keepthefaith
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My wife of 19 years is bipolar. She had a longterm hospitalization(9 months, I think), including suicide attempt, childbirth(adopted out), catotonic state, ECT and experimental medications in her early 20's before I met her. We met and fell in Love. She was stable for about 5 years, but needed to be hospitalized about 14 years ago. She stabilized quickly and was home in about 3 weeks. She has been fine until about a year or so ago. She started acting manic (I didn't realize it at the time, but do now that I look back)and needed to be hospitalized in October. They started her on a medicine regiment and discharged her in about 10-12 days. She was no better and went back in the hospital 3 days later, again for a 10-12 day stay. After this second discharge, she took flight to Grand Rapids and spent about $4,000 in under a week before her siblings and parents were able to get her back to Detroit and in the hospital. Again, another short term hospital stay and discharge. On the advise of her doctor, we took her car, but she managed to get to a local hotel, where she spent another couple thousand before we were able to get her back into the hospital. As usual, another short term stay in the hospital (maybe 2 weeks) and fled again after being discharged to Flint, where she met up with a patient she had met during one of her hospitalizations. Her took advantage of her financially and sexually (I don't blame just him she is just as guilty), and she rang up another $12,000 on her credit cards. She was discharged and stayed at home for 5 days, before getting ahold of my debit card in the middle of the night and buying a train ticket to Idaho (she has an obscession with the CEO of a webpage based in Sandpoint Idaho). I had to fly to Idaho to get her back home, whee she is at now. She is very delusional, paranoid and manic. What I'm getting at, is my feeling of how the mental health system in Michigan, and our insurance company have totally failed in treating her. The 5 short term hospitalizations have had no success, and long term hospitilazion in Michigan is almost nonexistant and impossible to get into. Also, her inpatient mental health insurance will not cover her until a 60 day grace period has gone by, which makes no sense at all. If she were a cancer patient, or heart patient, there would be no 60 day grace period between hospitalizations. It is so unfair. I understand that Michigan is one of only a few states that allows a distinction between mental health coverage and medical coverage. Do others have these type of issues with only short term hospitalization being used to treat mental health patients? It seems so unfair, and I am at a loss as to what to do. 
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