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Dialectical Behavior Therapy was created by a therapist who had herself been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I know two people who say it has saved their lives (both literally and figuratively).
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Dec 17, 2013 19:45
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Just to add to this, I'm currently doing college placement at an agency that provides assisted living with individuals with mental illness. Over 50% of the tenants have Borderline and DBT is pretty much drat near everywhere. Even though my job isn't to do DBT with people I actually had to learn about it and take a course based around it because it was so ingrained in people's lives and coping skills. It's actually pretty cool to learn about and IMO, miles better than CBT was.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:12
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Tigntink posted:My MILs doctor basically told my FIL that my MIL would indiscriminately cheat on him thanks to bipolar, which was bullshit. BP folks might be more outgoing when they are manic but it doesn't throw all their morals out the window. They are still at their core the same people. This is entirely true, the biggest difference for me when I'm manic is that I'll act on impulses I might already have much, much, much more easily. The idea of recklessness kind of just disappears unless under the most extreme circumstances. If the impulse to be scuzzy and cheat isn't really there before, I won't do it, and even if it is, it's so against who I am that I won't do it. Just like I won't murder someone taking 50 minutes at the self check-out with two items, even though in my head I'm having intense visions of punching him in the noggin and I'm unbelievably irritable. I've never cheated on anyone in my life, and I've been almost in a dozen decent length relationships. In fact, it's the direct opposite, when I become manic, I shower people I know and care about with an obscene amount of attention and love, this is why so many of my relationships have been abject failures. A girl meets you when you're manic, loves the man who's being so ambitious, active and intensely romantic, and then all of a sudden the mania ends or the depression kicks in and my mood completely changes, and that shocks people. That's the nature of it, the only way I can describe it is that it's a disease that many times, for certain people (as it's unique for everyone), is like a dial, it's the essence of who I am being amplified by degrees. Either it's way down low, or way up above, sometimes it's right in the middle where it should be. You can always tell people you're bipolar, and so, so many people will be accepting of it (a surprising amount) and not stigmatize it, especially at my age (early to mid twenties), but when it actually becomes a factor in the relationship, people quickly learn that there's a difference between pledging your support and love through your partner's tribulations and actually doing it. Also an example of this, my last relationship ended because I became depressive and withdrawn, I constantly would assure my girlfriend that it was just my mood and had nothing to do with her, but she couldn't accept that, oftentimes it's hard for people to grasp that your disease is actually real and it will manifest in ways that aren't entirely obvious. Her response was to assume that I was drifting away from her and cheating/looking for other people so she ended up cheating on me in order to get the same kind of affection/the affection she felt she wasn't getting from someone else. Her promises to me and the beginning of my relationship were apparently too hard for her to keep. What's important about that is that when you suffer from the disease, so does your partner, and their ways of thinking and feeling will be influenced, just like I have to reign in and cope with my feelings and my cycles, so do my partners, my friends, my family. Just like my thinking can be entirely irrational so will the thinking of others around me when it relates to me. Is he "legitimately" sad? Or is it a depressive phase? Is he actually happy for once? Or is it just mania? Oftentimes I'll have friends that ignore one side of it, they'll ignore that I'm just happy, and will automatically assume I'm transferring into a manic state, other friends will never acknowledge that I might be cycling, they'll think I'm being more "fun" or other possible things. It's not about bad or good friends though, it's that reading a bipolar person's moods and cycles is loving hard, especially because oftentimes they don't know it themselves. I have friends that are really good for me that will force me out of the house when I'm being depressive, and that will keep a close eye on me when I'm manic and try to stop me from being an idiot. Those are friends I've had for a long, long time though, and when I'm in a good place, they're still there, treating me just the same as they always would, they've learned to accept, and adapt to who I am. As much as the disease doesn't define you, it is a part of you, and it's something that you will have to factor into everything you're going to do. Am I entering a long term relationship? I always have in mind that I might get manic or depressive, and things will change, the dynamic will change. The same goes for school, I have to have failsafes, support nets, a program, that will keep me from dropping out or skipping classes when I'm depressive or manic. It's a pain in the rear end, but that's the nature of the disease, at first it seems insurmountable, but then coping with it becomes a habit, and much like going to the gym or eating healthy, once it's a habit, it's a lot easier. For you and your friends as well. It's just that getting there, and learning to get there, can be really hard, and like any good habit, you can always lapse. Just my two cents for anyone interested.
