Hello, today I want to continue with part two of what I've titled bipolar is destructive force live and raw. So I started yesterday by basically going through
the story of how I'm living with my wife who's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
And
I'm doing this now because I'm right in the middle of what the doctors might call in an episode. And so things are really painful right now. And so some of the things are feeling concerned right now, I probably wouldn't remember or, or be able to say when, when things are back to some kind of normality. So I'm doing it now for that reason. And that's why I've called it live and roll so.
And like I said, yesterday, if I look back to what happened 18 months ago, my wife seems to have these episodes at the moment every 12 or 18 months. That's what's happened over the last six or seven years. So
18 months ago, and from start to finish, things seem to be caught very quickly, from start to finish, it was three weeks.
And that was from being admitted as an informal patient to than needed to be sectioned.
Receiving the medication, if needed, and then going back to being informal and then being discharged. So from, from the start to the finish, it was three weeks. And, and although that's not the end of it, there is a process of recovery after that. But that can be done at home and things then return to some kind of normality. And although it is three weeks of you know, something that's horrendous, if you've never been through it, it's something you can't imagine. But um,
the, you know, the real serious, horrendous bit is probably the, you know, the first two-thirds of the three-week process last time. But the problem this time, as I explained in part one, is that
this time that the process started in exactly the same way, the episode should have been the same way. It started, you know, I raised the alarm, if you like, in late November, we're now literally in the last few days of 2020.
And so it's been, you know, over four weeks now, since I've raised the alarm.
It's so all winter, like it did 18 months ago, with my wife having a mental health assessment, but then things went terribly wrong. When one of the doctors there needs to be two doctors to decide that somebody if somebody needs to be sectioned, but one of the doctors decided the term wife was fine, and she could come home, which sounds great. But the thing is, and I've been through this so many times, and one of the problems with this illness, when we watch concerned is that she's able to mask her illness, it's almost like she needs to convince itself and convince others that she's not unwell.
And so she does a really good job of it sometimes. And even though she's very unwell, she's able to convince some people or most people even but even doctors sometimes
that there's nothing wrong, which, which is crazy, but it's true. And this is what she did this time. And so
she was then going a bit worse and needed a second health assessment of which the same decision was made.
And then it was like, What on earth do we do now? She went to the doctors.
Everything went crazy. And we daughters after
me, she was there for three or four days, but I didn't really find anything out until the last day and then my daughter told me that what happened over the three or four days later, but
I got a horrendous phone call and things are going really bad. And so long story but my wife was then brought back eventually in an ambulance back to where we live 200 miles away my daughter lives so you know that doesn't happen. Quickly you know, that took over 24 hours just to process me wife 200 miles away and then get it back to hospital here.
She has then had another mental health assessment and this time, they decided that she needed to go to the hospital. So but even that was two weeks ago now.
And
because of the legalities of things, I'm still not allowed to know certain things about what's happening. And, you know, we're coming up to five weeks now since the start of this year.
should have been over within three weeks if we go for 18 months ago.
And
in from what I can see from the view that I've got, if you're like, my wife hasn't reached the peak yet.
I'm hoping that that's not far away, and we can start to improve, things start to return to normal very, very soon. Because as you can imagine, a day, when you go in through this, it can be horrendous. And then when another day on top of that happens, you know, it just gets worse and worse and worse. And, you know, just the horrific nature of everything that goes on.
And they're just the constant, sort of things that go on it just, it just drain Yeah. And
sometimes I do wonder how I cope.
But
today, I thought I would go through what I've seen,
every time that my wife has been ill, or what the doctors call an episode or a manic episode that turns into psychotic with my wife most time.
And, but I thought I'd go through what I see as what happens now, these things can happen and take longer to start and finish depending on what happens with, you know, with the medical profession, etc. So, as I said, 18 months ago, start to finish with this process that I'm going to go through now was three weeks. And this time, it's five weeks so far. And we're not even through the process yet. So
this is what term seems to happen with, with my wife anyway, and I'm not a doctor. But I do you think I know. And I understand what happens with me why. So if you've had similar things happen to you, then you'll relate to this. So it starts with small signs. And because you've seen these things before, you think what's that what's happening, and you don't know whether you're going a bit paranoid, or you know, you've been worrying unnecessarily or whether they are something that you need to be concerned about. And these signs might happen
once every two or three days. So it's not like it's happening constantly, just notice some things that you sort of remember from the past. And you just wonder whether it's anything that you need to be concerned about or not. And at this stage, you know, there's nothing you can do, obviously, you can't call a doctor or call for help at that stage. Because even I'm not sure what's going on.
