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Dialogue from the Depths

~ Make Sweetness from the Bitterness

Dialogue from the Depths

Monthly Archives: September 2015

Goals – keeping me focussed

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by bittersweet1976 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Goals, Relationship

Creating Goals helps focus on what I can do, instead of what bipolar disorder makes it impossible for me to do.

GOALS for my relationship:

  1. Consistently go out on weekly date-night.
  2. I want to find a healthy method to respond to the mood swings, rather than react.
  3. Go sailing 1-2/week for my mental health.
  4. To arrange 1-2 /week home help to reduce the pressure for darling wife.
  5. To arrange financial planning advice within 2 months.
  6. For darling wife to gain insight or even partial acceptance within 6 months.

BD and my relationship

28 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by bittersweet1976 in Denial, Partner Advice

≈ 5 Comments

Using the system described in Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder:

How has bipolar II disorder affected our relationship and me personally?

The severe episode of anxiety/depression last year led to horrible mood swings, which caused fights and tension, and a mutual loss of trust in our marrital bond.  It was so bad that I thought I might lose my darling wife to suicide or divorce.  I realize my paniced response was probably not helpful most of the time, but I felt I had to try something to save her.  This led to me to feel extremely helpless.  Despite this inner pain, I still retained some hope that we’d get through it and grow stronger individually and as a couple.  There were many days this hope whithered and became really faint, but as long as I could get her to agree to the treatment plan including therapy and medications, I could hold onto that hope.

The hardest thing I find daily is: 

The unpredicable mood swings which can sometimes fluctuate throughout the day. These mood swings often destroys my wife’s concentration/attention to fullfilling her critical role as homemaker, loving mother of 4 kids and amazing life-partner to me. Seeing my soulmate suffer, without insight into the condition, and therefore without an optimal treatment plan, is the hardest thing for me.

What I’d love to change right now: 

Obviously, I would love for my wife’s obliviousness / denial to be replaced with insight and acceptance! Given that this is more realistically a longer term goal, my immediate desire is for my wife and me to agree on an acceptable strategy for a feedback dialogue that doesn’t lead to tension and fights.

What do I need to find happiness in my life?

Good question – my happiness seems strongly bound to my wife’s happiness and our intimate connection together.  I don’t think that’s such a bad thing, if bipolar II disorder wasn’t hurting us.  Clearly, I also need my own hobbies and outlets for my stress, which would also reduce the dependence on my wife happiness, albeit only slightly.

If things do not change, what future do I see in my relationship?

If things do not change, the future of our relationship is likely to be filled with ongoing periods of tension and fights – my hope is that these periods become less frequent and less intense, so it doesn’t rip our family apart.

What is going well?

It is always important to celebrate and remember the positives, not only the stressful negatives in any situation.  Right now, as long as I stay away from topics about mood swings or the crisis last year, our relationship has been really strong, intimate and loving.  When her hypomanic state does not involve agitation or anxiety, it can be quite energising to be around her. But this is the fine line that needs to be balanced.  I think I have been able to become less reactive and more understanding and compassionate for her inability to notice the problem.

Summary of year (catchup)

26 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by bittersweet1976 in Denial, Partner Advice

≈ 2 Comments

After my last post, I realized there are many details to fill in.  My wife’s depression crisis started gradually in May 2014, and got really, really bad in Aug/Sept – severe anxiety, hopelessness and even suicidal thoughts.  Once the situation got this bad, she finally lost all strength / resistance that she had against getting help from a psychiatrist.  While an earlier psychiatrist assessment raised the possibility of cyclothymia – a mild, subthreshold form of bipolar disorder, this current crisis apparently met criteria for bipolar spectrum disorder  (Type 2 Bipolar Disorder) – as my wife has never experienced a full manic episode.  She reluctantly agreed to start on venlafaxine and lamotrigine, which was always a struggle to get her to take.  But after 6 weeks, by end of October 2014, there was a DRAMATIC improvement.  Her mood lifted, becoming less irritable, anxious or distressed, and her day-to-day function rapidly returned to near normal levels.

BUT, our relationship had been severely shaken by the crisis, and she continues to be in denial about the diagnosis and need for medication or therapy.  We worked really hard on our relationship in couple therapy for 6 months, to repair some of the damage, but tension remained about doctor appointments and taking the medications.  Also, my attempts to talk and ‘process’ the events during the crisis period were constantly rejected, as part of her overall denial.  I finally decided to take a break from that topic and stepped back from supervising the medication.  This lessened the tension and our relationship repairs went more smoothly.

THEN, about a month ago, I noticed some subtle, relatively minor mood swings and irritability, so I enquired whether she was still taking the meds.  She admitted that she stopped all meds 2 months previously – I was not surprised but significantly worried.  Her only reason for stopping the meds seemed like that she didn’t think she needed them, which was a constant theme from the beginning. I was hoping that with time on the medications, she may gradually gain greater insight and acceptance,  which would help immensely with working together on a treatment plan to tackle this challenge, but this news seemed like a step in the opposite direction.  A serious talk by the psychologist and psychiatrist had no affect on changing her mind.

FINALLY for now, I should add that my initial gut reaction to this news was to express an ‘ultimatum’ request, that I cannot continue in this relationship without her sticking with a treatment plan, as recommended by the psychiatrist.  After discussing this with the psychologist and close friend, I decided to put that response on hold to give more time to trying to encourage greater insight into the mood swings and need for treatment.  This led me to start reading up extensively on Bipolar blogs and books.

In my next post, I plan to clarify how the Bipolar II Disorder is affecting our relationship, to start thinking about what I can work on first, even while my darling wife remains in her denial phase.

Hubby

START (Again) HERE

25 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by bittersweet1976 in Denial, Partner Advice, Research re blogging/health

≈ 2 Comments

Well, my initial attempt to introduce this blogging idea to my wife didn’t go too well.

I waited for the initial crisis to stabilize, which happened approximately 12 months ago – but the emotional trauma was still too raw to share publicly, even anonymously.  It’s not that she reacted badly toward the idea, but I guess it was just too soon.

Despite the significant healing that has occurred, with couple therapy, medications, exercise and significant personal prayer by my wife (details I will cover in other ‘catchup’ posts), unfortunately insight and acceptance are still missing.  This has always been my greatest concern and challenge.  But I am discovering that this is extremely common for people bipolar-spectrum depression disorders.  Personal beliefs about themselves or others around them are often distorted.  To a loving life partner for the last 18 years, this feels strange – almost like a different personality has taken residence.  Doubts creep in… is this permanent? Will the person I love ever come back? What can I do when she doesn’t even acknowledge the mood swings?  And many more questions…

Even now, as I attempt to rekindle this ‘blogging as healing’ concept, it will be just me for now.  My wife is not ready.

Why now?  Well, there are two reasons:  firstly, in my desperation to figure out how to hold my marriage and family together, I bought a number of Bipolar Disorder books, focussing on the partners role in support & recovery.  The first tip, in the first book (Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder, Fast/Preston), strongly recommended journalling. So as I start to work through the book’s exercises, I will record my responses here.

Secondly, if I (a Family Physician with mental health training) have had such a hard time dealing with this crisis, I can only imagine how much harder it would be for other partners without that background.  As I hopefully navigate me and my wife through this incredible challenge, maybe my experiences may be able to help others.  Your comments, questions and feedback are always welcome.

Hubby
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