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Dec 18, 2013 01:28
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Red Mundus posted:Even though my job isn't to do DBT with people I actually had to learn about it and take a course based around it because it was so ingrained in people's lives and coping skills. This is very true, I've been doing DBT for just over a year and it does become a part of your life. Where before I would act entirely on impulse and do really stupid and dangerous stuff, now it is almost second nature to use skills in pretty much any situation. As far as I'm concerned it does work. I haven't self harmed in a year, I'm rebuilding my life and getting rid of negative influences and when I had my last review I was told I now barely fit the criteria for having a borderline diagnosis.
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Dec 18, 2013 02:44
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FunWithWombats posted:The next five years saw progress, but had an equivalent share of low, low points. Some highlights involve drunk driving, flying to other states to have affairs, drugs, a dash of physical abuse, hoarding money while we were going into debt… but I don’t want to make this into just a huge list of horrible things people do when they’re sick. Each bad phase was broken up by an ever-improving good phase, but it’s impossible for one to make up for the other. Wow. This makes you a much less sympathetic character. It's crossed the line from heroically supporting your wife to just being a huge pushover towards her whole family. Looking forward to your reasons in your next post.
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Dec 18, 2013 04:49
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Wow, man - that was amazingly insightful. I can tell you've got a passion for psychology; passion plays into someone's understanding of something, and it shows here. Thank you for doing the lord's work - and doing it so well. I actually just got out of a DBT group therapy session as I'm writing this (as part of my intensive out-patient program for my drug addiction), and so much of what you said jived with what the hot therapist taught us. Matter of fact, when I was reading your awesome description of BPD, I started thinking that DBT would line up with that perfectly - based on my meager understanding.
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Dec 18, 2013 04:52
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jeffsleepy posted:Wow. This makes you a much less sympathetic character. It's crossed the line from heroically supporting your wife to just being a huge pushover towards her whole family. Did you just critically fail an empathy roll tonight or something? I mean, what the hell, you haven't even heard the story yet.
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Dec 18, 2013 06:55
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jeffsleepy posted:Wow. This makes you a much less sympathetic character. It's crossed the line from heroically supporting your wife to just being a huge pushover towards her whole family. Yeah man i was really sympathetic before but now i've found out the mentally ill women he loved acted really mentally ill i've realised he's just a stupid doormat goon for supporting her.
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Dec 18, 2013 07:22
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jeffsleepy posted:Wow. This makes you a much less sympathetic character. It's crossed the line from heroically supporting your wife to just being a huge pushover towards her whole family. To some degree I see what you're saying, but just the way you said it was so spergy and totally devoid of any adult concept of tact that you're still an idiot.
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Dec 18, 2013 11:05
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Tony Montana posted:To some degree I see what you're saying, but just the way you said it was so spergy and totally devoid of any adult concept of tact that you're still an idiot. Dude being an idiot aside, can we keep this thread from devolving into a total flamewar over one persons lack of tact? Those of us lurking find it fascinating and would rather not see the thread derailed.
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Dec 18, 2013 14:07
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Skoll posted:Dude being an idiot aside, can we keep this thread from devolving into a total flamewar over one persons lack of tact? Don't worry, I would need to flame back for that to happen. The thread will be fine.
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Dec 18, 2013 14:54
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I, for one, respect the hell out of OP for honoring his wedding vows. "In sickness and in health." OP knows the woman that he married and he knows that this is not her. gently caress being a pushover or a doormat. How about being a man for not taking back what he once said or throwing in the towel when things got hard. I understand that you all would not have stayed throughout the course of this marriage, but that doesn't mean you should belittle OP for doing so.
