Spouses of Bipolar in Active Relationships

How was everyones Easter?

I had dinner at my sisters and the kids all did a easter egg hunt. It is so fun to watch them have such a good time laughing and playing.

Happy Easter

For us we missed church, service was not at its regular time and we arrived when it was almost over. We had lunch at my parents and dinner at my sister-in-laws, it was joyfull and fun and the weather allowed us to sit outside really for the first time this year.

Wife was in good spirits too.

Happy Easter.

We had fun. We have a mini-golf tourney every summer. So far (two games played), I am ahead three strokes. I hung a bunch of bamboo shades (window treatments) to take our living room from shabby to respectable. And I used a new power tool to do that! Just call me Drill Mistress!

I had planned on going to church, but our neighbor needed someone to watch his 2 children for a few hours and we did that instead. We weren't able to see our grandchildren, so it was fun having them over (ages 11 and 4). We ended up having an impromptu easter egg hunt; such fun!

Our Easter was good,overall. We spent the whole morning at church because the little ones were singing and they had breakfast there. When we got home, I mentioned we would be leaving for dinner at my aunt and uncle's in half an hour. My husband said he didn't know about that. I told him we've done that every year for the 11 years I've known him and he said he wasn't going. He said he was tired. The night before was bad. I woke up at 3 and he was sleeping in his chair in his computer room. I woke him up and told him to go to bed. I was angry as we just went through a bad episode the week before and lack of good sleep was one of the signs that something was brewing. He came up after about half an hour and me coming back down to tell him again. I expressed my concern about his lack of dedication to trying to be stable all the way, then I asked if he took his meds the night before. "no..." OMG! So I had to run down and get them. He took them and never did fall asleep. I didn't want to give him an ativan because I was afraid he would sleep through church and he was supposed to play his guitar for us. So he got up. Then he was too tired to go to dinner. (I think he was ashamed that he had had another episode and didn't want to be around my family) Anyway, me and my little one went and we had a nice time. We ended up staying at my parent's overnight, I was so tired. I need to get all of this documented in his mood chart. We have a counseling appt. tomorrow.

Wife seems likes things are still a little rocky with him. I hope he is able to pull it all together. I bet you are right that he was embarrassed by the week before, good for you for going ahead with your plans with your little one. Good luck at the counseling appt.

Thanks, enough! I feel he is on board, but unless I am on him all of the time about trying to sleep even when he doesn't feel like it, reminding him of how horrible he felt after the episode of...um...only a week ago, he slips back into his old ways again. Not to the degree of before, but he still will give in to his hypomania and stay up late. I think that ativan is going to be used more for sleep if he is like this unless his dr. gives him something else. It is definitely a process. A very long process to get things figured out.

Don't lose heart, Wife! It took my husband some time of being stable before he was able to connect his prediagnosis behaviors to coping with a chemically unbalanced brain. That is a hard thing to accept and that means asking yourself (speaking of the bipolar person here) if what you experienced was "real" or was colored by your unmedicated off-balanced brain. My husband wonders what would have happened had his mom not died when he was 13, had his stepmom not been so abusive. But he also sees now that he coped with both events in an atypical (now we know, bipolar) manner.

Give him some more time, is my thinking.

Your husband is smart--get him to see that smart people manage their bipolar symptoms every day. Bipolar won't go away. And it is often productive of creativity and art and brilliance.

In the meantime....do you have any valium? (only kidding. maybe.)

Our Easter was quiet. Very quiet. In fact, I would call it boring. I grocery shopped, I cleaned, I cooked a prime rib for the four of us. My mother, his parents and both of my sisters live between 10 & 20 minutes from our house. Didn't see a soul. My kids moped around all day because there was no one in the neighborhood to hang out with.

Our Easter went better than usual this year, I think because I didn't plan anything - we just went to church, made easy lunches, and took naps... it was raining all day and even the kids took a nap. Later I went to see my mother-in-law, felt bad cuz she was by herself - I thought maybe J's brother would have invited her? But it's usually up to us.

J does better when things are low-key and I didn't feel like going thru the stress...

Finally starting to figure this out. We just can't be the "party hosting" family... it throws him into hypomania, being around too many people.