with Mental illness is such a hard thing and the drug trials are AWFUL.
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Dec 8, 2013 01:14
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How was your relationship during this time? Were you able to have a normal sex life? Did you still do normal couple things? Or did the severity of her condition make you basically a caretaker?
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Dec 8, 2013 02:34
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I'm surprised they didn't try Clozapine/Clozaril which seems to be the drug of last choice after they've tried all the atypical anti-psychotics, Tegratol, Depakote, Lithium, or any combination thereof. It's pretty tough in this situation because these drugs even if they're in the same class might have different efficacy in different patients. There's really not one that is "better" or more "powerful" per se, rather you start with the ones with the least side effects and switch when it doesn't work. Like you said it takes weeks to titrate up and titrate down. Most have black box warnings or even multiple ones which say "May cause *insert horrible side effect or death here*." Also, have you tried ECT?
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Dec 8, 2013 03:47
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I used to have a roommate with BPD. It was hard enough not being a person in any way responsible for caring for her, I can't imagine the stress of what you went through. She ended up getting divorced because her husband ended up on the wrong side of the "us vs them" mentality because he tried to get her help for her mental illness and she nearly drove him to suicide in the process. She basically cut everyone out of her life who didn't 110% agree with everything she did. I was one of those people cut off since I sided with her ex-husband in that she needed to get some help and I had the gall to talk him down out of suicide countless times so I have no idea what she's doing these days apart from occasionally crossing paths on Facebook through mutual friends. She looks so hollow and mentally absent in all the pictures I see of her.
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Dec 8, 2013 05:50
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As somebody living with bipolar disorder, I'm really glad you're doing this thread. At the same time, it makes me feel like a horrible monster. Every case manifests differently, but there are still loads of commonalIties. I want to do more non-internet reading before addressing some of the stuff in here that really stings, but in general there's a certain conflation of symptoms with sociopathy that feels unfair. I think it's important to acknowledge the abundance of comorbid disorders that can come with bipolar before lumping manic-depression in with things like an us versus them mentality. I hope Joanne is doing better! I'm on lithium and Lexapro with Seroquil available for sleep aid, myself. There haven't been any manic episodes since medicating, but finding a healthy balance on a thin line between too-excited and ridiculously sad is impossible to understate. And of course with the whole stigma of mental illness and discussing it. I've definitely felt like the sane person locked in a room with crazy people many times, especially with extended family. Not to discount my own difficulties, but it seems effortless for "healthy" people to latch onto diagnosable disorders in other to absolve themselves.
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Dec 8, 2013 17:07
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These are really well written, and really touching. You are a strong person and I really, genuinely respect you.
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Dec 8, 2013 17:50
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Bunway Airlines posted:You're probably going to get to this, but has your wife ever had quality behavioral therapy from a behaviorist? Effexxor posted:I don't know if this will help or not or maybe make you feel better about the people you saw there, but honestly, checking myself into a psych ward when I was very suicidal was, hands down, the best decision I've ever made. Being in a place where you know that you will not be able to kill yourself or self harm allowed me to actually work through poo poo that I'd been avoiding out of fear of what I would do to myself. It was scary, yeah, and I am very very grateful to have gone to a good place in the same city as the psychiatrist I'd had for 8 years who was able to make sure I would be alright, but I really can't express how glad I am to have gone. Very Nice Eraser posted:How was your relationship during this time? Were you able to have a normal sex life? Did you still do normal couple things? Or did the severity of her condition make you basically a caretaker? Lote posted:Also, have you tried ECT?
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Dec 8, 2013 22:00
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Chinaman7000 posted:These are really well written, and really touching. You are a strong person and I really, genuinely respect you.