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Dec 18, 2013 15:32
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I wouldn't even argue that it was right or honorable to stick through the marriage, because in a situation like that there's not a right or honorable choice. There are a multitude of bad choices and a lot of living with the consequences of the decision you made. I don't think I would make the same one he did, but I'm not in the shoes of someone who got married to someone I was madly in love with and then had her completely change in ways that she wasn't really responsible for, especially since in the back of my head I could think 'with the right medication maybe she'd be back to normal.' And thank god I am not in those shoes.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:11
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Yeah, this just makes me want to hug my wife and remember but for the grace of god, etc.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:14
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Skoll posted:Dude being an idiot aside, can we keep this thread from devolving into a total flamewar over one persons lack of tact? No flamewar. Just after reading all I have about this guy I'm going to get annoyed if someone makes an unthinking, off-handed comment about him being a pushover and inferring he should have kicked Joanne back to her Mum.. when we haven't even heard how it's ended up. Just to the poster, saying 'Looking forward to your reasons' after calling someone a pushover is pretty passive-aggressive. Anyways, Peace, enough and more OP and less bullshit.
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Dec 18, 2013 19:51
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Please continue on Wombats. The anticipation has me by the nards. Hope writing this is helping you in the way you had hoped. Gotta respect your ability to stick around. I would have found such a thing frustrating to say the least, as you've expressed more than once. At what point do you ask yourself 'Is this worth it?' Obviously more comes into what you define as worth in the relationship, but the question has to have come up at some point. Did you ever find yourself wondering if you had made the right choices in staying by her? What would happen if you broke it off? For that matter was there thought to your end goals with staying by her? Did you have expectations on what would be a satisfactory change in her disease or did you just keep hoping for a return for normalcy? I have a million questions for you. Need to think on them more though. Also screw the guy who said you were a pushover as he clearly doesn't understand human relationships. onemanlan fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 00:28
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Paramemetic posted:BPD and DBT While I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for more of this story, I have a little question about this. A friend of mine in the psychology field suggested that many therapists shy away from treating people with personality disorders because without special training it can be difficult to effectively treat them without being negatively influenced by the manifestations of their disorder (like manipulative behavior). Do you think this is true? The person I was talking to was still in school at the time so didn't have any real world experience of the world of therapy yet, but having had a friendship with someone who turned out to have BPD, I can see this being true since so much of the disorder manifests itself in their behavior towards others. I could see a person with BPD having a hard time being genuinely introspective unless they were guided by a pretty expert hand, but I know very little about it other than what I read after my encounter with it so I might be totally misunderstanding things.
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Dec 19, 2013 02:01
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Lowly posted:While I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for more of this story, I have a little question about this. A friend of mine in the psychology field suggested that many therapists shy away from treating people with personality disorders because without special training it can be difficult to effectively treat them without being negatively influenced by the manifestations of their disorder (like manipulative behavior). It depends on their level of training and experience, but ultimately therapists are human too. It is the job of a therapist to identify behavior that could be linked to a personality disorder, and do their best to provide ethical treatment. If manipulative behavior is part of the presenting problem, instead of being offended or irritated, a therapist should consider behavior in the context of disorder and try to do their best to continue with treatment. I do think that some providers shy away from personality disorders, but it's honestly pointless once you get out of training and are actively practicing, because it is impossible to avoid. Personality disorders can be difficult to treat (even with tools like DBT) if a person doesn't have (or want) awareness that their behavior is problematic and that they are responsible for it (i.e., they blame the world around them instead). Lack of self awareness and limited motivation for change are big obstacles when it comes to any psychological treatment for anyone, but folks with personality disorders have a higher incidence of these features.