So, as that progresses, you start to get more sure signs, and there comes a point where
you know, something's wrong, and you know, that it looks like there's another episode that's, that's about to come.
And, and then you go through this terrible dread of, you know, do I really have to go through this again, and you know, becomes real, then because you've been through it before, you know how horrific it can be. And you just don't want to go through it again, basically. But you know, you're going to have to do.
And so you get this, that's the start of, you know, that, for me, as a, as a carrier, if you like, is just the dread of,
of what's about to happen, and what what you're going to have to go through for the next few weeks, at least, you know,
and at that point, I've learned to, to try and get help as fast as possible. So you do that. And
part of what happens is, once I notice the signs, and I'm certain then I get the medical help, but it's very difficult to even at that point for even the medical profession, even people that work in
the sort of mental health profession.
It's very difficult for them to see what I'm seeing. It's
parts of the illness. Certainly, as my wife gets more into this, the episode as the doctors call it.
It's almost like the wife needs to persuade people that she's Well, in order to persuade yourself that she's well because I guess she feels a bit like me where, you know, she's dreading
going through this again, because she doesn't want to go through it either. And
I'm guessing and like I say, I'm not a doctor, but it's almost like if she convinced herself enough, you know, in a mental state, if you can convince yourself and other people that term there's nothing wrong and then she's not ill, then it's okay because she's not ill. So
Don't know, you know, it'd be great to talk to
a professional about that is, is that really what's going on, I don't know. But she does be able to just seem to be able to mask things.
And she almost gets better at it, the worse into the episode she gets. So as she gets
Ella, you know Morrell more into the episode, she seems to get better at masking the illness and persuading other people that nothing's wrong. So it is difficult and we had visited this time every day, for a week. And things progressed, and you could see things were getting worse.
But apart from sleeping tablets, because at this point as well,
one of the signs is sleep. So I was saying nowadays that once my wife has the first night without any sleep, then that's a sure sign, that's one of the show signs.
And things normally go downhill very fast from there.
So
they normally prescribed me wife sleeping tablets,
which, while we watched in the early stages, they can maybe work for half an eight, or maybe half an hour, one or two nights. But you know, I think these are very powerful sleeping tablets that are prescribed. And, you know, I'm sure if I took one up to be knocked out for a week, but then the bipolar seems to have this,
you know, terrible ability to be able to fight even powerful sleeping tablets. So
so the sleeping tablets in my experience have
been, you know, they've, they've had the uses, you know, maybe my wife wouldn't have even got two or three hours sleep that she's had with the sleeping tablets without them. So, you know, they have helped, but there's certainly not the solution.
And
so here's some the signs get more visit more visible things then become strange.
And
and at that point, you know, you're, you're seriously asking for help, then the medical profession does tend to be able to see things a bit more clearly what's really happening. It's a bit easier for me to sort of say, look, I really think we want to sell and then sort of agree with me if you like.
And certainly when things start to get crazy,
then you know, you've got evidence, I've learned to either video things or take pictures on the phone because people can't believe that this has happened or that happened. It's just a story. But if you can show a video or 10 pictures, then you know, a picture speaks 1000 words, isn't it? So that's the that's what happens then. And then, every time I'd like this not to be the case, but every time my wife is needed to perception.
So, you know, this time, this is what's delayed this time. And this is why I think this episode has lasted so long and getting so severe right now is because my wife wasn't sectioned and helped with the medication she needs fast enough. So, you know, again, part of the illness, my wife seems to be able to mass things really well.
And
it seems to me like I say, I've said I'm not a doctor, and I'm not. But it seems that my wife needs you normally they're not once she's been sectioned. She goes on antipsychotic drugs, which and you know, personally, I don't like drugs at all.
But, you know, what do you do, there's, there's no other avenue, something needs to do to help it sleep for one thing to, to help get well. And what happens is, although the sleeping tablets, you know, certainly at this stage, when things are getting a lot worse, you know, it's almost a waste of time taking sleeping tablets, because they just don't seem to have any effects at all.
