Hubby had a turn Last night :(

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Butterfly1971

Wed, March 04, 2009

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Since he had been on his medication he had been pretty good, he had even noticed a change but last night he had a major turn and am very worried about him.

I don't know if it's cause of work that made him turn last night or not but I am going to do something this morning that I don't like to do but feel I need to. At his work they have a safety officer and I am going to have a chat with her, she knows about the medication he is on. The Supervisor that he has seems to be the problem atm.

His Supervisor asks him every morning if he has taken his happy pills which seems to upset hubby in a big way plus the supervisor then makes sure that hubby doesn't get any help with the work he needs to do for the day and that is what is sending him over the edge. So I thought if I can chat to the safety officer at his work and explain all this to her that she might be able to have a chat to his boss about it on the quiet side in a way so that he doesn't know that I spoke to her and have the problem solved.

Hubby was so upset last night he got himself in a stage where he started talking about not wanting to live anymore, for me to put everything in my name and that he wants to kill himself. Now I know he keeps saying to me that if he has one of his episodes to just ignore him but I can't, I take this kind of talk serious and if I can help in some way I will.

Do you think I am doing the right thing? I'm just so worried about him

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tabby

3/ 4/09 7:59pm

Just my thoughts... can't tell you what to do but you asked for thoughts...

Even on meds that are working... outside environmental stressors can trigger things to intensify. if the triggers are prolonged, the intensity can be really high.

As far as telling the Safety Officer to then speak with his Supervisor behind his back... I'm not sure this is smart to do. It's almost like momma talking to the teacher to then talk to the bully to tell bully to stop bullying which then may make bully just get worse. Plus, husband may not like idea wife is going behind his back and talking to his co-workers about him and trying to solve his issues for him.

He is your husband and you know better but if you are planning to do this behind his back then, you already know how he'd feel if he were to find out later.

If husband is threatening suicide, then an emergency call to the pdoc and/or taking him to the ER and/or 911 might be something you need to seriously consider doing first and foremost. It's one thing to "think" of killing oneself, it's another to actually start verbalizing it and then wanting family members to be okay and to make arrangements after they are gone.

Butterfly1971

3/ 5/09 12:33am

Thanks for your comment.

I probably didn't explain myself properly to begin with, I guess it shows how stressed out I am atm.

The Health & Safety officer at his work knows about his condition and she is also on medication for Depression. I really just wanted to make her aware of what state he is currently in as he was also talking about bashing the supervisor if he kept it up. I don't know, I am just stressed in a big way I guess. I already do everything else for him to take stress from him and now feel I am helpless. We are in Australia as well so things work differently here then anywhere else in the world.

tabby

3/ 5/09 5:51am

1) he is threatening suicide

and

2) he has threatened to "bash his supervisor" if supervisor kept up the verbal tirade

here in the US workplace violence is, unfortunately, something that has been increasing over the years and most employers now do not take any threats (even if made in jest) of it very lightly.

I don't know about Australia, that's true but if you tell the Safety Officer for the company that your husband has threatened to kill himself and to bash his supervisor, what exactly would you be hoping the outcome would be? Or, I bet, you aren't going to tell Safety Officer all of those intricate details, huh?

You're right, you are in a pickle. Husband is threatening to kill himself due to the stress triggering symptoms, he wants stuff in order for you when he is gone, and has even threatened to injure or something worse to his Supervisor who he is attributing his increasing stress & anxiety level to.

You, have taken him so seriously that you've become anxious and worried over your husband's safety & well being that you are going to go and tell folks at his workplace in an effort to "take care of it for him" so maybe he'll work in a less stressful place and thereby Supervisor won't get "hurt" and husband won't go through with his threats of killing himself.

Yet, no talk at all about contacting the husband's psychiatrist and telling him husband is threatening suicide, making plans for things to be in order, and threatening to "bash.. Supervisor".

Yup, in a pickle all right. Completely up to you and wish you the best in whatever it is you decide and I do sincerely hope husband can get some relief from his episodic relapsing.

havebipolarthankstohormonetreatment

3/ 5/09 6:20am

Hi--I'm commenting from Canada--I think our systems are the most alike--regardless--the only real solution if you feel he is in real danger of hurting himself--is to take him to emergency at the hospital ok?

They can help him out. All the workplace ever needs to know at this point is that he's off "sick" they needn't know why at this point.

Butterfly1971

3/ 6/09 2:28am

Well I am glad to say that he is all good again. I did have a chat to the Health & Safety officer yesterday and she said she will keep an eye on him. I also found out from her that hubby wasn't the only one that wants to punch out the supervisor so things must be pretty bad there.

When Hubby got home last night from work we had a really good chat. I told him that if he is left to do a job that he is unable to do on his own to see the health & safety officer. His reply was: She will just tell me to go and see the big boss to sort it out. So I explained to him no not true cause she is the Health & Safety officer and it's her duty to make sure that you work in a safe manner.

