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Bipolar Disorder Community

Reply: concerned wife

You are in a very hard place. Someone has to want to get help in order to be helped. My...

Posted by Yitzzy

4 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:concerned wife You are in a very hard place. Someone has to want to get help in order to be helped. My...

Reply: Bipolar Grandmother watching our 6-8 week old.

My husband is Bipolar and has had an increase in symptoms ever since our daughter was born...

Posted by Yitzzy

3 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:Bipolar Grandmother watching our 6-8 week old. My husband is Bipolar and has had an increase in symptoms ever since our daughter was born...

Reply: just brief update that dont make sense

I am sorry you are going through that. I hope your doctor gave you a full work up checking...

Posted by Yitzzy

7 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:just brief update that dont make sense I am sorry you are going through that. I hope your doctor gave you a full work up checking...

[Trigger] looking for suggestions on "toxic" famil...

[Trigger> I am kind of new to the forum and I am looking for some advice. My husband is...

Posted by Yitzzy

[Trigger> I am kind of new to the forum and I am looking for some advice. My husband is bi-polar. My daughter has asperger's. The reason for this post is my husband's father and step-mother but it needs some back story. First, for whatever reason my husband and I cannot get our daughter to wipe her tush after she goes. We have tried telling her to show us that she wipe to get a reward, we have tried taking away reward points if she doesn't do it. The only thing that works is actually being in the bathroom and basically wipe for her which she dislikes. She won't tell us when she is going into the bathroom so we can only wipe her if we know she is in it. Usually we find out because she doesn't flush the toilet and we see she has gone. Then we have to clean her up.
I work third shift so on the weekends I come home and go to sleep. My husband takes care of daughter. Her grandmother decided she would like to see her for the day and so my husband changed her shirt and pants but forgot to change her underclothes. (I personally put this down to the fact that when he was hospitalized last month he had 4 rounds of ECT and it messes with his short term memory). It just so happens that morning she had gone to the potty without wiping. When she got to her grandma's to go swimming she saw the dirty panties and freaked out. She didn't bother to call my husband, she called her husband and my husband got an email from him. It was a long email saying our daughter is always dirty, (She isn't), and how my husband needs to "be a man" and take care of his daughter correctly. The following day we got an email from his step-mother. This is a part of the email. I have edited names and taken out some lines for space but have not altered any sentences that have been left in.
[Trigger> I agree with everything ur Dad said. Unlike ur Dad, at this point my only concern is for child. U both r grown and have every right to live like trash if that is what u want to do but child deserves better and as a child, it's her right to have better! She will be 6 years old in a month and she has never known what a clean, organized home is. She has lived in conditions that we wouldn't even allow our dogs to live in and as God I'd my witness that is true. Everyone I know has kids and normally both parents work and they are able to keep a clean home and keep their kids clean. My sister has had breast cancer for 3 years, lost a breast, lost her hair, and is now on her 4th round of chemo and she only missed about 4 days of work the entire time and she has to travel for her job which is very hard. I could go to her house right now and eat off of her bathroom floor. stop using excuses, whatever head case stuff u say u have is nothing. U have both arms and legs and u r healthy! Your problem is u would rather sit on ur a** and play computer games than take care of ur daughter and help ur wife with the house. wife can't do it all. There is no way. Lord, u should wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, thanking God that u have a wife like u do. I don't know of one that wouldn't have already kicked u out. We all know that 2 already did. I'm not speaking for wife because maybe she will always be ok living like this, but why just have things be "OK". Why not show ur appreciation and demonstrate that u love her by helping her and making her life better?[br> I lost out on seeing older child grow up because of ur bull$*** and that almost destroyed me. Am I going to have to also miss out on child growing up? If I were u, I would think twice about holding her from her Papaw and me. We give her normalcy and she loves us and she needs us. But if u do decide to keep her from us, u better make sure that everything u do from now on is perfect because her Papaw and me will spend the last dime we have fighting to keep her in our lives. No matter what it takes. Believe me on this because I have never been more serious. I'm not threatening u, I'm stating a cold hard fact. U r her father and no one can take ur place in her heart and we don't want to - we couldn't if we tried! She loves u and she needs both of her parents, but she needs us too. She needs anyone that can help her and be there for her. She has a long road ahead of her in this life so think about ur actions and put aside ur pi$$y attitude and realize ur Dad and I are right. [end trigger>
So my question, how do you deal with someone like this? We don't want to cut her out of our daughter's life because she loves her so much but this is so toxic. My husband has been hearing crap like this for over 20 years at least a couple times a year. It wasn't until I came into his life and realized he had anxiety and depression that he got any help. He had spent his life self medicating his bi-polar with alcohol. We spent 4 + years with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder with anxiety before he was properly diagnosed with bi-polar.
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Posted byYitzzy

