I was diagnosed at 18 with unspecified bipolar with psychotic features, general anxiety disorder, ADHD, and borderline personality disorder.

I have been having issues with my wife and mother in law that seem to make my borderline personality disorder and bipolar come out into a full blown psychotic episode. When I mean psychotic, my brain hijacks itself and I fall into a Alice in Wonderland type of delusional disorder. These episodes cause hallucinations, strong almost unbreakable delusions, and anxiety that would be the equivalent to being stranded in the middle of the ocean with no one around and finally realizing that there is a gigantic shark fin beginning to circle your presence. I can only describe this anxiety as Apocalyptic Anxiety because this level of fear, distrust, and panicking would amount to same that one would feel on the last day of the existence of this world.

How it all started. When I first meet my wife, she was sweet, shy, and and had a sort of seducing innocence to her. My wife and I lived completely different lives. She grew up in a protected and loving conservative Christian household. While by the age of 24. I had seen murder, been abused as a child (mostly psychological and emotional), and been sexually abused by before I even reached the first grade.

When my wife and I were dating, we got along well, and it seemed like I was doing better. I was happier, never really felt suicidal, and seem to be less introverted. I even started to attend church with her. Her mom and dad always seemed really sweet and caring. After a couple of years into the relationship, my intuition started to arouse itself. My intuition is never wrong, when it tells me that something is amiss, there always is. My intuition have saved my life multiple times. Th few times I decided not to listen to it has caused some very devastating consequences. My wife told me some of the things that my mother in law said while we dated were:

*Your 18 and your boyfriend is 23. That is too old for him to be dating you. I don't like it.

*One day wife tells mother in law she wants to be married to me, mil (mother in law) stated, you know you don't have to marry him just because you've dating him the longest.

*Mil is trying to control the relationship from the start, wife had a curfew, she wasnt allowed to spend the night, when I was at her house, she didnt like the door to the bedroom being closed, or me taking a nap in my wifes bed. I was working 7 days a week 10-14 hours a day. I often slept between shifts.

However, I looked over these things and thought she was just being over protective, but this was just the start of the serpent climbing the tree.

Fast forward to engagement. After we were engaged mil still forbidded her to stay the night or move in with me. However, my wife started to get tired of this controlling behavior and ignored her request. Mil would constantly call her while at my residence ensuring her daughter was ok, mil would get upset if wife didn't want to pick up the phone. Because mil expected a phone call whenever she went to or left my residence, this caused my wife to get into an automibile accident one day, while she was trying to dial her moms phone number, she collided with an object. She just walked away with scratches.

While engaged, mil started to do what I call standard transferring. She would talk to wife and tell her how she would like for me to hcnage in certain areas, and suggest (I used that word as an understatement) how we should live our lives. At first, I thought nothing of it, I brushed it off. These conversations would become longer, more demanding, and more intense. Then they turned into full blown arguments. These suggestible things were:

*You need to stay right here in town and never leave. The problem with this is there are no jobs down here and everything from housing and groceries are inflated. To give you a breakdown, if you made over $10 an hour, then you are doing awesome. 50% of the jobs in this town pay less than $10. My parents, came to their senses and relized that it was not worth staying here anymore. Both of them make over six figure salaries, but were concerned with the economic development of the community. They packed and left to move up north. When I suggested to my wife, we do the same for a better future, she became hyseterical and the answer was never. I should have called off the wedding and left. But I was too ignorant to understand what was really going on.

*You need to go to church, sunday school, wednesday night bible study and sunday night bible study. I was chilled with this at first. However, it became apparent through my inution that mil was manipulating the pastor to control me as well. In the beginning I did not like my pastor, but was required to socialize with him, in order to do mandated marriage counseling. Eventully, I did come to accept him, and became baptized and joined the church, but ended the relationshp, after I was called selfish, because my mil was constantly wanting her daughter at home with her, after we were married, more on this later.

*He needs to find an 8-5, M-F, job. He doesn't need to be working two jobs and needs to be at home taking care of wife. Again not feasible, there are no jobs that follow that schedule unless you are a teacher and that is about it. I worked two jobs to put wife through nursing school, and during this time she barely helped with cleaning the house or taking care of our dog. When I asked her to help clean or assit with anything she would go into these angry fits of rage and tell me that I never did anything, we wouldn't be having to do this if I finished my college degree, which I couldn't working two jobs, that I needed to stop complaining all the time because she worked too. She worked 20 hours a week, and I worked 60. I had to spend my one day off a week, cleaning a weeks worth of dishes she helped pile up, 6 hours of laundry, and so on.