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Dec 8, 2013 22:02
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Part VII: Mania I’d like to reiterate that when I married her, Joanne was, for the most part, a normal, well-adjusted, functional person. She did well in school and college, she excelled at her jobs and was always quickly promoted to management, and she had lots of friend. She was outgoing, but was very timid about spending money, rarely did anything too crazy, never did drugs, and was just a nice, wonderful person to be around. It’s one thing to read the list of symptoms or hear a doctor tell you about the behaviors to look out for in a BP person. It’s an entirely different beast to actually see this person who you’ve known and loved for years do something utterly orthogonal to their character. It’d be like watching the Pope kick a puppy on TV or something: it’s just something you’d never, ever expect to see or experience. Once the TD and memory issues were taken care of, and the drugs were kinda leveled off so Joanne didn’t feel so tired, some of her character came back. At the same time, she was still struggling a lot. Her motor skills were a mess. She tried to paint like she used to, but couldn’t operate the brush properly. She couldn’t drive, and still was having a lot of issues keeping herself focused and organized. She was at least at the point where I could leave her at home on her own for a few hours, but she wasn’t happy about it, and I couldn’t really leave her any longer than that. Weirder though, were the first inklings of her hypomanic state. The first event I remember clearly was a visit I had to a guitar store with her. I was just dropping in to buy some strings and look around a bit. A minute or two after we were there, she had wandered off. Then, I noticed her making a bee line for the counter holding a mandolin. I stopped her and asked her what she was doing.  “I’m buying this.” “What do you mean?” “I want this, I’m buying this, get out of my way.” “Uh, why would you want to buy that? You don’t even play. If you want to learn to play a stringed instrument, I have a million guitars and basses at home. I can teach to you play those.” “No, I want to buy this.” “Do you even know what that is?” “… I’m buying this.”At this point she pushed me out of the way and started heading towards the counter. Thankfully, I had heeded her doctor’s advice and removed her credit cards from her wallet. I had told her this, but she apparently had forgotten. I reminded her of this before she reached the counter. She was not pleased, she yelled at me a bit, and then we left. This was the first time the manic stuff started feeling real to me. Later, she tried to buy several thousand dollars of dresses off of Ebay in a single day. She also bought something like 40 tee shirts from Threadless over the course of a week. Once I figured it out, I had to close her Paypal account and even block Threadless entirely so she wouldn’t obsess over it. When I asked her about how she thought we could afford all these things, she told me she was a super talented artist and she would be making tons of money off of her paintings to cover this. At some point she did want to learn to play bass. I gave her one lesson. The next day she started answering Craigslist ads looking for bassists, telling them that she was a professional and could totally play in their bands. This must have been a dream of hers, because she also once walked into a jam session with some of my friends once and decided she could be the singer. She didn’t know any words, however, so she just started amelodically shouting into the microphone. Initially, she was also sex-crazy during her manic state. Prior to this I’d say we had a rather healthy, normal sex life for a couple of 22 year olds, but she wanted a lot of sex and wanted to do it in public places and other things she’d never been interested in before. A few months later, we were moving so I could go to grad school. She was still a bit hypomanic and largely dysfunctional. She hadn’t worked a job since she’d been in the hospital, and had trouble maintaining the house or organizing basic day to day things. She still wasn’t driving. She still had a long way to go.
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Dec 8, 2013 22:06
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Dude, that last post really hit me. The vision of someone you love, someone you care about walking up to the microphone and making such a fool of themselves.. It would rip your heart out. Great thread, well written.. I keep seeing my ex in place of Joanne who I still love so dearly. Keep going mate, your little sad face in every exchange with her communicates so much.
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Dec 9, 2013 00:03
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How is it possible to work 40 hours a week while doing full time school? Are you an android?
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Dec 9, 2013 04:22
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Seaside Loafer posted:How is it possible to work 40 hours a week while doing full time school? Are you an android?
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Dec 9, 2013 05:01
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Seaside Loafer posted:How is it possible to work 40 hours a week while doing full time school? Are you an android? Night classes?
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Dec 9, 2013 06:02
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Seaside Loafer posted:How is it possible to work 40 hours a week while doing full time school? Are you an android? It isn't that hard. I did it and plenty of other people do too.