I think our talk last night helped him in a big way cause this morning he was back to his old self with a good sense of humor :)

Eric

3/10/09 7:22am

Good Intentions don't always result in a positive outcome.

I think your intentions are good but your approach is headed for a train wreck. If I were your husband, I would be very upset that you went behind my back, at my place of work and spoke with co-workers about my illness and problems.

Here is where I feel the underlining problem exists...once we are diagnosed/labeled with an illness, all of our words are now taken literally instead of just what it is...blowing off steam or being able to show any normal emotion.

The problem I have is that people tend to disregard what we have to say when were upset and trying to get a point across attributing it all to the illness of he or she must be manic or going the other direction of taking every word literally as if we are going to act out on it.

I guess I am just unsure why everyone including his boss needed to know he was taking medications and has the illness verses keeping it a private matter. He really needs to be able to stand on his own two feet and if your going around ahead of him doing it for him...he will not keep going in a positive direction and I am sure its taking a toll on you trying to do it.

We really have to watch out what we say after being diagnosed. To give an example in one of my family arguments...I felt I was not being heard nor taken seriously even though my points were valid. I made the mistake of saying..." What have I got to do here...kill myself to be heard?"

Everyone left and within a hour there were authoritative on my front porch handcuffing me and giving me a ride to the hospital for an evaluation. The last thing on my mind was killing myself but...my family took every word literally and disregarded what I had to say because I am mentally ill even though now looking back I was right...oh well.

Butterfly1971

3/10/09 5:01pm

Eric,

1) I spoke to the Health & Safety Officer at his work

2) The reason they know about his condition is cause of the medication he is on as his work does Drug & Alcohole testing.

3) If you would have heard the way my husband was talking you would have realized that he was serious at the time so I had every right to worry about him.

Yes I agree with you that some people point the finger all the time only cause you are Bipolar that every little thing you say everyone takes seriously. I have this question for you: Would you feel better if your family that loves you very much doesn't take you serious and just ignores everything you say? How do you think your family would feel if they didn't take you serious and one day they find that you tried to kill yourself or did kill yourself? I have done that once and I will never do that again cause I still have the guilt that I will have to live with for the rest of my life.

My Grandmother was very ill, she was on medication and oxygen, she was in germany while I was in Australia. I remember talking to her at christmas time and she was saying that she had to do something about this cause she couldn't handle it anymore. Here was me not really thinking much of it, just thought that you know cause of her being lonely that she would try and change her lifestyle. Well 2 weeks later my mum rings me up telling me that my aunty had found her dead in her unit. It was also revieled that she was dead for 2 weeks. So still to this day I say to myself, I should have rang my mum and told her what my grandmother said to me on the phone, that maybe she would still be alive.

See I know when my husband is serious and when he is joking and the way he went off that night I knew to take it serious. He even told me last night that he keeps thinking about it but that's all it is. Yeah I still worry but at the same time I leave it at that for now. He has another Dr Appointment early next month and I will tell his Dr what has happened and the way he has been thinking. My husband actually apreciates that I speak out for him cause he knows he wouldn't and as he had said to me time and time again, this is the reason he loves me so much, cause I am always there for him and I worry about him and I try my best to make things better.

Eric

3/11/09 8:19am

I guess the point I was trying to drive home was that he really needs to stand on his own two feet. Sure there are going to be times when we really need advocating for us when we are unable to do it ourselves but I don't see that with the two of you. He is able at this point and time to go to work and complete tasks and I feel speak up for himself if needed.

I want you to really think about this for a minute...do you want to be the wife or the therapist, caregiver and do everything else for hubby? Why I am asking is that I took on the role of the latter for a number of years and ended up hating everyone including myself. Somewhere I had also lost myself because I was spending so much time as the caregiver and not as a husband.

My life became so much better when I stepped back to being a husband and gave back the reins to her therapist, psychiatrist an of course herself to start taking back the control over what she wanted out of life. It is so easy to become dependent on someone else.

I think if you were to ask some of the spouses and loved ones here, you would hear the same story of where they somehow lost themselves and life became this total chaos waiting for the next shoe to drop. If you can separate the idea of advocating verses care giving, then your on the right tract. But I would have to say you don't just by your actions of hubby at work.

I hope others chime in because I may not be wording it right to make it understandable. There is a difference.

Butterfly1971

3/11/09 4:50pm

I understand what you are saying Eric and I think in a way it's my fear of loosing him just like I lost my grandmother by ignoring what she said. I guess if I think about it I have always done pretty much everything for him but there are also times where I tell him he has to do it himself. He doesn't like it but at the end he does it.

He knows that if I was to die before him he would be lost. In all honesty, I don't mind doing everything around the house and running around for him when I have no work on but when I get busy with my work that's when I make him help out. As I always say to him I can't work 8-10 hours a day plus do everything at home as well as it burns me out.

He has come to understand that it does become way too much for me and since started helping out, sometimes he will even do stuff when I am not working.

