27th July 2005
My wife has been recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. We have been married for 4 years and together for 6. We have a 3.5 year old girl and a 7 month old boy. My wife is 26 and I'm 30. I started to notice some things different years ago before my daughter was born. I used to call it her Dr. Jenkle and Mr. Hide episodes. They wouldn't last more than an hour and her anger would fade. She would get mostly angerly about ex girlfriends or what I did at lunch, which was all in her head because my love her and would never do anything like that. She would realize that and things would be great again. Than about 1.5 years ago she started having lots of unexplained health problems. She had 4 or 5 times she thought she had cancer and we would get tests done and she was fine. She thought she had a heart problem and we got tests and she was fine. She started having pains in her side and thought her gallbladder was the problem and after tests it was fine. Then later said she might have microscopic colitis so they put her on some anti nausea medicine zofran. She thought she had M.S. and after many tests they couldn't find anything. She complained about her hips and tailbone and tests after tests nothing ever came of it. During this time she smoked weed heavily and took pain killers to the point her doctors, which by this time was many started sending out information on her to not give her anymore pills. I love my wife and stood by her through all of this when family and friends started to think it was all in her head. It was to the point I was getting told at work not to miss anymore days to help her out. In December of 2004 my son was born, during the pregancy my wife stopped smoking and drinking, but still took pain killers. After he was born she stopped so she could breast feed and those next few weeks were beautiful. Then her anxiety started to kick in. I had to leave on a business trip for 5 days and during that time she took over 50 vicadin. At that point begged her to seek help. She started seeing a theripist and a psch doctor. They put her on zoloft and zanax and rispendol(sp?). Soon after she started not being able to take care of the kids during the day and would lay in bed. Then she tried to commit sucicide. Taking 20 zanax pills. They put her in the hospital for 3 or 4 hours and let her go. Her doctor took her off of the rispendol and upped her zoloft and zanax. Around May her depression ended and the bad part started. She became flighty. Go out drinking 2 or 3 days a week. Never at home at night, because she said the kids were driving her crazy and that she felt trapped by me. She asked for a seperation in June to sort things out. So she moved in to a friends house. Her doctor then put her on abifly 5 mg a day. When she moved out, I had the kids or my Mom had the kids 90% of the time. She said she started to see another guy and that she loved me, but I wasn't there for her in the past. From day to day she would say lets get a divorce too this is just a phase and she will get out of it soon. She constintly says she needs her independance from me and the kids and is always on the run. Last week her friends kicked her out because of her actions and I let her move back home. I haven't seen much of her and the anxiety has really taken over. Sunday she admitted to having a drinking problem and shook all day long and was telling me about voices and images of people that weren't there. She wouldn't stay at home more than 2 hours and would freak out and leave. She would go to a friends house stay 2 hours and leave. My wife says her theripst wants her to work on her childhood problems. I think she needs to get on some other medicine. She keeps threatening divorce but in the same breath tells me to wait on her to get through this. Our money has gone. She has raked up $400 cell phone bills and $300 a month in alcohol and who know how much in weed. What is a loving husband to do? I love her, but at the same time don't know how much more I can stand. She wants me to wait on her, but she will not quite talking to other guys. Help.....