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Dec 9, 2013 06:40
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This is a good thread, thanks for posting it. I am very thankful that my then-fiancee, now-wife stuck with me for the two years or so that I was going through this stuff. In my case, strange sensations that may or may not have been epileptiform led me down a bizarre road where I was started on mood stabilizers which made things hell of worse. Turns out that things meant to regulate emotions can make them crazy whacky when they aren't really needed. My parents then ran with it and did the "think back" thing, my mother in particular basically using it as "proof" that I was crazy for everything I'd ever considered or done that she didn't agree with. Long story short, thanks to a great therapist who helped me deal with some childhood trauma and basically talked me back into being me, I was able to work with my psychiatrist to baseline back to ADHD meds only, which I am now off as well. It was kind of an exciting foray, extremely dark at times, and it's a part of my life that I still am not sure how to deal with. I think it's best to leave it lie, it is what it is. I don't blame the doctors for any of it, they were treating symptoms and as far as they knew I was on the Lamictal for mood. The whole thing was perhaps complicated by being a psychology student and counseling master's student at the time, which gave me just enough information to confirm and abet diagnoses and to let me find those confirmation bias fueling pieces of self-selected remembered history. Back on point though, my wife stuck with me through all of that, and I know it was extremely hard for her. I remember giving her the talk about "welp I'm gonna be doing this whole song and dance until I die, so if you want to bail, now's the time." She stayed with me. I'm glad she did, and she is too, because when we were doing that whole "in sickness or in health" talk, welp, we'd been there, done that.
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Dec 9, 2013 06:59
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Great story and really enjoyed it. Am I the only one who wants Sharon to face great justice? Please tell me she eventually got her comeuppance and then she got some help?
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Dec 9, 2013 07:53
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This thread is also really good for me to read as well, because my mother is a bit like Sharon. Until we were in our twenties/college, my mother was basically dictator of our house with wild mood swings every few months. New cars, new furniture, repainted rooms, etc would happen regularly. Luckily, my father has a good enough job and a nice head on his shoulders, so we were able to afford it and reduce her spending sprees a lot. Breaking down at minor things was also common; when we went to Disney World at Christmas one time, for instance, she broke down because I was 5 minutes late to a parade in Epcot, leading to her basically trying to disown me for the rest of the week.  But none of us really though that she mentally ill until she went absolutely bonkers from empty-nest syndrome. She became suicidal and her mood swings happened a lot more, and a lot stronger, according to my dad. So finally, after starts and stops he was able to get her to a therapist and some medications. It seems to be working, because I like my mom a lot more now than I did as a kid. I used to avoid her, and now I like to talk to her. 
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Dec 9, 2013 08:46
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Amalek posted:Great story and really enjoyed it. It would be nice but unfortunately some people have to hit absolute rock bottom before they get help. I spent years convincing myself that the reason I was so depressed was because other people kept loving me over. It wasn't until I made a life changing mistake that I realised there was something wrong and I needed to get help. My mum on the other hand (who I am convinced is borderline) has her parents backing her up so is still in the "it's everyone else no me" mindset.
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Dec 9, 2013 09:50
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Seaside Loafer posted:How is it possible to work 40 hours a week while doing full time school? Are you an android? I managed to get most of my classes in blocks, e.g. 8 AM to 2 PM on Tuesday/Thursday I was in class all day. Then I was working or doing homework at pretty much all other hours of the week. This was further complicated by the fact that I changed my major several times. Not to toot my own horn, but I managed to get 2 science degrees with a 3.9 GPA. Basically, I missed out on every fun thing in college  .It was good prep for the hell that is grad school. Needless to say, I have little patience for my students who take 12 hours of classes a semester, have no job, and complain about not having enough time to do their homework in introductory courses.
