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Bipolar Disorder
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Posted 10/11/2010 4:56 PM (GMT 0)
Need to vent. Wife gets really agitated and yells and stuff. I remain as calm as I can.

I think I am just doing things wrong. I don't know how to go about doing this. When things happen and my wife is calm down, she always ask why she is the way she is and stuff. I have tried explaining it is because of the illness. She then gets sooo angry again. She says that I am always blaming the illness. So its always her fault things happen. I try to explain no. I am not doing this right.

I don't know how she can seperate this...she says I awlays blame her, which is the illness. I don't blame anything or get mad about anything.

I have only mentioned this a few times, but, always in a calm way.

I am not cramming it down her throat. I just explain that they are symptoms. I don't think I am helping the matter at all. I think I am making things worse.
Posted 10/12/2010 12:28 PM (GMT 0)
hi coming from a person who suffers from bi polar 1 with depression and hypomania ive made my poor husbands life hell sometimes. but uts a disease if it were cancer or another type of illness people are more able to understand it. we cant even understand it ourselves but she needs to talk to someone that can help her find out we cant do everything ourselves my husband gets frustrated and aggravatedwith my mood swings if i had to live with me i would to but hes also very understanding and knows that the wiring in my brain is just a lil off and thats ok. so hang in there and listen, and keep yourself sane as well
Posted 10/12/2010 1:15 PM (GMT 0)
In the heat of the moment, I bet your wife turns defensive, over reacts, and is confused. So difficult to hold a rational thought sometimes.
Someone was telling me that they have a stressful, sad job, that they would be unable to perform had they not learned to dissociate. So I looked that word up, it said disconnect, set apart, to dissociate emotion from reason. Hard to do when you are at home, dealing with your spouse, but there might be a way you come up with not to take it so to heart when she does a counter attack, and you have not even attacked.
Posted 10/18/2010 3:16 PM (GMT 0)
Speaking only from my experience it's soooo hard to admit you have an illness when everyone around you doesn't. I feel as though it's a form of weakness even though the "rational" part of me tells me othewise. Bipolar is a very unpredictable disease. The meds I've been put on and taken off and changed to and from make me very irritable and I know that I react the same way with my husband when all he is trying to do is help me understand when I won't "let" myself understand. I don't think that you're doing it wrong. I think that your wife is having a very hard time dealing with this. And that is do understandable. It's not an easy disease to control. You go from one med to another and have to deal with awful side effects and wonder why you can't be as normal or well adjusted as the people you love. That's how I feel anyway. My husband has been very patient with me and I see that he is losing it lately but will not say anything because he's afraid (may not be the right word) of hurting my feelings. Believe me, we just try our best and when it doesn't seem to work we lash out at the people who love us the most.
Posted 10/18/2010 3:28 PM (GMT 0)
Tuf, I'm in much of the same situation as you. My hubby is bipolar, and I try to keep our life running as normal as possible. Is your wife on meds? Does she accept that fact that she has this disease? The beginning of my marriage was very tough, before my hubby was diagnosed, and until he got on some helpful meds. At first he couldn't bear the thought that he was "sick" and needed to be "medicated" in order to function in society. But eventually he accepted it, and tried to be aware of what he was thinking before he said anything that might be hurtful to me. Funny, now that he's off the meds again, I'm seeing how tough this really is. I try not to take what he says personally, but it's so hard. I'm thankful I'm forgiving, but at the same time, I hate that I have such thin skin, that most of what he says hurts me... But I love him, and in our almost 20 years together, almost all of my memories are of the good times, not the bad ones. So hang in there, and vent when needed! Take care!

Lori
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