insane exboyfriend--i can still care... angry.

I was reading the marriage question post and it brought up a topic that i am dealing with--

someone said the word "boyfriend" doesnt explain how committed and serious a relationship may be...and it's true. you can have a "boyfriend" when you're 9 and see the guy on the playground at school twice a week...

anyways, I posted a TON on here in the summer. I had been dating Nick at that point for over 4 and a half years and had known him for about 7 years... He had been acting weird and awful and I was really upset about his drinking that seemed to revert back to the habits he had as a 19 year old in college (he is now 26)--we were living together (about two years)--I was very close to his family, I thought I was going to marry him, blah blah...

then he breaks up with me and after the awful few months we had, it was really upsetting and horrible but I couldn't deny that I couldnt live like how we had been...

I think I was in shock during that whole time period though--I barely remember it. --

then, within just a few weeks of the break up (and I promptly moved out, as did he...we canceled the lease of our apartment)--he began acting even more crazy.

I dont want to go through the details because its too exhausting, but he was kicked out of law school, fired from his job, did a ton of crazy things, spent a ton of money, slept with a million girls, blah blah--bought a one-way first class ticket to the south... finally his parents found him in Florida where they had him committed. he was diagnosed as bipolar--in a state of mania that turned to psychosis.

So, I mean--I had thought he was "off" within the first week or so after the break up but even then, I was aware i might just have an "irrational ex-girlfriend" syndrome --but i was definitely the first person who thought there was a problem. Everyone was judgmental of any worry I had--EVEN THOUGH i completely disclaimed everything saying maybe I'm just crazy, but please keep an eye out for him...just in case...

then when they all realized the truth, i was there to comfort THEM even though they had persecuted ME. They all had to ramble about why they didnt realize sooner, or why they encouraged his crazy behavior, or ignored it..

errr i'm still so bitter.

so then he comes back from the hospital, he's still crazy for awhile but never quite as bad--but then in Decemberish, he finally crashed. Now he is in a full blown horrible depressive state--he is suicidal. No one was taking it seriously. not even his family. his sister didnt want to "upset" his mom with details---NO ONE was admitting how serious it was. I couldnt handle it all on my own. He was suicidal! he found his friends gun but there was no ammo--he drove to a parking structure to jump--but then got really scared about how his dad would have to get his car. (apparently the good thing about being bipolar-depressive is they have trouble making decisions when something stresses them...)He is a textbook case--he is so nervous and he cant talk and he feels so anxious and god, its the worst thing in the world. seeing him like this makes me feel so broken. and no one was taking it seriously. his mom would get upset and act like he wasnt being rational. why dont they read about the disease? why dont they understand its NOT something he is doing--its not that he is just being stupid...why arent they talking to doctors? he doesnt have health insurance, but THEY do. why arent they reading everything they can, like me? going to meetings?

his friends think he's being "lame" now--

his sister said "what can i do? he has to ask for help, i cant force it"--him talking about how he WANTS to be committed again is the only way he CAN ask for help. he isnt OKAY IN THE BRAIN. what do they expect? him to rationally describe his issues and tell them exactly what to do? he cant understand anything except he feels horrible. and trust me, he is a very smart, NONdramatic person--even if they dont believe in mental illness (his best friend does not, refused to hide the shotgun when i told him nick had found it and tried to use it)--so yes, even if they do not believe in mental illness--dont they at least recognize that someone they have known for decades had such an intense and sudden and extreme personality change that for whatever the actual cause, something is wrong and dangerous?

i feel such crazy anger. I finally was almost rude to his family and he is now staying with them--i mean ill do ANYTHING in the world for him but i just cant do the same things his family can. I dont have the legal abilities---i dont have the safe world they can provide--he needs to be babied, treated, cared for constantly--taken to doctors appts, given his medicine... and his family are great great people. i think they are too upset --or they arent listening or learning what they can--are they misinformed?

But on top of this all, the whole WORLD seems to think because he is my "exboyfriend" i should just remove myself from the situation. Its not that i talk about it too much either--its just that anytime anyone gets wind of the situation, they are all eager to tell me what to do, --he was NOT a casual boyfriend. He was my best friend and my world for most of my adult life.

it cant just be cut off.... He was the most important person to me for five years. it doesnt just END with a few months of odd behavior.

I think we SHOULD be broken up. I dont think we are right for each other but that doesnt mean i dont still love him more than anything. I dont think i could ever love anyone as much as i love him. I feel almost more motherly to him than i ever felt romantically.

