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Hello In the middle!
I read your post with great interest and empathy. I can really relate to what you are going through, as I have been through similar stuff. I don't know if I can offer you any advice, but you definitely have my moral support and best wishes.
It is so typical for your husband to not want to take his medication. He probably feels like he is putting himself into a vulnerable position, by submitting to taking medication. He may also feel like it is some kind of poison and that others are trying to control him. If he is manic, he definitely won't want to take his medication, because he feels like he has life by the balls. I also have bipolar, and I understand the power of the manic high.
In your case, you have the added burden of his mother, thinking she has all the answers for her son, and refusing to believe he has any need for the medications. If she agrees to the meds, then she feels like she is admitting to some kind of wrong doing - like it is her direct fault that he has bipolar. She probably feels like she would be admitting to a failure if she agrees to the meds. Since you think she may also have bipolar, this puts her in an even worse position on the subject of taking meds. If she agrees to her son taking them, she may have to take a good look at herself and realize that (subconsciously) she needs to take them herself. And, heaven forbid that she come to that realization. If she has gone all of her life until now, denying the possible truth, she will not be motivated to change now. Even though she did not directly cause her son to have bipolar, many parents feel this strange need to lay blame for everything, and they just can't take feeling like they caused something like bipolar. I, personally, feel like we are born with certain pre-dispositions to things like bipolar, anxiety, high blood pressure and so on. Then, I think certain events in our lives can cause those pre-dispositions to manifest themselves in the form of these disorders or diseases. It is no one's fault; it just is what it is. That is the way life is. I don't see why some people feel such a need to place blame for everything bad that happends to them or their friends or loved ones.
So, what do you do? My experience with my husband taught me that I had to wait until he "crashed" or came down off the manic high. In his case, the only way this would happen is if he got into some kind of encounter with the law or if I had him involuntarily committed to the local mental hospital. He would commit a variety of crimes, such as bashing in mail boxes, starting grass fires or even attempting to abuse me physically. The police would be called; he would go to jail; he would either get meds in jail or they would send him to a mental hospital, where they would give him meds. After a few weeks, he would come down from his manic high, and start to see things more clearly. He would return to his own self, and it would be such a relief for my son and me. We would go on for a while, quite a long while, until he got to the point where he no longer felt like he needed the drugs or he got very stressed out, and he would start to get manic again.
You are doing the best that you can do by trying to educate your mother in law. She may not act like she is getting anything out of this, but with any luck, over time, she will come to get a better understanding of bipolar. My dad was very resistant to reading anything about bipolar when I was first diagnosed, and it took a lot of time and persistence for him to start paying attention to the literature I would bring to him. Today, he is my number one advocate and even asks me from time to time, if I am still taking my medication!
Everyone is different, and I hope you don't have to commit your husband to a hospital involuntarily. It is a lousy experience, and your souse may always mistrust you for doing it to him. My husband always understood why I did it when he was off his manic high, but when he became manic again, he would become very angry at me and blame me for every single little thing I had done to him - including the commitment.
And, I really hope your husband doesn't get into any kind of criminal activities. I don't think that is typical of someone who is bipolar. It just seems that the bipolar person needs some kind of "shock" or life altering event to make them come off their manic high and slow down long enough to be treated with medications. For your husband, it might mean an intervention on your behalf. Does your husband have any brothers or sisters who might be willing to help you out with this? Sometimes, the siblings can be a great resource for stuff like this.
I hope that some of this is helpful. I do understand your pain. It is awful to be accused, day in and day out, of being the reason for everything bad that happened to someone in their lives. I never completely figured out if it was the disorder, by itself, causing the negative talk, or if it was some sort of deep-seated internal resentment, toward me or other bad things in his life, that caused my husband to lash out at me the way he did. His level of hatred was shocking and almost impossible to take. I am very sad to say that my husband died a little over two years ago from a combination of bipolar and COPD.
I have so much more I could share with you, but that would take up far too much space. If you want to talk with me in more detail, about your experiences with all of this, why don't you shoot me an e-mail? My address is kayomholt@hotmail.com.
In the meantime, I wish you the very best in getting through all of this. My heart and prayers go out to you,
Kay
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