Bipolar in the family Support Group

My husband's paranoia and mood swings have been going on for about 1 year, he spiraled out of control and ended up in inpatient care for 8 days, he has now been home for 8 days....and the meds they started him on are making him sleep ALOT, and when he is awake he is "crawling out of his skin", as he would say, pacing around the house in circles, we finally got into the psychiatrist and psychologist yesterday, he changed one of his meds, he is on 4, I guess I would just like to chat with someone that is dealing with a spouse in a similiar situation. He is extremely paranoid, he thinks our house is bugged, as well as our cellphones. If I try to gently make his see reality, he get angry, if I just listen he says I am ignoring him. I would love to hear from someone that has maybe learned how to deal with mood swings and paranoia. Thanks for listening, and advice would be GREATLY appreciated.

Also, I guess I should let you all know he was diagnosed as being bipolar with paranoia....after researching ALOT on the web, I must agree. He will one minute be apologizing and tell me he loves me, and the next not talk to me and he can be verbally abusive. Although I do see a trend with bipolar people cheating, my husband is more on the paranoid end, and doesn't leave the house often. He just got an extended medical leave until he can adjust to the new meds, which I hope he continues to take.....

Summer,

You have come to a great place for support. My wife is also biploar and went thru a lot of the same things last fall/winter. We finally found the right medications and she is now stable.

The most important thing I hear from you is that he is taking his meds and being seen by a psychiatrist. That is a VERY important step to stability.

I got to run now, but I'll be back later today. PM me if you like, I would love to hear more about how thing are going.

Take care,

Paul

Summersun, welcome to the group.

The symptoms you listed are not that uncomon. The only advise I can give on getting him through this is to ask him why he thinks he is being watched, things are bugged... then walk him through seeing that there is not bug in the TV, phone or ... It is not necessarily confronting him but helping to lead him to make the connection / discovery himself.

Glad you are here. Join in anywhere.

We are here for you, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

GOD BLESS

RED

Thank you Red, I am so glad to have found this site, it is a blessing to me. Talking with someone who can RELATE to what spouses of bipolar individuals go through is very comforting. My husband's paranoia has been going on for some time, he believes people at his job think he is a drug addict, that he is a thief, that the police are bugging us and watching us. My husband THANK GOD has no addictions, I do try to show him that we are going to see police on the road when we go from here to there, but in his mind they are there especially for him. Everywhere we go, he thinks something or someone is there to remind him they are watching him. I have learned that we have to deal with everything on a day to day, incident by incident basis, and I am slowly learning how to control my own reactions to what he says and does. It is definitely something I did not know how to deal with, and really didn't think I was strong enough to in the beginning. But actually the harder I try to get him help, the more hope I have. I do realize that I cannot make him change, I just pray he stays on his meds. Already I do see a change, as a matter of fact, today is the BEST day we have had in months. I feel like I see the man I married again today. We have only been married for 14 months...I didn't know he was bipolar when we got married, I knew Bill was different, but I just thought he was eccentric. Thank you for the warm welcome, it is great to have finally found support.

Hey Summersun!

I posted this response on another subject on here but I wanted to share it with you. It's kinda long, but it's the same thing you have been going through.....