He seems to feel the same way about me but of course, he's literally crazy so its not like he's even capable of thinking about romantic feelings right now.

but i just am so so so tired of everyone giving me their little snobby judgmental opinions about what i should do--and the rest of the people in his life being so overcome with denial or stupidity or sadness that they arent helping him.

you HELP those you love and then you cry about it at night when you are alone. you CONFRONT the issues and you deal with it and you take all the cautionary measures and then you have your break downs when you have a free moment--you dont put someone's life in jeapordy because you are having trouble dealing with the situation.

I just want to be able to talk to MY nick, my real nick, for an hour. I want him to feel okay. He doesnt have health insurance either--so its not like he can just be committed again or get all the good help from good doctors.

but its like, just because his label to me is "exboyfriend" doesnt mean he isnt the most important person to me --more than family. he is more than anyone could be. all those times i was mad at him... i never knew how hard he tried to be good and make me happy... he didnt have the capacity to even FEEL things like i did-- he never wanted to hurt anyone. he apologizes everyday now for so many little things that i dont even remember happening... he hates himself so much and he wants to die so badly. i never thought to fear mental illness. I fear tragedies and cancer and fluke accidents and mistakes--i didnt think to fear mental illness...

i'm even dating someone else now who i feel more compatible with than i ever did with nick--i have no idea how that happened. he even understands the nick situation as much as i could expect anyone to--

but sometimes i just feel violently angry at the world. nick never did anything bad to anyone and he never has been trouble in his whole life--and yes, he was horrible when manic but its a disease. he broke up with me and ruined most of last year with his mania (before i knew it was mania) and i was able to understand it was a disease--why do people have to keep telling me to just get away from him? would they say that if it was my brother? or dad?

i'm not rational in this post. i just really wanted to be angry. i KNOW how unbelievably hard this must be for his parents--well, i dont know "know" but i mean, i can imagine--i can imagine nothing worse than having your child have something like this--they probably blame themselves, they probably are so scared and in such pain--but i just wish we could all help him in the best of our ability and deal with our pain when he falls asleep at night--

and ever since i almost forced myself on them one night and told them how bad the suicide stuff was and how he wasnt capable of being rational, he has been staying with them and they are really great people and his sister is now more involved.

things really improved in the last week or so. but i think i'm still just so angry about the months where it was just me going to his cold dirty apartment trying to figure out a way to make sure he didnt kill himself.

ha i sound crazy now. i'm very tired. i'm sorry for this long message. hopefully no one reads this! i'm definitely not editing it.

Well, I read it. If his parents need education about bipolar disorder, you might have to educate them. The good news is that THERE IS HELP FOR THIS DISEASE! If they don't understand that, the disease looks much, much scarier.

I'm glad things are better for him right now, that his family is more involved. I think your anger is perfectly understandable; I know I'd be mad, too, in that situation.

I hope he gets the help he needs, and I'm glad he's got you for a friend. He will be, too, once he gets into treatment.

Hi,

It sounds like you have had a crazy year.  My mother and brother are severely bi-polar.  I understand the disease and know a bit of what you are going through.  It sounds like something triggered his illness.  My mother’s trigger was my birth, and my brother has had it since his teens.  This is a very hard disease to deal with.  I understand your frustration, pain, and anger.  I have this too.

Is he on medication?  You said he does not have insurance… how about Medicaid??  Are his parents able to claim him?? 

For the majority of individuals a combination of medication and psychotherapy can help him normalize the disease.  This should be the first step.  He will have to be on medication and psychotherapy for the rest of his life (not a bad thing!). 

If you want to talk more about this, PM me.  J

My

I understand that you love him, but don't let this ruin your current relationship.

Educate his parents to the best of your ability, but ultimitly it's a lifelong battle and you can get sucked down into a spiral if they don't understand how seriousl it is.  Nick is feeling the worst of it now and wants help, that's good that means he will take his meds and go to therapy, that's all you can really do.

Bi polar or any severe mental illness is difficult for everyone, both for the person experiencing it and for family/friends. A really good organization and support group is the National Alliance for Mentally Ill (NAMI).  there you will find education, support from other families dealing with severe mental illness, and advocacy for the mentally ill.  NAMI is a caring group who really do understand what you and your loved one is going through.  I'm sure your ex-boyfriend appreciates your support.

zombie spam?

Original Post by laurasump:


 He doesnt have health insurance either--so its not like he can just be committed again or get all the good help from good doctors.

 They can potentially be approved for SS because they're bipolar and then medicaid pays for their treatment. Was he actually diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder? If so: That's something that should be taken into consideration. If he qualify for SSI benefits, he should be eligible to receive Medicaid.

Good luck.

Holy cow, first I was just going to add to what enchanting said, but I went back and read more of your post.

