husband diagnosed with bipolar - Family & Friends of the Mentally Ill Message Board

peanut72 · 04-17-2007, 06:13 AM

Hi,

my husband was diagnosed with bipolar a couple weeks ago. He had a bad episode one year ago and was hopitalized for 10 days. He was put on Abilify but stopped taking it in September last year. Back then it was called brief psychotic break and it looked like he overcome his deep depression that he had after his psychotic break. A month ago my husband came home from work and said that he was hearing voices again. We found another psychiatrist (he is wonderful), since his former one was on vacation and he put him on Seroquel (300mg). I was noticing some weird behaviour. He was staring at paintings, looking at eyes and was pacing and smoking lots of cigarettes. His medication was raised up but it did not look like it was really helping. He was still hearing the voices but he was fine with that. His psychosis was about God and *****. It got to a point where I got scared when he said that he does not have to work anymore because he is waiting to enter heaven. He did say that our kids (three and four years old) would be in heaven too. The next day he acted out - got aggressive and I felt threatend to leave the house. Police and ambulance where called and he was taken to a clinic where he stayed for 10 days. He left the clinic with 500 mg Seroquel. He is in a manic but psychotic phase and the psychiatrist wants to find out if his psychosis is chemical related and it can be improved with medication. He is now on 800 mg. As of now my husband is still doing a partial program and feels great. There is no problem and everything is wonderful (according to him). He does not recognize his illness which makes it so hard. Honestely I don't know what to do. Everyone that sees him thinks he is doing great since he is social and happy and interactive but I know that is the manic in him and I can't be happy. I know all this is just the beginning and I do want to give it a chance. I know there are situations that if they occured I would pack my bags and leave. If he would ever unreasonally or physically abuse the children or me or stop taking his medication and treatment I would leave him. Right now I am waiting. Waiting to learn more about this disorder, meet people that have gone through this. I cannot give up just yet. I know his family would not understand but they aren't the ones that live with him. They have not been with him in his ups and downs.

I am afraid of it getting worse and that I should have ended it sooner. I have two children that I have to look out for.

Does anyone have experience on the effect of children?

How do these cycles work? How often do they occur, I guess everyone is different and noone can give me a prognosis.

It just feels good to talk to people with similar difficulties and thoughts.

I really like to get insight of other peoples views.

Thanks

Amy50 · 04-17-2007, 07:48 AM

Hi Peanut and welcome to the board. I am not bipolar but was the partner of someone who is. My best advice to you is to take time and read through the large threads, starting from the last page (first post of that thread) and work your way backwards to the most current post.

You will see both bipolar people and their partners/spouses giving their side of the story. You will see some success stories and some heartbreaking ones. I would also suggest getting a few books. I got a lot out of Loving Someone With Bipolar Disorder and Bipolar Disorder For Dummies. The education part is easy;the coping and decision making is not.

As far as the children, I don't have personal experience with that but some here do. Your children are young so counseling wouldn't be appropriate but you may need to speak to a professional to advise you how to handle that. Surely it can leave a damaging effect on them if they see his behavior and it may get to the point where you'd have to remove yourself and them from the situation.

I am sorry you're going through this but you've come to the right place for support. Again, read the top threads which have about 1,000 replies by now. It will be time consuming but you will get to know each of us and our stories. Keep posting, make sure you read the guidelines carefully as they are strict and you want to stick around.

Take care and see you later!

peanut72 · 04-17-2007, 08:19 AM

Thanks for your advice Ami50.

I know that I am the only one who can make a decision on weather I want to be with my husband or not.
I have started to sign up for a family support group locally and am hoping to get some coping skills and understanding.
The question I have, can you ever forget and how will it effect the future life?
I am going to read as much as possible and I know this site will certainly help me.
Thanks

tsohl · 04-17-2007, 08:23 AM

Hello peanut,

Welcome to the board. You have come to the right place to ask questions of those who are walking in your shoes. I'm sure many will chime in with comments and suggestions.