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Dec 9, 2013 16:36
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Part VIII: Starting from the Ground Up Moving was a pretty positive thing in a lot of ways, I think. It was around this time that it really became obvious to me that Joanne’s mother, Sharon, was untreated bipolar or Borderline Personality Disorder. Her spending sprees, rapid mood shifts, self-centeredness, and frequent career changes were all hallmarks of a BP person off of her meds. She continued to inhibit Joanne’s recovery, and basically kept reassuring her and me that Joanne would never be any better, never be able to live a normal life, etc. and should just come back home to live with the family where they could take care of her. Putting a couple thousand miles between us and that was pretty good, and Joanne’s doctors and therapist agreed. It was also nice for Joanne to get a bit of a fresh start. After being in the hospital, most of her friends really didn’t know how to react when they saw her again. She was not herself, not functional, and they knew it. Many of them just didn’t know what to do, stopped calling, and disappeared. Her closest friend tried to be a little supportive, but she didn’t really seem to get it either. We decided, for the time being, to not bring up her illness with new people. This would give her a chance to grow on her own without the stigma that society has surrounding mental illness. For all they knew, the little quirks Joanne had developed were just Joanne, and that was okay. She was mostly shy when meeting new people; I think she just really didn't feel herself at this point, and didn't know how to act. I committed myself to helping her rebuild her life. Of course, we immediately found her a new doctor and therapist in our new town. Her doctor continued to adjust her meds to see if she could make Joanne less drowsy and more emotionally stable. I worked on reteaching Joanne some basic life skills. I taught her to drive again, which was not unlike teaching a teenager. She had somehow lost some motor control, and she didn’t have a good feel for how hard to push the pedals or how much to steer anymore. Since we only had one car at the time, I also taught her to take the bus and went on a few trips with her. Through all of this she was incredibly nervous and combative; she’d gotten used to everyone doing everything for her, and lost a lot of confidence in herself. Joanne was scared. She was lonely. She was sad. She felt broken.
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Dec 9, 2013 16:41
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Amalek posted:Great story and really enjoyed it. My Mother in Laws' sister is just like Sharon. She literally thinks we are all assholes when we take my MILs credit cards away and acts like we doing this great injustice when we keep my MIL from going to kinkos to make 800 flyers about how christ is risen and coming to save us or whatever the flavor of the week is. She seriously came into town from 1000 miles away just to take my MIL shopping and then ran up a 5000 bill on my FILs credit card. My FIL proceeded to have to return all the poo poo to various stores which was a massive pita because my MILs sister threw away all the receipts. I'm positive she is bipolar but because her husband makes massive dough, shes never been taken to the doctor for her crazy spending habits and total insanity.
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Dec 9, 2013 21:54
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FunWithWombats posted:I taught her to drive again, which was not unlike teaching a teenager. She had somehow lost some motor control, and she didn’t have a good feel for how hard to push the pedals or how much to steer anymore. Since we only had one car at the time, I also taught her to take the bus and went on a few trips with her. Through all of this she was incredibly nervous and combative; she’d gotten used to everyone doing everything for her, and lost a lot of confidence in herself.  This is where the really bad stuff happens, isn't it? Thanks very much for sharing all of this. One of my very good (sadly former) friends from high school had bipolar. I guess at a somewhat similar time, he had a few manic episodes. Various drugs were involved, drunk driving, promiscuity, etc. I like to tell myself that I tried to keep in contact, but I wonder sometimes if I wasn't just like one of your wife's friends who just kind of pulled away because they didn't really know what to do. I also know of some other folks who... thinking about my former friend and your description of Sharon, I wouldn't be surprised if there were an undiagnosed mental illness there. Anyways, despite the fact that it's a little sad for me to see bits and pieces of the people I've known in your stories, please keep sharing!
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Dec 10, 2013 00:08
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Can you elaborate on what you mean by teaching her things? Had she literally forgotten how to board a bus, pay, find a seat, etc? Had she forgotten how to start a car? Was there anything in particular that you noticed was constant from her pre-diagnosis personality? Or did she basically become a different person? It's been said a ton of times already but thanks for sharing in the thread. I would imagine that most readers will recognize some bits of your story in their lives or loved ones' lives; I certainly do.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:15
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I've had very little experience with mental illness beyond friends suffering from depression (which is itself weird in terms of seeing someone's behaviour change) but I am aware of how frustrating and hard it can be to support and help someone suffering from these conditions. I can imagine to some extent how horrible and frustrating it can be to be the sufferer as well but this thread has been a fascinating insight into the experience. Thanks for posting it and thanks to others with experience on either side for contributing more to it.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:35
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Very Nice Eraser posted:Can you elaborate on what you mean by teaching her things? Had she literally forgotten how to board a bus, pay, find a seat, etc? Had she forgotten how to start a car? If I may attempt to answer your question about "teaching" her things - though my story was not the same, I had a bit of a breakdown in high school, and it wasn't that I had forgotten how to do all of those things. It was that I had become so consumed by...illness...and had metaphorically climbed into a fetal position for a while. When you do that for a while, and then you slowly start to make your way back out into the world, the world seems scary again. You know it's there, and things are the same, really, but you feel different - you are different - and you have an uneasiness about things for a while. It's a very strange experience. Anyway... Definitely agree that this thread has bits and pieces of others' lives in it. My mom's good friend was the best. She was an accountant. She was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic...and then we never really saw her much after that. She cut her hair all weird, started hanging out in bars, and is a stripper now.