1 Reply | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:[Trigger] looking for suggestions on "toxic" family members [Trigger> I am kind of new to the forum and I am looking for some advice. My husband is...

Reply: Memory Erased For Good Bipolar Still There

My husband had memory loss from his ECT, and he had trouble remembering things short term...

Posted by Yitzzy

3 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:Memory Erased For Good Bipolar Still There My husband had memory loss from his ECT, and he had trouble remembering things short term...

Reply: No desire to work, is condition an excuse?

I was really struck by the original post here and other's in the same situation. I could...

Posted by Yitzzy

I was really struck by the original post here and other's in the same situation. I could really see my husband in the original post. He was not properly diagnosed until last year (at 40 years of age) but he has had issues for a long, long time. He was discharged medically from the navy for a personality disorder during desert storm after he became deeply depressed when his wife left him and took their 1 year old son. He didn't have the ability to cope and turned to drinking to self medicate. He could not really hold a job although when he did work he was very hard worker. He got married again and again that wife left him when their child was young. When I met him at 36, I didn't know the extent of his issues. I guess when we were first getting together he was in a good place because he wasn't drinking, he had a job, and a place of his own. We got together kind of quickly and it was over time that I realized something was wrong. He started drinking again, I got pregnant and before the baby was born he lost his job. I saw that he was dealing with anxiety and helped him get some help for it. His family was non-supportive emotionally. They always told him he just needed to push through it. He ended up being put on meds for anxiety and depression. Not working and being home with the baby was very hard on him (and still is). Over the last 5 years he has been hospitalized a couple times, and was finally diagnosed bi polar. Over the last 5 years they have had him on many different meds and none of them have really gotten rid of the depression and anxiety. I feel like we are in a circular problem. Watching our daughter, not working, and being broke are triggers for him. But we don't have money to get child care, he can't find a job, and his spending just keeps us in debt. While things are getting better slowly, it has been 1 step forward, 3 steps back. Sometimes I wonder if he is just being lazy but it doesn't take long for me to realize no one would actively choose to live like he is now. He also lies and manipulates and spends a lot of time in the bedroom laying down escaping the pressures of the outside world. I can't help but wonder what his life would be like if someone in his life before me would have bothered to realize that he had problems that needed treatment instead of all the nagging and judging that has left him with no self esteem. Now he has a life of regrets and pain that leave him unable to cope with it all. We have decided to see if he can get disability, though I don't know if he can because I have an income coming in that covers most of the bills but never seems to be enough. Another worry of his is if I leave he would be homeless. It is hard nearly everyday but we push through somehow.

I am hoping eventually he will get the right medication regimen but our life has so many triggers for him I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be better for him if we split up. It would be less stress for him if he lived alone, but more regret and loss. What we really want is for him to be able to get on disabilty and get some job retraining as he has been out of the job market so long. It would do him a world of good to get a job. He needs to work to feel whole. If I knew of any retraining programs for the mentally ill it would be a huge help, but I have never been able to find them.
I hope that the people who are reading this can help their kids get the help they need, give them love and support, and help them become independent. Living in a bad situation isn't going to help. It will just drive them to keep self medicating like my husband did for some many years.

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Posted byYitzzy

137 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:No desire to work, is condition an excuse? I was really struck by the original post here and other's in the same situation. I could...

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