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Dec 19, 2013 02:25
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Lowly posted:While I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for more of this story, I have a little question about this. A friend of mine in the psychology field suggested that many therapists shy away from treating people with personality disorders because without special training it can be difficult to effectively treat them without being negatively influenced by the manifestations of their disorder (like manipulative behavior). From a patient perspective I'd say this is true. I have been through quite a few therapists over the years and been refused treatment many times. I had one CBT psych try to convince my psychiatrist that I had bipolar. She told me in a session that she could treat me if I had BP but if my BPD dx stood she would have to let me go. I did find myself lying to past therapists a lot I have to admit. I, along with many other people with BPD, like to please pleople. The thought of someone being upset with me was often too much and I would avoid it at all costs. This meant letting therapists believe that what they were doing was working rather than saying I wasn't getting it. There is also the splitting issue. If I was told something I didn't want to hear or a therapist worded something wrong, they were instantly horrible and I refused to see them again. The therapists I have now are awesome and specialise in people with BPD. They know just how to word things so I don't feel bad and I'm encouraged to be open if something isn't working.
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Dec 19, 2013 03:41
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How much of your decision to stay would you say was out of love, versus fear of guilt if you left?
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Dec 19, 2013 04:04
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This is fascinating to me and hits close to home. Thank you so much for posting.
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Dec 19, 2013 04:25
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I'm just posting to say thanks for a really interesting read. An ex girlfriend was diagnosed a year or so after our break up and the diagnosis certainly shed some light on things. I didn't go through 0.1% of what you're going through, and you're a far better man than I.
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Dec 19, 2013 20:23
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Talking about all but the patient here: Egosentrism. We all do actions to benefit others if it matters, but in the end to benefit our own life. There is allways one thing that make your action tilt towards something egosentric. No human in the free world devote an entire life devoting "something" and completely ignoring their own ego, their own goal. I can go much much further on this, but I think people understand? It kills the thread, but I know we will never know anyway so I don't worry. But the reason to stay with a girl that makes life so hard, when life is so short, is beyond me. And getting a real answer to it would probably enlighten me... (Worked for several years in the hospital, met lots of patients, but I have no titled education yet.) Interesting thread, looking forward to more info OP.
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Dec 20, 2013 05:05
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Serious Sam posted:Talking about all but the patient here: Serious Sam posted:It kills the thread, but I know we will never know anyway so I don't worry. But the reason to stay with a girl that makes life so hard, when life is so short, is beyond me. Even looking at it from a self interested standpoint, that is the person you love, but that person you are in love with is gone but her shell is still there. And every day is another chance to see that smile or hear that laugh or have that repartee again or find the person you love who has gone missing but you know is still there, somewhere.
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Dec 20, 2013 08:49
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joat mon, you rarely post outside of TFR, but every time I see one of your posts, I'm impressed by your compassion. You seem real cool.
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Dec 20, 2013 10:59
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joat mon posted:Even looking at it from a self interested standpoint, that is the person you love, but that person you are in love with is gone but her shell is still there. And every day is another chance to see that smile or hear that laugh or have that repartee again or find the person you love who has gone missing but you know is still there, somewhere. I think this is why my dad chose to stay with my mentally-ill mother. Every now and again, there is little glimpses of the person that he married within all of the turmoil and illness. It can be incredibly uplifting or profoundly sad, depending on how you want to look at it. They've been together for over 35 years. She is a lot like Shannon from the story, especially with the impulse spending and inappropriate gift-giving. She hoards, too, as a consequence of all of the shopping.
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Dec 20, 2013 17:39
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Just checking in to say that I also, have been watching this thread very closely and appreciate you sharing your experiences. I've never had to deal with mental illness except through work but you have a big heart for sticking around.
