I’ve been with my husband for eight years – married for five of them. We have a beautiful four-year old son, three dogs, and a cat. For the most part, we are a happy family.
As long as I’ve known my husband, he’s had these episodes.He loses control, and snaps on everyone and everything in his path. He’s broken windows, phones, end tables, lamps – the list is never ending.
When these episodes happen, the man I married isn’t there.
He’s gone, and something else takes over. He’s told me on numerous occasions that he doesn’t remember what occurs during these episodes.
He can remember the episode, but he doesn’t remember his words or actions. He told his psychiatrist that he almost blacks out when he gets to that point in his rage.
She gave him some more medication, and basically said, “See you in a month.”
He feels worthless, and that makes him angry. He isn’t a talker, but when he does talk I can hear the anguish in his voice.
He says nothing happened to make him the way he is. Nothing terrible – nothing worthy of the rage inside him.
He doesn’t want to be this way, he doesn’t want to be anxious and hopeless and angry and sad.
But he doesn’t know how to stop.
It used to happen when he couldn’t find any weed. Then someone would come through with some, he’d smoke it, and the world would right itself.
That ended with a police escort to the local hospital.
He spent three days there, changing his medication and talking to someone for ten minutes a day. He attended group sessions, and when he came home, he was ready to be better.
It was a week before he had another episode.
And since then these episodes have been happening every 3-5 days. Some are more serious than others. The last time, he threatened to kill himself.
Unfortunately, that isn’t anything new, except that, this time, he also threatened his mother and I.
We’re going to try therapy, but right now, it feels like he’s a ticking time-bomb, set to go off at any second. From the outside, I know it doesn’t look like he’s trying but he is, he really is.
So this is where I need help, The Band:
Do I stay, or do I go?
Do I walk away from my husband because he’s sick? Or do I stay, even if it’s to the detriment of my sanity, and my child’s well-being?
I don’t know what to do and I have no support network.
My son’s father was never in the picture, and my mother is a recovering addict – currently incarcerated. My godmother, the woman who raised me, is dead. I have a brother, but he has no job, and no home.
My best friend was witness to the gun incident, and has mostly given up on me. She told me that I’m codependent, and making terrible choices for my child. She thinks I should leave my husband, like she did. But her husband was an alcoholic – mine isn’t.
My in-laws have been terrific. Any time we need somewhere safe, their home is always open. But they are elderly – one of them is in a wheelchair. I feel I can’t burden them with this. I feel I am making them choose between their son, or their grandson and I.
Where can I go? What should I do? Please, The Band, help me. I feel so alone. I’ve prayed to every god I can think of, and I still feel so lost.
There is no handbook for when you marry someone with mental illness.
Or, at least, I think I am. I’d like to think I am. I think about writing all the time – and then I feel ashamed of myself because I’m not writing. I think about all of the stories I could be writing – I think about the text file of ideas for stories on my desktop – and then I get even more depressed because I’m not writing.
The great thing is that I’m not writing because I’m depressed, because I have no job, no friends, am 1300 miles away from all support systems, except for my wonderful soon-to-be husband, and I spend most of my time in an insecure, anxious ball feeling sorry for myself.
I keep seeing over and over again, on Twitter and Facebook and in my MFA program’s forum this statement: “if you don’t write, you aren’t a writer, and you probably shouldn’t be. To be a writer, you must need to write like it’s the way you breathe.” So I second-guess myself; I don’t need that. But I need to need that, if that makes sense.
I miss the feeling of excitement when I pull off a great scene. I miss feeling proud of myself. I miss the sense of self-esteem writing gives me. But right now, depression is taking it away.
I just don’t know how to push through the overwhelming apathy and shame to start writing again. And everyone who tells me to shit or get off the pot – to just start writing regardless – really isn’t helping.
How do I get through this loneliness, depression, anxiety and shame to find myself again?
I’m not sure where I went, but it’d be damn good to see myself again.
His teacher was proactive – she moved his seat to a different group and talked to both the boy and his mother. While I hope it never happens again, I don’t know quite how to manage his feelings and my feelings.
My husband and I got into a very heated fight (to say the least). We were in each other’s face and things got physical and turned into domestic abuse.
Alcohol was involved.
I ended up going to the ER and was diagnosed with a head injury and a bruised rib. The police came to the hospital to ask me what happened – if I’d been the victim of domestic abuse – and I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want both of us to to to jail.
I was charged with a domestic abuse charge. He would have been too, if I’d said anything.
Anyway, there’s a no contact order between him and I, but he has my children: my 2 1/2 son and my 9 year old daughter. I am only allowed to communicate through my attorney or at the family resource center.
Right now? He won’t answer the phone to either number.
It has been nine excruciating days since I’ve seen my children.
I want to see my children but he will not let me see them and I’m devastated.
We have a hearing for the restraining order on the 11th. I don’t know what to do to prepare for it. I have the hospital records of my injuries. I don’t want him in trouble because he is my husband and I still love him very much – we both need help and things got out of hand.
Without my kids, it’s hard to get up in the morning.
*UPDATE* I finally got in touch with my attorney and let him know all the details. He told me to bring the hospital records to the hearing. As much as I wish this never had happened, I’m not going to be a doormat and let him scare me.
Hey, The Band, I’ve got a question. Can you help me?
My 24-year old daughter who is bipolar with psychosis or schizoaffective – we’re not sure because she is an adult and changes what she says are the diagnoses – went dark in texts and social media 2 days ago.
She went to live with her father, who just got back out of the hospital for another bipolar episode, but didn’t let me know.
I have custody of her son. He wanted to call Mommy and tell her goodnight.
We couldn’t get any info for two days.
Here is my rub.: I know my daughter needs help, but they want to blame me for never letting her “find herself;” that she is capable if we just let her be.
I would love for her to be able to live independently, be clean, take care of her son, but that is not the case. I feel left to try and make a life of uncertainty.
Should I get a bigger house? (mine suits me fine, but my grandson needs a yard).
Should I continue him at his school and let him attach to friends and community members?
At The Band we understand that sometimes, we need answers to questions that we can’t ask our friends and loved ones. Sometimes, we need to crowdsource an idea.
This is his question, and I’d love you guys to try to help him understand.
I am a man in my forties and I just saw a couple of my house guests who were probably in their twenties: a man and a woman.
The woman seemed stressed and uncomfortable (maybe it was the party?) and I observed her picking on her boyfriend for over an hour. I don’t mean beating or hitting him, I just mean she was emotionally abusive. She escalated her insults, mocked him, and made sure to push all of his buttons.
Until he backhanded her across the face.
After she was slapped, she was relaxed and visibly more calm, and more pleasant.
I cannot understand this kind of behavior; why would someone want to be abused?
