Hi all. This is long. Also, not 100% sure if this is the right forum though I have been lurking Lamictal related issues here and found people here friendly/relatable to my situation.
I’m 32 and my wife is 31. We’ve been together for 13 years or almost all of our adult life. We have two children together, ages 6 and 3. We are an upper-middle class family with stable finances and little stress from work. Our six-year-old boy has been diagnosed with autism about 3.5 years ago. During that time, she was sad and stressed about the situation. We’ve gotten into numerous fights about treatment options. She wanted to try alternative treatments such as supplements, different kind of antibiotics from non-medical doctors, etc. I belittled her methods - calling them quacks and scams accompanied with other snide remarks. It caused a lot of friction in our marriage although I ultimately relented and agreed to do all those treatments. While I still disagree with those treatments, it was my approach that I regretted.
She did not have any noticeable episodes of depression up to this point. Over the course of the next couple of years she began to become more withdrawn from the outside world. She stopped wanting to host our annual Friendsgiving or hanging out with other parents’ with children. We seriously entertained moving to a different state because she wasn’t happy where we were in life despite outward success. She would sometimes be anxious and scream at our children, a little beyond her normal self. I chalked it up as stress and didn’t draw any red flags.
About a year ago, she got to a point in her depression where she could no longer go to work or even the desire to get out of bed. All she wanted to do was sink into her bed. She was also passively suicidal with thoughts of “I wish I weren’t alive” “I wish I were dead”. She didn’t want any drugs to treat her depression so instead she received four hours a day of intensive therapy for two weeks. It was mildly helpful and she returned to work. Nothing much happened for a couple of months until she had another episode of extreme sadness. It was also during this period when she started to tell me that she didn’t love me anymore – how she wishes I were more romantic, that I told her I love her more frequently, that she’s special to me, etc. I began taking her to more places to travel, and did some of the things she listed. Although trying, but because I am not expressive in those categories, I didn’t do a great job at it that was satisfactory to her. Her mood was mostly sad though occasionally angry.
Shortly after how she told me she no longer loves me, she began taking Celexa (20mg) because other areas of her life were crumbling besides mine. She was again having trouble sleeping, low energy, feeling worthlessness/hopeless, basically all the signs of a depressive episode. And like a magic potion, it worked immediately, the day of taking the first pill. Her energy levels were amazing, she could sleep, she was happy about me and life again. This period of time was amazing in our lives where I felt like I had my wife back that I haven’t seen in a couple of years. She stopped taking Celexa three months later because she started breaking out like a teenager. She had some mild withdrawal symptoms but nothing too major. Things were fine for a bit. I was happy that she was now she wasn’t even relying on psychiatric meds.
About two months ago, she suggested a talk of separation saying again that she doesn’t love me anymore and that she’s unhappy and trapped in our marriage. A couple of nights later, while checking her phone, I discovered that she’s been chatting with her coworker for about 4-5 hours a day via text. Those texts were flirty and sexual in nature. When confronted, she insisted she’s done nothing wrong because she never went out with him or did anything physical with him. She said that she’s doing that to fill the void that I was not fulfilling. We decided to seek a marriage counselor. In the back of my mind, I felt like this has to do with her depression and that once she gets out of this state, she will be “back to normal.”
About 3-4 weeks went by where it was me attempting to make things up to her. Unlike her time with Celexa, she rebuffed all my attempts. She found my presence annoying – everything little thing I did bothered her. We’d have a good day with a couple bad days in between, or if we’re lucky, the ratio was reversed. Her other symptoms besides hating me got worse and we went to the urgent care to get a different brand of SSRI hoping to aid her depression. There, we were sent to an ER (because of her passive suicidal thoughts) and was in volunteer hold for 12 hours before seeing a therapist. The day after, she began Zoloft (50mg).
Her symptoms didn’t improve this time. She was getting more agitated, more irritable, while still depressed the majority of the time. One evening, she and her mom got into a massive verbal argument. They were screaming rate R things at each other, which is slightly out of character. It followed with them throwing things at each other.
They released her after 24 hours and started her on Lexapro (5mg) instead of Zoloft.
Her mood was still irritable during the first week of Lexapro but she was no longer as sad as she was when she was on Zoloft/nothing. She was very angry at me and kept saying I’m the cause of her depression. That I need to be removed from her life if she wants to be happy. Her mind is made and that she 100% wants a separation. That day, we began to talk through the logistic of the separation and I was ready to move out because I’ve been emotionally drained. This is the toughest period of my life.
Then that evening, I spoke with a pharmacist and a physiatrist acquaintance of mine (this was about a week ago) and they said that her behavior is more consistent with bipolar than it is with depression. Usually depressed people don’t get as confrontational/irritable. They felt like her pdoc misdiagnosed her with general depression and shouldn’t have given her SSRI. Further, my physiatrist acquaintance said that it’s a red flag when the Celexa worked almost immediately. And that she was/is probably in a hypomanic state. He said if I talk to her pdoc she would mostly agree and ask for a 2nd opinion if that’s not the case. I went with her to see her pdoc a couple of days later and doc’s in agreement that she should stop SSRI and try something new.
So for the last four days, she started on 25 mg of Lamictal. It’s been causing her to be sleepy/drowsy. She no longer hates me (yay!). Last night she told me she thinks I’m a good husband and father. However, she still insists on us getting a separation. She still wants to be free/independent. She doesn’t want me to hinder her ability to seek true happiness. She claims it has nothing to do with the co-worker fling and that she’s stopped talking to him entirely. She says she doesn’t want to get a divorce because she’s afraid she’ll regret the decision. She says I can continue to live in the house and raise our children together. We still share a bed, have great sex (in fact nearly daily due to her increased in libido), hang out with our kids, and share some of our work/life problems together. But she’s not super close to me emotionally at the moment, at least not all the time.
I decided I’m sticking around for a bit. I’m hoping that her decision to separate from me is partly due to her BP. While I recognize that we have some issues, I don’t think that they warrant us getting a divorce. On top of that, we have two young children who need us. The docs say that it’ll take about 2-4 weeks before she starts to feel better on lamictal. I feel a bit foolish putting our marriage in the hands of a drug to solve it but I’m out of cards to play. I don’t know what else to do. In the meantime, I feel like if I were to move out of the house, our marriage is effectively over. She keeps asking me to move on to find a different woman. I know most people with a BP/depressed spouse don’t make it. I also desperately want to because I still love her and love our children.
I’m at a loss. I'm having trouble eating/sleeping/being productive at work. I’d would like to hear thoughts from those of you who are going/gone through BP. What should or can I do in this situation?
Thanks for reading.