I feel for all of you because I am going through the same thing myself. My fiance' had a breakthrough though 3 weeks ago where he was so out of control and just so tortured in his own mind that he made some drastic actions which caused him to really scare himself into going to doctor and get on medication. Because as much as I begged and pleaded with him to go get help he refused to listen to me or get help until he made the choice on his own. He was having such parnoia and delusional thoughts and the accusations against me were so far out there that this was the only time in my life I have ever feared for my life. I started coming up with a plan to leave if I had to and talked to a few people and established some "safe houses" that I coud go to at any time. Luckily he chose on his own to get help otherwise I'm not sure how much longer I could have lasted. The biggest thing I have learned is that when they are having an episode and they say very hurtful things, it's not them, it's the condition talking through them. I used to sob at the fact that this man who was once so much in love with me now claims he has no love for me, has says he hates me, and accused me of things that in his heart he knew wasn't true. Then once he came out of this, he was sorrowful, remorseful, and very loving so it was very hard to know what his true feelings were. He thought our house was bugged, that the government was out to get us, the mafia, you name it and he thought they were after us. Then somehow it went from "out to get us", to "your in on it too, your conspiring against me". Then he had accused me of killing all my ex boyfriends and "hiding the bodies" he was obsessed wanted to read my e mails and everytime my cell phone rang he would junp and grab it to look at the caller ID then throw the phone down. We had to keep the blinds closed and I wasn't allowed to open them because "they" were watching us and he would constantly look out the blinds every time a vehicle went by or there was a noise outside. He slept in a seperate room with the door locked and would sleep for hours and hours, and sometimes he would not come out for days. He would spend large amounts of money on things he didn't need at all, but then afer spending the money feel guilty and throw the stuff away. He would accuse me of spending money on stuff we didn't need even though I was being as frugel as possible do to his irrational spending. He thoguht that his CD's and DVD's had tracking devices in them that was monitoring us so he got rid of all those. Then he would walk around the house and randomly pick up things or talk to the air as if he wanted "them" to know he knew "they" were listening in. This is when I really started to get that sick feeling in my stomache that I knew I had to make a choice whether to leave him or not. To this point I had dealt with the foul language, the loud angry outbursts and throwing things, and the lack of sympathy and love towards me. But the paranoia is what REALLY SCARED me because at that point I felt like he could snap at any moment and I was NOT about to let myself be another victim. So the breaking point for him was when he abruptly quit his job and became suicidal and that's when I panicked. I was on the phone with the sheriff's office and had them drive by to see if he was home for fear that he was going to commit suicide. At this point I was faced with two very difficult choices, do I go home and face him? Or do I not go home and find a place to stay for the night and then when I have a sheriff escort me inside the next day what will I find, will he be dead? Will he go crazy on the sheriff? Or will he hate me for the rest of my life if I leave him? So I had all my "on call" people on alert in case I needed to make a quick escape, and with that I decided to call him and see how is mood was then go from there. I want to stress that you can never rationalize with a person who is in a manic state because it will only escalate things and jeopordize your safety. He was sad and depressed and wanted to just run away and escape. So at this point I felt that spending the next hour and a half with him on the phone would determine my decision. So after getting him to a breaking point where I was ble to give him an altimatum, but being cautious about how I worded things so I wouldn't send him over the edge. I said that I felt like he deserved better for himself, and said "aren't you sick and tired, of feeling constant torment in your mind", "only living half your life, instead of the full and happy life your deserve, because you are a better person then this disease and deserve better then what you are allowing yourself to live". He got real quiet and said "yes, I want better". I said "Then you have the power to change that,no one else can but you, and you have to want it, you have to want to get better". I also pointed out that if he continues to run and push people away then he is never going to feel any type of peace, and that the people that love him will still love him, but love him from a distance because of the enviorment he is creating that will cause him to end up alone. That's when he agreed that he needed help. So I came up with a plan to come home that night and we would find a doctor that would help him and his condition. I also told him that I was proud of him for finally making an effort to get help and that this is going to be a long journey ahead of us but a brand new life for him, but only if he follows through and goes to the doctor and gets on medication. Positive reinforcment when they are in a vaulnerable state is a key element into convincing them to get help. Some of the fear that they experience is the "change" and they don't do well with change especially if they feel like they are being forced to change and that when it becomes a control issue to them. So encourage them to take babysteps in the whole change proces, then they won't feel so overwhelmed and give up. Most importantly I stressed that this is a chemical imbalance in his brain and it can be controlled by medication that is designed to help balance him out. SO..that hurdle of getting him to a doctor and on medication has been reached, BUT the big thing now is getting him to take his medication every day. The first two weeks after going to the doctor and getting medication were VERY rough, and he was lying about taking his medication and would get mad when I would ask, and even accused me of having something going on with the doctor, and skipping doeses because he felt "fine". But as he has been gradually getting the medication in his system the more suttle improvments I see, which I won't dare tell him for fear he will go off the medication. SO with all this said, I hope any information in this repsonse will help you with things, and know that I am here for all of you to talk, or vent, or to lend a shoulder to, because I know what you all are going through, and I am going through it myself.

Hi Summersun, I too have gone thru similar things with my girlfriend. Not as much paranoia but psychosis which can be just as frustrating. She wasn't there. There was nothing behind her eyes if that makes sense. She was wild and totally off the wall. Her anger is unbearable. She too can be verbally abusive. When psychotic she gets physical. She hears a "voice" that eggs on her irrational behavior but because it's her voice she believes it is rational thought. In fact, it is anything but rational.

She was on the wrong medication for bipolar due to misdiagnosis which causes the psychosis they believe. Although, she has always had "the voice."

For the last month she has been being weened off the wrong medication and put on the new. It is a little premature for me to say it's working. She is not psychotic or abusive right now - which is good. But she is still swinging from mania to depressive. Now she tends to get stuck in depressive for longer periods.

I try to stick close in this forum for support. My insurance changes over on June 1st so I will be able to get some therapy for myself. I try to be supportive of her and what she is dealing with. I will listen to her and try not to provoke her (which I can easily.) This is different then walking on eggshells. I have done that in the past. This is about not poking the beehive with the stick which I sometimes do when I get angry about things she has done in the past.

She is doing everything she can right now to take care of yourself. It sounds like your husband is too and that is great. That is the most that we can ask of anyone and where all of the hope lies.

There are others on this forum who are not so lucky. Try to get a break for yourself if you can. Even if it just means going for a walk or taking a hot bath.

Hi, Summer! Glad you found us, sorry you have to be here...

I'd say let him sleep as much as possible right now while the meds are kicking in. It's his only real escape... Hopefully they have prescribed an antipsychotic for him as it sounds like he is extremely manic (that's when the paranoia sets in).

Have you ever seen "A Beautiful Mind"? Rent it and watch it with him over the weekend. Might make him feel a little better.

Post edited by: patience73, at: 03/01/2013 01:22 PM

Post edited by: patience73, at: 03/01/2013 01:23 PM