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Dec 23, 2013 03:28
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Sorry for disappearing, I've been travelling and hadn't had a chance to touch this. Part XII: Being a Caretaker There’s nothing positive to say about being a caretaker for someone who is very ill. It’s an absolutely thankless job. If I could describe Joanne’s attitude towards me during most of it in one word, it’d be “resentment.” Being the caretaker means you are the one to say no, you are the one to lay down the rules, and you are the one who has to keep the ill person safe. Dealing with the mentally ill presents its own unique set of challenges; the person you care for may not want your care. When you try to help, they may hate you for it. In many ways it can be like dealing with a teenager, except this teenager is actually a mature adult who, from the outside, shouldn’t be subject to your whims. Lines get incredibly blurred. I never have thought of myself as a controlling person, and the absolute last thing I want to do is have to boss somebody around. At the same time, you can’t let a mentally ill person just go off the rails. Doctors can help, but they can only do so much. When someone is this bad off, somebody has to be there to step in. If you search around, you can find many accounts of what happens when severely mentally ill people don’t have any sort of support network… you’ve probably passed many of them on the street. So you’re left in the awkward place of dragging a fully grown adult through life kicking and screaming. Joanne didn’t want to learn to drive, didn’t want to get a job, and didn’t want to manage finances. At her worst, she’d choose a life of dangerous drugs, random hookups, and everything else associated with those lifestyles… until reality would kick in and she remembered the type of life she wanted. Joanne went to a therapist every week. Therapy certainly helped, but it can be tricky for a bipolar patient. When she had a manic swing, Joanne got very good at hiding her illness: not talking about what bad things actually happened that week, sometimes focusing on stories she’d made up or sometimes just completely unaware of the major problems she was carrying around. Every once in awhile I would speak to her therapists, but that could also feel like a boundary issue, and at times Joanne got very upset with this perceived hand-holding. I certainly didn’t want to make therapy seem unsafe for her, but it was a very difficult balance to try to maintain. Money was tough. I was a grad student and made very little. Joanne hopped from job to job, often didn’t get many hours, and had large periods of unemployment. I wish I was making enough so we weren’t reliant on some income from Joanne, but that would have meant me giving up everything I worked towards. This was all compounded by the fact that Joanne really had no idea how to budget and no interest in it. She knew she wanted things and I was the one who had to tell her we couldn’t afford them. This was a common source of argument. I tried to include her on budgeting, but she didn’t want to think about it. I tried giving her an allowance, but she felt like I was treating her like a child. I tried to tie what she got to how much money she was making, and she always felt like she should have more. When I asked her how she thought we afforded to live, she would just get upset and storm off. The bulk of the money came from my income, and I spent very little of it on things for myself. There was no more money to be had, but she had difficulty resolving that with her wants. I found very little support for myself throughout this. I didn’t tell many of my friends about Joanne’s condition, because many of them were her friends too, and although we’d all like to pretend we’re great people, most folks just don’t understand mental illness. Tell people your wife is bipolar and pretty soon it’s just always sitting there in the back of their mind, trying to process what that means and judging every action through that lens**. I wanted to give Joanne some shot at normalcy. My family just never really understood it, and nobody really wants their family in the middle of their marriage in the first place. I’d tell them what was going on with Joanne’s life, and maybe mention if she was a little depressed or something, but I gave very few of the nasty details. Part of this may be just a function of how my family interacts, but I really don’t think my family understands mental illness at all. Whenever they saw Joanne they would comment that she looked good or seemed well or whatever, but they often missed a lot of the signs of overspending, talking out of character, and just wanting to do bizarre things that I could pick up on. I tried to go to therapy for myself on four occasions with four different therapists. In every instance, the condensed version of our interaction was: “oh wow that’s awful. Well, it sounds like you’re handling things as well as you can. Why are you here?” I’d ask for suggestions on how to handle things, and they’d either have no clue or simply make suggestions of things I’d already tried. They were trying to help, but gently caress, there’s only so much that can be said. There are many support groups online for family members of those with bipolar. Digging through these yielded little relief. People’s stories ranged from “my husband was sick, got on meds, and got better” to “I took the kids and left the cheating bastard and never looked back.” Few people discussed the ongoing struggle, and when I posted my own stories and asked