But what happens with the antipsychotic drugs, as well as they do have some small sort of sedative effect, or some of them do anyway, it does help to slow the brand down. And once the brand starts to slow down,
that's when sleep can start. And then I found that once sleep starts, once midwives get in, you know, even five or six hours a day,
then you then see a drastic improvement. My wife then becomes less psychotic, and she becomes calmer, you know, and then again, she gets another night's sleep the next night and things improve again. So, you know, sleep is a massive, massive key. We understand about sleep. So that's, that's where we are. So right now I'm hoping
that that's what's happening that we're getting to the stage where my wife will start to sleep and she will start to improve
So then what happens after that, then the hospital or the doctors are normally put some midwife on to sort of back onto an informal patient if that's what she agrees to, or she can certainly have visited or be taken out of the hospital for, you know, two or three hours at a time to,
you know, to go out certain places. And then after another week or two, two weeks, then she'll be discharged.
And then things do start to return to normal sleep returns.
But then this the, you know, bipolar disorder is described as a, as a graph that goes up, and then it comes down.
And
so then we have to deal with the loss out of this, which normally happens, it certainly has every time and that's my wife, so is recovering and stuff to sleep, well now, then sleep turns into 10 hours a night, then it'll turn into 12 hours an hour, and it'll be 15, sometimes even 18 hours in it.
And that will go on for in the past, it's gone on for, you know, a month, maybe two months. You know, once it went on for nearly three months when we were sleeping a good sort of 15 hours every night. And,
you know, the brand seems to have had such
a difficult time with everything that's going on that it now needs to rest. And I think this is what part of these processes.
And then that same period comes to an end and things better, they've turned to some kind of normality, in our case, 12 to 18 months.
And that's the process that I go through. And
you know, that that was certainly the worst part of that process. 18 months ago when the wife had an episode that that was over relatively quickly.
This time, I believe, because of bad decisions by one of the doctors anyway,
the process has been horrendous. And it's been much longer than it needed to be, you know, the episode is a lot worse this time.
You know, as some,
you know, what, what do I do now? You know, how do I survive this next time? How do we get through this? You know, what do we do? You know, one of the things that's very frustrating for me, is
there's very, very few people understand what's actually going on. And
I've heard this is common, but one of the big, big issues when my wife goes through the worst periods of what I've just explained,
is that she then basically starts to tell others stories or things about me, that are just cruel, just, you know, they might have an element of truth in them, but they're certainly exaggerated. And this time, the other end.
And she, you know, when she does get better and, and start to feel better, she will call people and explain a lot what I said wasn't true, or wasn't right, or it was exaggerated, but you know, please, and some people take that and understand, but most people don't understand.
And it's just, you know, how do you repair things that are going on?
You know, when your wife's been ill, how do you repair these things?
You know, maybe, you know, some people have said, Well, if you've got friends that don't understand, and you probably better not having them as friends. And maybe there is some truth in that. I don't know. But, you know, the question I've got for myself now is, you know, what do I do now? You know, my wife, hopefully, in the, you know, in the not too distant future now, certainly within the next two or three weeks, is going to be, you know, vastly improved, and she's going to be coming home.
How do I repair the damage that's been done? How do I
sort of better prepare myself and even better prepare the medical profession for what might or might not happen in the future?
How do I repair what my wife said to friends and family?
You know, some of it I won't even know. Yeah, you know, and if the wife doesn't tell me, I'm probably never going to find out. But I do know, some of the things that are going on, and it's, it's not nice.
So, you know, I'm at that stage now where it is raw. This is life. You know, I am going through things right now.
And I'm trying to work out what to do. So
I'll do part three of this again tomorrow. Maybe I'll do it on a more
This one I've just spoken about. I'm not sure yet, but um,
I will do that. But I'll leave it there for part two. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you've got something from it. I'm sure if you're going through something similar, then you'll be able to relate to quite a lot of what I've said.
And if not, then, you know, I pray that you never will have to go through anything like this.
Because saying, you know, as the saying goes, you know, you wouldn't wish this on your worst enemy, you really wouldn't.
So thank you for listening. And hopefully, you'll join me again for part three. Thank you and bye-bye for now.