I went through a really rough week, well two weeks and it was terrifying, I was hearing things when no one said anything, and I was feeling absolutely crazy. I had a couple mental breakdowns and honestly if I hadn't had class to attend I would have forced myself to go into a psych ward so I didn't burden my family. It was insane how I was feeling.
I had a nice conversation with my husband one morning talking about how we should communicate better and came to an understanding about how to deal with each others' issues and make it less stressful. Well that feeling of calmness and security vanished within NO TIME. I went from accepting the nice conversation and the seeming breakthrough we had with each other to "he insulted me, he doesn't care, I feel manipulated, so on". Now honestly I don't think he really did any of those things but the manic side, the depressed side (and I mean severely depressed side) sulked all day. Ranting in my head stupid irrational things like the above statements. I just grew more and more furious. There was no real reason to feel the way I was because we had a nice decent conversation.
Well we can all guess what happened later that night. I was so passed I sat scrunched in a ball at the end of the couch unwilling to talk or be touched. (mind you I had told him I wanted more attention and here I sit unwilling to accept anything). Well as I always do when I am manic I had what I call bipolar turrets and while he was walking to bed said you don't even care about me. And an argument ensued. Now it is has be hard to understand from an outsider's perspective why this happens, and why a bipolar person turns something good into something negative. We have very little control over these situations. Like I said it's like being a passenger in your own brain. You cannot control the little demon inside you making everything turn into negativity. It was really awful.
My husband said he didn't really know how much he could take of this because the argument was so ridiculous. I obviously understand he was overwhelmed but him saying that made me go into a different kind of panic mode and a weird depressive hyper alert state (mind you I was on 500mg of Seroquel and still acting like this). From an outsider's perspective I am the crazy one who needs to 'control' the outbursts but it just doesn't work that way. I am mentally ill so there isn't much controlling. I can demand to myself to go for a walk, leave the room, go throw something to feel better, but this argument this one was bad. I literally believe I was in a psychosis. There was no control over this demon spawn inside me. One moment it would repent the next it would scream. What I need in those moments is kind of hard to understand. When I get that way the person on the receiving end needs to just accept it and say Okay. Try to help me calm down and feel comforted. I know this is a very hard task because I am being ridiculous and saying okay is giving into my irrational demands. However, this will move me past that stage and usually into one of guilt that leads to be coming back to reality and apologizing.
My mom used to have to put up with this when I was a teen. I would flip out over little things. I literally broke my wrist punching a wall over a stupid flat tire. I mean who does that? I would scream or get hostile or agitated and flip out in a nasty way. My mom would take so much and then slap me in the face after I went too far. Usually this would snap me back to reality, sometimes it made it worse. But as I got older and my brain knew what that slap would do I would grab her wrists so she couldn't. I remember this one time, I didn't know my strength (which the mentally ill can become extremely strong when they become hostile, stronger than they normally are). I will never forget the face she made when I grabbed her wrists probably with a look in my face of some girl with a demon inside me. She looked at me terrified that I had actually done this and the amount of strength I used to hold her. She said the words "you're hurting me" with a tinge of sadness and with glossed eyes and I immediately realized what I was doing and let go. It sunk me into suck immense guilt that I felt enraged- I know that weird to think about but it happens.
I have been dealing with this from most of my life and I panic, I go a bit nuts, I become someone else, and I can become very vicious. All I want is for someone to say okay fine and hold me. My mom used to do that. I would be in a very hostile and volatile mood and she would put her arms around me and rock me. It would work. But a mom caring is different that for a husband who has only dealt with this for a few years. He doesn't know the tricks yet and he let's it burden him. I completely understand why and I know that it would be difficult to handle someone with a mental illness you never had to deal with before and this is someone who deeply loves you and is all the sudden acting like a different person. Comprehending what is actually happening in my brain is not easy. Sure you can read up on bipolar, what it does to people, how it affects their train of thoughts but you will never get how difficult it is for the person with the illness. Some people just say "you need to find a way to control it" and that's just not really an option. Sure we can control our next move- either freak the hell out or try and find a solitary room and go crazy by yourself, or throw things to get the anger out or whatever helps. However, that doesn't always register. Sometimes you are in such a fit of rage that you forget that you can leave the situation, you can stop talking/yelling/screaming and just walk to a place where you can do whatever it is you need to do to calm down. Write a nasty message on a piece of paper, beat up your pillows I don't know but something. I forget this a lot. I have a very difficult time controlling what my body should be doing when I am in that kind of stage in my illness. It makes me sick when people think it is just so easy to control it, or that there are easy exercises that make it seem 90% better or whatever. Even on the best medications you still go through episodes, just not as badly, but as a severely mentally ill person you can go into a psychosis and have no clue who you are and have zero control. You are paranoid, insecure, feeling manipulated, suffocated, like everything is against you. Yea you can go do something to be distracted but it just boils in your mind all damn day. Never easing up on you just becoming worse. At least for me. Then the blow up happens.
My husband feels he was on his last leg when this occurred. I panicked and laid I the fetal position praying this wasn't real. He came into the room laid next to me and held me and talked to me and guess what, the mood passed. It wasn't just a scare that he would leave me, it was him coming in, accepting things were not good, and still laying down and holding me. Now I do not want to make him feel burdened by it all. I don't. I don't want him feeling this will be the train wreck that will happen all the time. But he does need to understand it will happen here and there. My Brian works in mysterious ways. I need him to know that when I get like that he shouldn't let it weigh him down and that just accepting it and letting it pass and holding me, because at some point I will collapse from exhaustion, will save the situation. No I am not putting any blame on him I am just saying this so maybe other spouses can understand what it is like for us and how I think one could help the situation. There is really no wrong and right when being the one trying to deal with a mentally ill, as long as you are not abusing them, because we cannot accept you to understand the whole of the disorder like we do. But there are ways your bipolar lover can be tamed or calmed down. Brought back to reality. Because let's face it I go to a whole different world.
That's why I understand when I hear someone killed themselves because they could figure out what was real and what wasn't anymore. That's how I feel sometimes. For instance, did my husband really say this or did he really manipulate me- in one world, the one of the rational Lea, I say no of course not, but in the irrational world of my bipolar alter ego I say yes and start a war in my head. I actually had a war with myself about taking all the meds I had and laying myself down to sleep. Somehow I, the rational Lea, won that battle. It took days for me to realize that there is no point to kill myself because this will all pass, me and my husband can always work things out and the world is not really crumbling around me. But it was hard. It's hard for everyone who is bipolar. It's like no one gets it unless they are bipolar and yet, even then some bipolar people say stuff like those meds won't do nothing for you except make you a dull person, or it's bullshit to say you can't fight it. I feel like some of them are either in denial, or have a misdiagnosis because I have seen that many people are being diagnosed with bipolar just because of anger issues and I don't think that is right or good for the patient because they are being put on meds they don't need and that can harm them because they aren't bipolar.
My main point here (which I have to state because I have been rambling) it that the awareness needs to be spread on how to help your loved one cope with his/her illness without letting it weigh you down or make you feel that you have to give too much of yourself to the point of feeling exhausted. We all have something that brings us around to reality or grounds us and I don't know that we always communicate that to our lovers. So I want this blog to reach those that don't understand, or want to understand, or need to know how to cope with their bipolar spouse. Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment with any further advice or questions!
Lea Silva
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