*He needs to work at so and so. I did give in and try working at this place she suggested. In order to keep me safe, let's just say I left my current job and went to work at this one. It was commission and found out this company was an absolute scam, even my boss admitted it was, and how great it felt he was making six figures by lying to people, and giving them nothing for what they paid for. Due to my ethics, there was no way I could do this. I left the company, I had $800 of debt just for working with them, and emptied out my largest 401 k so we could pay the bills, because I never got one pay check in weeks, people knew who this company was and wanted nothing to do with them, so sales were impossible. After I left the company my wife and her family called me a failure and told me I couldn't finish anything, or just to suck it up and do it anyways. Even my pastor told her family, that I was just lazy and unmotivated, and didn't want to have to work.

Fast forward to marriage.

Mil constantly wanted to be in the spotlight. Whenever we were having trouble wife, would call mil, and would come to the rescue. Because of this, my wife lost a lot of respect for me and at one point told me she wished she never had married me. The biggest problem after we got married was my wife's car. My mil thought it would be a great idea to fiance a car at $400, add full coverage ins,with a recent accident, that was another $225, and gas to drive back and forth to school an hour each way every day another $200, Her car costs was almost as much as our rent. O, and wife only made about $150 a week working part time. But Mil said we be fine with the car payment. Mil said she would pay the car off after the wedding and never did. Begged my wife to find something cheaper, she would not hear it or want anything to do with that concept.

We were constantly short on money, my wife screamed at me a lot and had physically hit me at times because of money issues. I was doing all I could, but there no jobs. Mil would constantly chime in to keep paying bills that we did not need to have, and were better off cutting off. Mil kept telling my wife I should go work at these places, but with me having common sense, when asking around, found these were terrible places to work. At one point, my wife had an opening at her job. I had the skills and education for the job, but my wife told me to stay away, that I was not allowed to work with her. This job would have solved our money problems, but my wife again would not hear it. So we stayed poor and constantly listen to her criticism of how I can't take care of us.

One day, after we had been married for a couple years, I was beginning to have a complete mental breakdown. My wife told me to stop complaining. I talked to mil about how I was feeling, I still regret to this day. Basically I told mil I love my wife, but lately my delusions were acting up and thought it would be good to go to the hospital for a couple weeks. Mil went bat **** crazy, started crying in public, and making a scene, telling me she didn't want me to hurt her daughter, that she would pray for me. This was one of my most regrettable decisions I ever made.

When I left the church, because my pastor was constantly criticizing me and both in laws would not leave me alone about going, my wife for once felt the same way. Mil got desperate and doing all she could for attention, bribing and begging. To this day, it was one of the best decisions I have made.

In, the last year

I finally landed a really high paying job, and now I am getting us out of debt and have all the bills paid on time, wife still complains it is my fault we got here. Wife and I separated checking accounts, I didn't want her to have access to my salary, because I wanted the bills paid off and gone, where as my wife would like to go out and spend $40-50 eating out everyday if she could. Cutting her off from my money was a good thing. Because now she realizes that I pay 80% of the bills and I leave my wife to struggle with keep her spending under control. Its kinda payback for all the times she *****ed me out that we never had any money.

My wife injured both her ankles. Mil was insistent and manipulating as **** about taking care of her. Things got really unsettling from here. Wife would not even speak to me while at home with her parents. Mostly whenever my wife and her mother are together, I know mil is being manipulating and filling her head with ideas, because she comes home all hateful towards me, and tells me how much I screwed up. Wife said she couldn't talk at night because mil wanted to sleep in the bed with her in case she needed anything. At this point my heart, brain, spirit, and intuition told me run, and never look back. I got upset with the way she was acting, and finally that is when IT happen. “it” is a psychological defense mechanism that kicks in when I have had enough of everyone's ********. Basically in a nutshell it is called depersonalization.

What does “it” do?
*All emotions are cut off immediately, and there is no emotion during this episode.
*all social ties are cut. Effective immediately I don't respond anymore to socialization.
*The demons come out, the hallucinations and delusions begin. I start hearing voices in the wall, I worry about aliens abducting me, I panic at night thinking the black eye kids are going to knock on the door and come for my soul. I begin to think I am a german stripper that works in new orleans in a french quarter bar or I think that I am a male version of laura croft and want to flee to the amazon rain forest to live among the indigenous people. Either way the episodes are exetremely stressful and hard to deal with. The more people provoke me while I am in this stage the deeper I sink into this world. My p-doc has taken precautions and is ready to admit me as soon as this episode starts or I can try to get through it at home, with 4 mg of ativan, and try to sleep it off.

99% of people that know me, are aware of my conditions, not my delusions, but when I start to get quiet and withdrawn, everybody backs off and gives me my space, and lets me know they are there if I need any help.

I went through this episode again, when my father in law was in the hospital really sick. My mil didn't stay with him at the hospital, instead she went around to everyone, trying to get them to feel sorry for her, and coxed my wife into to staying with her an entire week again. This time when IT came, it almost ended my existence. I constantly stared at dangerous objects and thought how easy, fun, and quick it would be to off myself and be gone of this world of suffering. I am glad I didn't. But mil seems to drive me into this state quite frequently. I am thinking its time to leave my wife and her family for the sake of my mental health.