for advice, I mostly got “either accept it or leave her.” I remember a big question I got at the time was “is it worth it?” The short answer I got was “only you can answer that.” And that, ultimately, was my conclusion. There are no correct answers when dealing with mental illness. If you choose to stay or choose to leave, either is okay, and there is no need to feel bad about either. You just have to do your best. No matter what you do, you probably won’t be rewarded for it. Dealing with mental illness brings up a lot of tough questions. Is this person still really your spouse? Is this really who you married? Yes, you meant it when you said “in sickness and in health,” but what happens when the sickness is a part of them? What happens when it changes who your partner really is? Where is the line between the person you married and the sickness that influences their actions and perceptions? There’s no answer to this. Do your best. Do what’s right for you. Make your decision and know that it’s okay, no matter what you choose. There were five years of up and down slides and countless things I never could have imagined happening to me or Joanne. Why did I stay? Ultimately, that came down to three things: 1. I cared for Joanne. I cared about her well-being. And at the end of the day, I couldn’t be sure what would happen to her if I left. Most likely, she would either end up on the streets, or end up living with Sharon, and neither of those felt very good. 2. I believed Joanne could one day become stable. Even though there were swings, there were undeniable signs of progress with Joanne. I was never sure if our relationship could ever get back to a healthy marriage, but I knew that I’d never find out unless we got her to some point of stability first. If I didn’t stick around to at least see that, I knew that some part of me would regret ducking out. 3. I loved Joanne. Being with her, her personality, her originality, were all great things. Those pieces were still, for the most part there, even through it all. We married young and basically had grown up together. I knew her better than anyone else, even herself. It was hard to imagine losing that part of my life. Each of these points would shift in priority, and I seriously considered leaving many times. There were certainly short separations and other things. And it’s important to note that this is occurring over five years: much of that time, things were actually normal, fine, and happy. It’s just when things got bad, they got really bad. In the end, I made the decision to stay, at least until things either got stable or too terrible for me to handle, on the condition, of course, that Joanne was always seeking treatment and always improving. ------------------ ** To be fair, I can be a little closed off at times about personal things with my friends, and so part of this may have been fueled by the fact that I didn’t want a lot of my friends intertwined with the deeply personal parts of my life. I’m not sure what I would recommend to those going through this. I feel like even if I had told more of my friends, there’s not really too much that they’d be able to help me with.
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Dec 24, 2013 21:02
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jeffsleepy posted:Wow. This makes you a much less sympathetic character. It's crossed the line from heroically supporting your wife to just being a huge pushover towards her whole family. And for sure, it was always on my mind that I never wanted to end up like Joanne's parents. Fork of Unknown Origins posted:I wouldn't even argue that it was right or honorable to stick through the marriage, because in a situation like that there's not a right or honorable choice. There are a multitude of bad choices and a lot of living with the consequences of the decision you made. I don't think I would make the same one he did, but I'm not in the shoes of someone who got married to someone I was madly in love with and then had her completely change in ways that she wasn't really responsible for, especially since in the back of my head I could think 'with the right medication maybe she'd be back to normal.' onemanlan posted:At what point do you ask yourself 'Is this worth it?' quote:Did you ever find yourself wondering if you had made the right choices in staying by her? quote:For that matter was there thought to your end goals with staying by her? Did you have expectations on what would be a satisfactory change in her disease or did you just keep hoping for a return for normalcy? Very Nice Eraser posted:How much of your decision to stay would you say was out of love, versus fear of guilt if you left? Serious Sam posted:We all do actions to benefit others if it matters, but in the end to benefit our own life. That's not to say that any of these things describe why I stayed. Trust me, there's being a good guy, and then there's going through hell without benefiting anyone. If it was clear that there was no chance Joanne would become stable, I would have left immediately. quote:It kills the thread, but I know we will never know anyway so I don't worry. But the reason to stay with a girl that makes life so hard, when life is so short, is beyond me. joat mon posted:Even looking at it from a self interested standpoint, that is the person you love, but that person you are in love with is gone but her shell is still there. And every day is another chance to see that smile or hear that laugh or have that repartee again or find the person you love who has gone missing but you know is still there, somewhere.
