Spouses of Bipolar in Active Relationships

First off I am sorry but as soon as I started to type, I got a Salt n Pepa song in my head... Yeah not good to have THAT song stuck in my head all day at work!

Anywho.... My recent diary entry has reminded me that the typical problems that I have with my BPSO and the same problems that most of us have had at one time or another.

On Thursday night, my BPSO didn't sleep. We can read my diary entry to get the WHOLE story but this is what happened because (IMO) he didn't sleep for one night.

-the next day he was extra social

-visited friends that he never has before without me

-went and looked and messaged people on FB although we have an agreement that he will not get his own FB account

-TOLD me that he was having a guest over and TOLD me that we were not having the previously planned guests (power trip)

-By the end of the evening, he was going to sleep in the basement for the next few weeks until he could figure out where he was moving to. He was done with out relationship, done with "me taking away his manhood"

-two hours later he asked to talk, we talked it out and he ended up coming to sleep (not until 2am, after not sleeping AT ALL the night before)

-he was awake again by 9am. early for him normally, let alone without having slept the night before. So 7 hours total for two days.

-He was short, irritable and down right bossy the next day

Reading back over that, holy crap that is a lot of stuff to happen from not sleeping for a night. Seems like pretty clear proof as to why sleep is needed on a regular schedule, every night.

When I have tried to ask/tell/get my BPSO to bed at times I have been met with resistance. Normally it is things like "You are not my mother" "I'm a man" "I'll go to bed when I want" things like that.

So lets talk about sleep. Does your BPSO have a steady sleep schedule? If so, how do they stay with it? Do you ever have to 'talk' them into going to bed? How do you do that?

What questions do you have about sleep? Let's brainstorm!

Happy Monday!

For me it helps that the dr told my husband how important a regular schedule will be for his stability and he has faith in his dr. Once in a while I do feel the need to say "Im concerned about your sleep schedule, are you worried about something?" I show him concern, not controlling frustration, he accepts it better. My husband when unstable would tell others how controlling, even though I only controlled the finances, not him.

His behavior does demonstrate how important it is that they get the right amount of sleep. I know for me, if I for some reason stay up real late and have to get up early to work, I just feel sick. I feel so unbalanced, I have a hard time functioning, so sleep is really important and he needs to understand that.

My husband is like Married, he loves to stay up late and sleep late. His work schedule permits him to do this, but he doesn't stay up past 12:30 or earlier. With the boys schedule, he just can't do that, and he knows it.

Happy Monday to you too!

My gf has not had a steady sleep schedule until last week, before that it had been last December. Her other health issues has contributed to the lack of consistent sleep. But last week her pdoc readjusted one of her meds and she has been getting a lot more sleep, up to about 10 hours a day, sometimes with or without a nap in the afternoon. She is aware of how important a sleep schedule is and is trying desperately to get back on one.

My husband considered himself an insomniac for 15 years before his diagnosis. Now he knows it's related to BP.

His BP meds helped immensely with sleep. He takes Trazodone at night. He stopped his other meds but so far still seems to be sleeping ok.

It's essential IMHO that he stay on a sleep schedule.

He also exercises an hour a day which I know helps him sleep.

Before diagnosis his sleep was erratic at best, with many episodes of no sleep at all for days.

His sleep is erratic. He stays up late, and wakes a lot at night. He took trazedone for a while but he said it gave him nightmares and made him feel like a zombie in the morning. Exercise definitely helps, and he also does better when he has less caffeine.

Yeah, and now I have that song in my head, too!

Nightmares went away after about 3 weeks for my husband.

He only takes 50mg a night. I think he relies on it now to sleep.

He also takes melatonin. Which really helps.

Some doctors are looking into melatonin coupled with buspar for BP.

Post edited by: Kitkat777, at: 06/11/2012 08:54 PM

Hopeful gave me an idea in her post. How about trying to redefine what is LATE? I stay up late, but I mean 2 or 3 am. If you can somehow start in really small ways redefining late as midnight, that could help.

But....that is a LONG term strategy.

All the evidence from studies suggests that lack of sleep is a definite sign of mania coming on. Riding, your SO seems to have a LOT of issues with his masculinity. He seems very very afraid of being emasculated. My husband was this way when he was unstable. I will specifically ask him about your question soon. I hope Hooba will chime in.

I mean, I know the obvious. No grown man wants to feel like his wife/SO is mothering him (unless he has ISSUES) and giving him a bedtime. BUT....when my husband is edging up....he doesn't WANT to sleep.

So...what happened with us is that after me enduring all kinds of yadayadayada from him and then him finally getting serious about getting stable, I shared with him EVERY SINGLE STUDY I could find about sleep and episodes. I mean, I printed those suckers out. I brought them home. I gave them to him in a (somewhat faked) defensive manner. (Saying something like "You hate it when I watch your sleep patterns but I keep finding all this evidence that sleep is a KEY indicator of oncoming mania.") Unlike many here, I rarely go to my husband's pdoc appointments. But I went to one after we had an argument about his sleep--just to get the pdoc to confirm that sleep patterns were an EXCELLENT indicator. (By the way, it goes both ways. If your SO is sleeping 10 hours a day, that's an episode, only it's a depressive episode.)

I also know that our family friend who is bipolar recently had an episode that was HUGE---and it started with her going from 8 hours to 6 hours to 2 hours to no sleep. An all nighter by a bipolar person who is over 30? Maybe somebody will correct me, but I would be quaking in my boots if this happened without some traumatic cause (the pdoc, when I went in to discuss this issue, said that IF something major were to happen, like me getting stranded somewhere in a flood, that my husband would probably not sleep, and while that reaction MIGHT help bring on an episode, it was ALSO a reaction any good husband would have.)

Can I add that this family friend blew up a BUNCH of relationships in her manic episode?

I am not much help here. I believe WITH ALL MY BEING that you need to convince your SO that staying up ALL NIGHT is potentially disastrous for people with BP. But I don't have a lot of ideas about how to help HIM understand this.

wow, how do you stay up so late and still fo to work? Im impressed. J would like to stay up til 2 or 3 and then get 8 hours sleep, but this hard with two boys going to school, so he goes to bed at 12:30. Me, I try to go to bed at 11pm, and that is late for me, so I guess it is good to gauge what late is....lol

Just a quick note that sleeplessness is a precurssor to my depressions. I am a chronic insomniac who is only able to stay asleep for two to three hrs nightly without the aid of meds. It is a recipe for disaster! That is why I am on trazodone and haldol at night. Without it I would be doomed.