Support system crumbling

My parents have been taking the kids since I was in the hospital. Every day they ask me when I will be done with the partial program because they want to get back to their lives, implying that I will be all better once I am done. I have an issue with this because I don't know when I will be better and I feel like I won't be able to ask for their help once I am done with the partial program because I used up the quota of babysitting hours. I offered to hire a daycare so that they could have a break and then my mom played the martyr card.

I am getting frustrated because my husband is doing the same thing. If I ask for one small thing like, "please stay home tonight because I had a really rough day and I don't think I can handle dinner and bed with the kids", he says "no."

Why is it that people are willing to support me until they no longer think I need it because I cracked a smile that day? Does that mean I am all better?

Would you ask a cancer patient how long it will take for their chemo to work? Would you take away a cancer patient's support system when you decide she is better, or because she didn't spend that day puking?

I am feeling like such a burden on my family and it is interfering with my recovery. When I talk about it with anyone (which I learned to do in partial) I end up in an argument about how I ask too much of people. Seriously, Is asking my husband to stay home one night out of the millions of nights he could go out and asking my parents to please drop the kids off at my house so I could go straight home from a difficult 7 hour day of therapy too much? Apparently.

This is becoming a real trigger for me. I was thinking briefly about hurting myself last night, but I made a promise at partial that I would stay safe.

Sorry for rambling. I guess I am just needy

I am really sorry to hear your support system is falling apart. Did you tell your parents how you feel about you being rushed to recover? I would like to think that they should support you and their lives would be there when you were feeling better. As for your husband, does he understand what you are going through at all? Sorry if I sound harsh, but he should be there to help you out when you need him. If that means comming home from work and taking over everything, that is what he SHOULD be doing. I wish you all the best. Hope I didn't offend you.

Not offended at all. I think he wants to escape it because he talks about how stressed he is and that he needs to blow off steam. He doesn't go out much and he does do a lot around the house and with the kids, but I really needed him because I was having major anxiety. In fact I am sitting on the couch feeling my heart pound out of my chest right now. I am afraid I will end up back in the inpatient if I am not allowed to recover.

What was the hospital like? Did you feel safer/better there than at home? Curious. I'm heading that way if things don't improve soon. I don't know how much more I can take either.

They shouldn't rush you. Everyone has stress, but not everyone has a mood disorder that makes you prisoner to your brain's plummeting chemistry. If they felt the way we did, most of them would've ended their lives long ago. I swear, if I didn't endure as much crap as I have in my life, I don't know how I could survive these feelings. I think the reason why men "succeed" 3-4 times more often than women is because they haven't endured x many years since early adolescence of 13-17 periods per year of having their emotions and bodies regularly attacking them even if they don't have a mood disorder. Life is a living hell for some of us and that's not self-pity. That is the ****ing truth. There is a reason why, as David Foster Wallace wrote, most aim for the head. It is the source of our agony. It is not something that positive thinking or exercise or being grateful for what we do have will take away. That only works if your chemistry is already balanced or getting there.

Don't get down on yourself for being down. If you need to, walk yourself to the hospital and re-check yourself in. I just may do it myself because I'm not getting the help I need right now.

There's always another option. Don't believe the either/or voice.

Im sorry things are still so very rough for you and that your support system seems to be slipping away. Maybe your parents need some information on bipolar illness?? Maybe they really do think that you will be all "healed" and ready to go when you are done with partial.Maybe they have no idea that this is a long term illness and from now on you very may be filled with many ups and downs and maybe even future hospitalizations.As far as your husband goes,has he sat down with you and your pdoc at all or was he present when your docs visited you while hospitalized? I know my ex was there on several occassions when i was in the hospital and now here recently,my bf has sat down with me and my pdoc because he doesnt understand that my moods (which is what i struggle with the most) are often out of my control and that i dont mean to be up and down and all over the place.I think when he heard this from a professional it made a little more sense to him.I hope i have said something that may help you even a little bit....you are in my thoughts and i cant wait for the day when you can come on here and say "yea,i am feeling a little bit better,i am starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel".......hugs to you