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Dec 24, 2013 21:33
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Just wanted to say that this is one of the better threads I have read here at SA. I have my own personal "Joanne" in my life (my mother) who I believe has a serious case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, so it really hits home just how toxic these controlling types are. The good news is that all of my mothers inter-personal relationships are all designed to fail so for the last 6 years we haven't spoke to each other. Good riddance.
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Dec 24, 2013 23:46
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This is a pretty amazing read OP, and I wish you continuing luck in trying to hold things together and improve your lives 
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Dec 25, 2013 03:32
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Thread really hits home for me. My mom is bipolar and paranoid schizophrenic. Her mom is mentally ill but has never tried to get help so the only thing I can say for sure is she's a controlling bitch. Mom's mind kind of broke and she had a horrifying series of episodes before I was born. One time she walked at least 50 miles down the highway while she was hallucinating. The whole family has been either standoffish or straight up assholes, my grandma is so ashamed of my mom's illness and has called her useless. She has been on medication ever since I was little, and I have never seen her hallucinate, But her life has been kind of in pieces ever since I can remember and she has always been very very depressed about it. I definitely know what it's like to love someone so much and not be able to do anything for them.
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Dec 25, 2013 08:54
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Merry Christmas OP, I hope it's easier this year than the experience we've heard in the thread. Thanks for sharing your story with us.
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Dec 25, 2013 14:43
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FunWithWombats posted:Even though there were swings, there were undeniable signs of progress with Joanne. I was never sure if our relationship could ever get back to a healthy marriage, but I knew that I’d never find out unless we got her to some point of stability first. If I didn’t stick around to at least see that, I knew that some part of me would regret ducking out. How undeniable? You never had that feeling where you wonder if you're just imagining the progress because you want to see that so badly?
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Dec 25, 2013 15:32
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Thanks for the thread. Just want to say that you are a good person for standing by her (at least up to this point in the thread). I really hope you both have a happy ending.
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Dec 26, 2013 00:11
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Great thread, OP. You mentioned that you slowly forgot what 20-year old Joanne was like. Does she remember? Was it like someone else's life for her? Also, it sounds like she just "snapped" one day and became sick. Do people ever just snap back on their own? Or is it pretty much a one-way street?
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Dec 26, 2013 07:56
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Good thread OP, thanks for sharing.
Malcolm fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Dec 26, 2013 |
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Dec 26, 2013 08:38
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Amazing thread OP. This is a really candid look into what mental illness is like from the outside. Like a lot of other people, I also have a "Sharon" in my family, and reading about these symptoms just makes me see it a little clearer. I will admit that I have always had something of a flippant view of mental illness. Especially in high school I knew a lot of people who would just say "Yeah I'm Bipolar/Depressed/Aspergers" without ever having gotten a diagnosis that wasn't from WedMD really made me look at mental illnesses as a cop out to act like an idiot, but reading this really makes me think a lot more about people who really do suffer from these problems.
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Dec 26, 2013 08:47
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Thank you OP for a thought provoking thread. I have a bit of experience with working with mental illness in a psychiatric hospital. Luckily the hospital I worked at is much more relaxed than the hospital you described, for example the visiting hours are almost all day and you can stay for 2 hours with the patient. My friend also stayed for a bit in a mental institution, she liked it when we came over to play Scrabble with her. It's important to feel that you're still part of the life outside the hospital, I think. I hope she got better, OP. The thought that it never did is so sad. Sometimes it does get better, but I guess the relationship would never be the same again. You're not a spouse and a lover anymore, you've turned into a caretaker.
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Dec 26, 2013 12:07
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 07:02 |
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FunWithWombats posted:Sorry for disappearing, I've been travelling and hadn't had a chance to touch this. You use the past tense repeatedly here, making it sound like all of this has changed and this isn't where things stand. Is Part X that describes your current situation with Joanne?
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Dec 30, 2013 18:30
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