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Dec 10, 2013 05:46
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Very Nice Eraser posted:Can you elaborate on what you mean by teaching her things? Had she literally forgotten how to board a bus, pay, find a seat, etc? Had she forgotten how to start a car? quote:Was there anything in particular that you noticed was constant from her pre-diagnosis personality? Or did she basically become a different person? Really, a lot of pieces of her personality were there, but you really had to look for them sometimes... I'll talk about this more a bit later.
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Dec 10, 2013 16:49
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Part IX: Jobs Months after the move, Joanne wasn’t fully functional, but wasn’t what you would call disabled either. She could carry out conversations, albeit with some awkwardness. She slept sometimes, but I often found her wide awake at 4 AM, claiming she couldn’t sleep due to “racing thoughts,” a common BP symptom. Other times she’d fall asleep basically anytime she was sitting down. She could cook and clean if you directed her, but lacked the organization to do it on her own. I was starting graduate school, and was often working 80 hours a week. Joanne stayed at home, watching TV, playing on the internet, or sleeping. I knew this wasn’t healthy, and decided a job could help her get out of the house, meet people, and maybe feel a bit better about herself. Joanne was eager to leave the house, but frightened of responsibility. I handled the applications, made her resume, contacted employers, took her to interviews, etc. Eventually she landed a job at a fancy sandwich shop. Joanne certainly resented the fact that she was taking a step down in the career ladder. Before her illness, Joanne never had lofty career goals, but had always done excellent work at any job she had; she was always quickly promoted to manager wherever she worked. She knew she was starting from the bottom, and lamented this… but she knew she didn’t have an option in her state. Joanne took the bus to work, and managed to do a fine job working 20 hours a week. She felt very stressed whenever she worked, but was happy to at least be doing something. A couple months in, Joanne lost her job. It was never clear why; Joanne mentioned something about new management or something… but at that point it really wasn’t clear how aware Joanne was about anything. She missed social clues, and the way she interpreted reality was, well, flawed I guess? It’s difficult to explain… I will never actually know what happened at that first job, nor her others. And there were many, many others. Over the next four years she worked twelve different jobs. Most were in the service industry, working in small shops, ice cream stores, art galleries, and restaurants. Typically, they would go alright for awhile, and occasionally she would see advancement. However, every job had an abrupt and mysterious end. This typically occurred when she had a swing into a depressive state, where she was just drowsy all the time and not functional, or a hypomanic state, where she could easily be very combative. Of course, this wasn’t great for us financially, and caused a lot of tension. Being a grad student doesn’t pay well, so I couldn’t really support us on my own, especially with the costs of medication, therapy, and doctors visits taken into account. Worst of all, bouncing around really hurt her stability and self-esteem. Several jobs in she just felt like she’d never be normal and would never be able to work. It was really hard to motivate her to try again and apply for more things. I felt like she made progress between each job, but that’s a hard thing to prove when you see the same repeating cycles over and over again. I really thought anything was better than just giving up.