Mind you having said that, getting him to cook a meal once in a while is impossible, he is a great cook but his attitude is, stuff cooking, stuff doing dishes, let's get take away LOL I guess it might be a male thing I don't know.

I always know when he has a turn, usually isn't as bad as that particular night. Usually he picks a fight with me, I tend to walk out of the room and leave him to himself which works most of the time but then there are other times he will follow me and continue. Usually the next day he feels really down cause he hates it when he is like that towards me. But what I get shocked about is that sometimes he doesn't even remember, does that mean he is blocking it out?

The night that I was originally talking about he didn't pick a fight with me. He was talking very violently about work and then all of a sudden he started going on about wanting to kill himself, that he was nothing but a piece of sh*& and so on. I had never ever seen him like that, he wanted to smash the screen on his laptop.

I mean we all have a bad day at work at times but we don't start talking like that.

I have learned a lot about Bipolar but some things I still don't get :(

Anonymous

3/14/09 1:19am

Theres a long long word for that , it is called c o d e p e n d e n c y! Learn about it woman , by the grace of God you are a drowning person if you don't let go. He will pull you right in there with him and then you my friend will be sicker than him. I mean this in love, coming from someone that knows.

MrsLKR

3/12/09 1:03pm

I think you were absolutely right to talk to the Safety Officer. The Supervisor has no right to ask your husband if he took his "happy pill" every day. That would make a sane person crazy. My husband is also bipolar, which wasn't diagnosed until after he had an episode at work 2 years ago. It was triggered by several things, including a supervisor who was a terrible manager. Afterward, my husband was diagnosed, treated and allowed to return to work about 10 months later. He takes Lamictal which has helped him tremendously. The supervisor was finally let go from the company last month. Even though my husband's actions were not appropriate, the supervisor was not blameless. I also believe that you were not "going behind your husband's back" as some other posters have suggested. Sometimes our loved ones need help, and your actions, including talking with your husband afterward, were very helpful. I think you were very supportive and that you did the right thing.

Butterfly1971

3/12/09 7:37pm

Thanks for your post. I am actually thinking that he should go to the Dr before his next appointment, he doesn't seem to cope at the moment. Now he even wants to look for another job but I also know that the problem will not go away. Ever since we moved from Sydney to Perth he has gone from job to job, never happy at any of them. He has been very lucky that I have been able to work around it financially when he ends up with weeks off work. The first time we were lucky that I had heaps of work on so basically what he normally makes I had been making every week, then the second time we were not so lucky as I didn't have any work on. I am trying so hard to be strong and supportive but I am starting to get to the point where I don't know how much more of this I can take. I know that on his good days he is great to be around, we laugh a lot, we say cheeky things to each other. I just can't understand that eventhough he is on this medication that he still continues to hear these evil voices that are telling him stuff.

MrsLKR

3/12/09 11:55pm

It sounds like you are a very caring and loving person, and it is very difficult to go through this. My heart goes out to you. I have had the same feelings - there are times I want to give up trying because it is so hard. You have to take care of yourself so that you can be strong. And know that it is not your responsibility to fix everything, and it is okay for you to have a bad day once in a while too. Give yourself credit for all that you have done for him and your marriage.

One of the things that helped us was understanding that medication is only one aspect of treatment. In addition to seeing a psychiatrist who prescibes his medicine, my husband also sees a cognitive behavioral therapist regularly to identify and discuss his responses to triggers and find better ways to cope with stress. We read a book called "Overcoming Mood Swings" by Jan Scott, a self-help guide to using cognitive behavioral techniques to change negative thought patterns. Maybe that would help?

We also try to stick to a routine of eating healthy and sleeping regular hours - not too much and not too little, as this seems to help him stay stable.

I also think it is a good idea to encourage him to see the doctor as soon as possible. Maybe his medication needs adjusted. Regardless, it sounds like you could use some additional support - let the doctor take over some of the responsibility and give yourself some much deserved breathing room. I hope things get better for you and your loved one soon and I wish you all the best.

augustborn

3/21/09 6:46pm

My father committed suicide. By making plans the degree of realness of this happing increases dramatically. This is often a internal cry for help. I strongly suggest call his treating doctor and see what changes he may make in treatment. You have a good idea to also contact work, medical facts and management are required by law not to discuss such facts. I would press this point to them that medical treatment is covered in medical privacy act. I would document and such actions. Seek medical advise about your husband about his current statements. The stress this puts you under personally, my heart goes out to you.

Charlotte'sWeb

3/30/09 10:29am

I agree with most others first step is to get him on the best treatment possible. If your husband continues to worsen then new medication and/or doctor may help. Also if you have anything like the ADA-Americans with Disabilites Act, an employer can't go around asking about taking meds and harrassing the employee. I would check to see if you have anything like this. Based on the ADA my employer knows my basic diagnosis, I let my boss know when my meds are changed and they had to make a couple of accomodations for me just like they would for someone in a wheelchair. So your husband may have rights in the workplace that are being ignored by his employer.

Good Luck.

Hubby had a turn Last night :(

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