I am sorry for all that you and your husband are going through. Obviously there is a big effect on the family, especially when any children are involved. I personally feel the best way to deal with bipolar disorder is to learn as much as you can about it and the medications that are commonly used to treat it. This is important so that you can work as a partner with your husband and with the pdoc. It is an irony of the disorder that it affects the very part of the brain that would allow the individual to realize there is a "problem." So it is very common that the individual does not realize s/he has anything unusual going on. If anything, everyone else on earth is wrong and the individual is "right."

If you are interested in learning more about how to manage this disorder, I would suggest you look into ****. This is a national organization that has state and local chapters all over the US. They provide educational programs, support groups for a whole variety of mental illnesses and disorders for all different age groups, and are a wonderful resource for information and referrals. You can search for them on the internet; on their site is a link to "Find Support" which when clicked, will take you to a map where you can then click on your state to see all the various chapters located within your state. Even the website contains a great deal of information. There is one program called "Family to Family" that I particularly recommend.

Would you mind explaining why your husband stopped taking abilify? From your brief description of your husband's situation, I would wonder why he is currently not on a mood stabilizer. Seroquel is a good drug added on to a mood stabilizer, but in and of itself isn't usually used as the main mood stabilizer. But obviously I'm not a pdoc...different pdocs try lots of different ways to try to control the episodes of BP.

I would be very concerned about the psychotic aspects of your husband's
disorder. That makes it a bit different from the more common types of bipolarity. You are right in that it is impossible to predict the course his disorder will take. Ideally he can be stabilized so that the episodes of mania and depression will occur infrequently, if at all and that the symptoms of the episodes will be controlled. In many individuals who carefully follow their pdoc's treatment plans and take their meds as prescribed, bipolar disorder can be managed and the individual can lead a "normal" life. They become aware of what their triggers are and learn to watch for them and what actions to take when they feel an episode coming on.

You asked many good questions in your post. I will try to answer some of them in future posts as I am pressed for time right now...but I wanted to welcome you and encourage you to post often with your comments and questions. Also you might scan the titles to other posts to see if reading through some of them might provide some insight.

Tsohl

peanut72 · 04-17-2007, 10:01 AM

Hi Tsohl,

thank you very much for your long post, your concern and the offer to help.
My husband went off the medicine because his therapist was telling him that he was doing great. His appointments were scheduled every month only and the psychiatrist kept reducing his medication down to 5mg Abilify. My husband then got the idea that he was doing that great that he did not need to take the medication anymore. He was then off the medication for about five months and started to hear voices. He was getting very psychotic. He believed that God had opened his skull and gave him 100% brain capacity. He was able to do mind reading and was able to make things disappear. He felt very special since he was chosen by God. The only reason why he agreed to sign himself into a clinic was because God had told him that he would die there and that he would enter heaven.
He has never said anything or done anything that would make one believe that he would harm himself or someone else.
It is just scary for me. As of now he still believes he has a very close bond to God and that he is the only one that has believe in God. He isn't worried about anything. He believes in mind transfers and the therapist says that as of now therapy isn't really helping since he is stuck in his believes. It is his way or no way and that therapists are just throwing around words but what it downs to is the faith in God. In family therapy we agreed not to touch the subject God and he is fine with that. It is only when I do therapy with him that I hear about his "crazy thinking". I guess that is the psychotic part.
I forgot to mention that he does take 100mg Trazadone at night, but I was told it is an anti depressant but really works as a sleeping pill.
Thanks for the information about ****. Those is who I called. Unfortunately they meet only once a months and they just had their meeting a couple days ago. But I am calling tomorrow to find out if there is a more frequent group I can join. My husband doesn't look that he is doing therapy. For him it is listening to someone elses problems.
Today his partial program is going to be over. He does want to pick up work tomorrow.
I am just so confused if this is all going to work out.
Thanks