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Dec 10, 2013 16:58
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Man.. I guess you gotta find out what happened in those jobs, contacting the places yourself or whatever needs to be done and getting the real story. Then try and come up with strategies.. if Joanne starts feeling weird then perhaps just walk out for the day? Get out of there before she does something she can't take back? I know it's all in the past mate, and I'm certainly not trying to say 'here's what you should do' like it's so obvious or easy. You were trying to build your own life at this stage and combined with all the care you must have been at your wits end.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:08
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Thank you for sharing. From an employers side of things I can share a little about hiring and having to let go someone with bipolar disorder! The interview went great, this was for a retail job and I was an assistant manager sitting with the store manager for the interview. The lady was nice and personable and really hit it off with us both. It was a no-brainer to hire her, so we did. The person who showed up for work the next week was not the same person we hired. Where she had seemed happy and outgoing she was now lurking behind clothing racks staring at customers and not approaching them. It was pulling teeth to get her to do anything resembling the job we'd hired her for. To top it off a few days later during a busy weekend day she came into the back room where I was eating lunch and proceeded to have a seizure on the floor beside me. She told us later (after the fire department left) she was bipolar and off her seizure medication - which meant she should not be driving but she was. We couldn't fire her because she was bipolar of course, and didn't want to, but she could not function and do the job we hired her to do and our corporate office handled her eventual dismissal via HR to make sure there was no discrimination going on. It was a really bizarre turn of events.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:25
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Thank you for posting this. My last ex had serious psychological issues, though not of the magnitude you describe here. I remember the first time I witnessed concrete evidence of her condition. I felt like I needed to protect her but there was nothing I could do about it other than be by her side; it was immensely sad. After seeing it a few more times though I started feeling numb. Did you experience this (the numbness) as well? I realize each person has their own defense mechanisms they employ, but I'm curious if that's the one you went with as well. I thought of this when you mentioned that your experience at the mental hospital normalized crazy behavior and consequently you weren't as shocked by your wife running around outside. Once again thank you for taking the time and effort to write this, it gives me a lot of much-needed perspective.
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Dec 10, 2013 22:36
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Tony Montana posted:Man.. I guess you gotta find out what happened in those jobs, contacting the places yourself or whatever needs to be done and getting the real story. Then try and come up with strategies.. if Joanne starts feeling weird then perhaps just walk out for the day? Get out of there before she does something she can't take back? I have gotten some information from her in moments of clarity; it sounds like she would sometimes just come into work incredibly drowsy from her meds / not sleeping and that would drastically affect her performance. She would try to get them to move her hours to times where she'd be more awake, but that didn't always work. Sometimes she would have total breakdowns. If it was just a temporary thing, I would have been willing to fight to get her job at, but often it was at the start of a big manic or depressive swing, which means it wasn't going to be easy for the next few months... SharpHawk posted:Thank you for posting this. My last ex had serious psychological issues, though not of the magnitude you describe here. I remember the first time I witnessed concrete evidence of her condition. I felt like I needed to protect her but there was nothing I could do about it other than be by her side; it was immensely sad. After seeing it a few more times though I started feeling numb. Did you experience this (the numbness) as well?
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Dec 11, 2013 16:38
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Kudos to you for honoring your marriage vows! That isn't an easy thing even when your partner is fully sane! What inspires you to keep this marriage going?
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Dec 12, 2013 04:46
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Shbobdb posted:Kudos to you for honoring your marriage vows! That isn't an easy thing even when your partner is fully sane! What inspires you to keep this marriage going? We haven't reached the end of the story yet. I'm not sure he actually is still married to her.
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Dec 12, 2013 04:52
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Shbobdb posted:Kudos to you for honoring your marriage vows! That isn't an easy thing even when your partner is fully sane! What inspires you to keep this marriage going? Going back to my question about whether or not her personality changed, what if she wasn't his partner anymore? That is, we define ourselves so strongly by emotions and personality and other mental traits, I can't imagine having to decide whether to continue a marriage with someone who isn't in any real sense the person I married. Physically altered (car accident, vat of acid) fine, but mental? That's tough. (I like the synchronous way the op is telling the story.)
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Dec 12, 2013 05:35
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I agree but in the Western tradition "in sickness and in health" is still viewed as virtuous even if it is no longer expected to be "'til death do us part". He uses the term "caretaker" instead of "partner" so clearly the notion of a complete partnership no longer exists. Despite that, his wife is still his "partner" even if she is also his "ward". Even if they are no longer together (and I wouldn't judge him for not being with her) he still was with her for far longer than he was "obligated" to have been. That takes a lot of strength and I'm curious what his source of strength is/was. That's all.
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Dec 12, 2013 06:27
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