Husband questions diagnosis
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| Thu, 01-04-2007 - 1:08am |
Hi all. I'm mostly a lurker, but have posted a few times in the past. I finally had a major meltdown at the beginning of Dec and went to see my family doc. She is really great. She asked me questions and seemed to know how I had been feeling. She gave the the number of a therapist to work with, but I haven't called yet. She looked me straight in the eye and said, "I'm saying it out loud, you're bipolar". We have danced around the subject for a while, but I think the urgency of how I was feeling at the time made me just finally say OK.
My major problem is this. I feel like my husband thinks I am making excuses. He has never actually said anything and maybe it is my own need to be perfect, but I feel incredibly anxious around him most of the time. I also constantly lie to him about money when I have no reason to. I work at home and have a production-like job. If I have had a particularly bad day, couple of days, or even a week, my paycheck shows it. He then wonders what I have done, because obviously the house is not spotless either. I have been on antidepressants since before we met, so he has always known that. He did ask me once if I was a hypochondriac. I have told him about BP, but I'm not completely sure he gets it. For those who have BTDT or even those who haven't but have good advice anyway, what should I do now? I would love to be the person I was in the first couple of years of college, but after that, things started to change and have gone drastically downhill. I would love to be the very succesful woman I set out to be, but that is not how it has worked out so far.
Any help greatly appreciated.
camp

First of all, you have to talk to your husband. You ought to know what is on his mind, and you won't if he doesn't tell you. He should also understand what being bp means, that it is not always so easy to get things done when symptoms are there.
I have an engineer and a chemist for parents- very success-oriented people. When I was first diagnosed, they did all the research about bp and seemed to want to understand. When it came right down to it though, they figured I was making excuses when I couldn't clean or was having trouble in school. Over time, they understood however. Give your husband time!
You know, my first couple of years of college went really well too until I got sick. I had dreams of being this big-time orchestral conductor. Now, I can't even get a stupid teaching certificate to be a public school music teacher (which I now believe would be the better job, but that's academic, anyway.) Now that I have gone to grad school and gotten my master's in conducting, I know that the conductor thing wouldn't have worked out- I don't have the social skills to play the necessary politics. But, I have learned an important lesson. Success isn't everything. There are people out there who have had a lot of luck and had everything handed to them (they worked no harder than the less lucky). Those same people are insensitive jerks who don't appreciate what they have. I consider myself darn lucky to have my bp under control, to have met and married a loving husband, and to have a good code of ethics. It is most important in life to have that good code of ethics and be a good person. So few are!
To illustrate my point: do you know who Leonard Bernstein is? He was one of the greatest conductor/composers of the 20th century. No one can deny his talent, but I have met people just as talented shrouded in obscurity (not me admittedly). But, looking at his life story, you see he pretty much got his start just being in the right place at the right time. And now? His code of ethics in life was so bad it wouldn't surprise me to know that he was not in Heaven but in that place no one would choose. There were rumors going around for years that he would try to molest young boys (I met a guy who claimed to be one of those boys.) And, he wrote this piece called the Kaddish Symphony which is a musical setting of the Jewish Kaddish with his own commentary. His commentary says things like, "why God did you make us in Your own flawed image?" You might not be as successful as you would like, but are you so full of yourself that you would question the Divine Creator? Please!
Express!
Beth "Petrouchka"
Camp,
It's pretty common for our loved ones (as well as ourselves) to be in denial at first--it's common for any kind of chronic health problem, little alone one with the stigma mental illness still carries.