My mother-in-law is bi-polar and the stories are VERY similar. In only 5 years of knowing her, she has moved out of her home twice, wracked up massive debt (moving out and when she was living at home), threatened suicide, faked overdosing, tried to kill herself, goes into massive fits of rage for reasons that only exist in her head, been promiscuous with other men, even dating one at one point when she moved out (She's been married for 20+ yrs), and been fired from I don't know HOW MANY jobs. At least 6. Also, supposed memory loss--she flat out doesn't remember things but I'm not sure if it's a bi-polar symptom or just her other meds (SUPPOSEDLY, she has fibromayalsia but I think that's just a crock)

Her episodes are SO clear, it amazes me that people miss this stuff. It just build and builds. And then the blow up, then the down-fall, then the depression. Once she re-organized an entire room in 2 days, hauling crap up 2 flights of stairs and slept maybe 4 hours in that time period and got pissed when her husband wouldn't help her in the middle of the night.

But that's the thing--from an objective stand-point, it's all so very clear. But for family, it's not. Her kids know she is ill, but her husband just enables her. He always takes her back, cleans up the mess, pays 3 months rent to cancel new apartment lease, works his bum off to get caught back up financially. I mean, they are not that far from retirement and I don't think he'll ever be able to retire!!! Just like your ex's family is doing--enabling. They will have this roller-coaster for the rest of his life, meds or not. He will continue to suffer through massive mood swings, depression to the point of suicide, and manic stages. Bi-polar people are also great manipulaters, which makes it all much, much worse.

Anyway, I understand the intense anger. I have a hard time not going of the deep end while talking about her and her episodes (I'm pretty sure we're on the upswing presently, she was slamming objects against the wall last weekend in anger for reasons unknown). It hurts her family SO much that it's difficult for me to have any sympathy for her, especially when she wants to pretend nothings wrong or going on. They usually come up with all these great reasons that make sense to them for their behaviors--her's is frequently that her husband "doesn't spend enough time with her" which leads to the moving out and so on. I get very, very upset about it because, despite the illness, it is hard to watch that person hurt so many and seem to have no remorse.

So take advantage of the fact that he is seeking help, that he agrees that something is wrong.

There are other methods of insurance that are not income based. In my state, we have a medicaid waiver for children (it might be called something else for adults, SPMI maybe?) that requires that the person be diagnosed with an SED (severe emotional disorder--trust me, bi-polar qualifies) Please find a health care provider who sees medicaid patients and ask them how to obtain it. Also, like enchanting said, apply for ssi or ssdi. Having a severe disorder should allow him to get assistance. Also, for his family in denial, just print out the info and highlight the big points and say "LOOK what he's done, look what's on this list: it's the SAME)

looks like this thread is over a year old. Chances are the OP has resolved the issue?

Oops. Stupid spam...

no worries, we all get snagged by them  :)

 

Spam removed  :D

Zombie post, but it reminds me of a guy I used to know when I was a teenager.

Nice guy, but not quite right. Made amazing art with lots of primary colors and tunnel vision. Had a weird fascination with the #27 Majestic bus route.

One day, he started talking about how all matter is just a series of vibrations and that it should be easy to "phase shift" his atoms to walk through walls, objects, people... we didn't think much of it, just thought "crazy man talking crazy ****, take another bong hit ha ha".

One fine, sunny morning not long after, he decided to try phase shifting through an oncoming #27 Majestic bus.

In retrospect, we should have all known that he was suffering from severe and advancing delusional states. Probably wouldn't have taken much in the way of meds to bring him back to our reality, but for whatever reason none of us wanted to take responsibility of it or make ourselves accept the fact that he was ill and not just goofing.

Could you have made him get help, do you think?

Original Post by peaches0405:

Spam removed  :D

 Thanks Peaches. Now it looks like I zombied this thread !!

LOL

MADE him? I dunno. Possibly. I think the guilt we collectively felt over it was the fact that we recognized, even if only vaguely, that he wasn't right and that we could have, should have done something.

I dunno, it's probably just run-of-the-mill survivors guilt. I still think about him sometimes, he was a pretty cool dude, if a bit off-the-wall.

My husband had that situation (well, sort of) a kid on the bus in middle school was a total jerk for a some time. They had been friends as children, but then the boy became very anti-social and brooding. One day the kid turned around asked if my husband wanted to hang out with him after school. My husband at the time told him to leave him alone (after all, the kid had been mean for a while and at the time, the kid interrupted his reading--he's pretty snappish when interrupted). Later that night, the boy committed suicide.

Like you said, survivor's guilt. At that age, there was no way my husband could have seen that coming. But it doesn't stop you from feeling bad for the rest of your life--especially now, where we work in the mental health field and those signs of depression are so obvious to us. It's certainly a case of the if-only's.