[yagalada]

long story short: my husband is a very awesome supportive person most of the time but he does not believe in medication and mental illness for the most part. he often thinks that people use bipolar as an excuse for bad behavior, and his mom and sister definitely do that but not everyone.

my husband has been through the mental health system too for major depression, he had some bad experiences so i think this is also contributing.

i'm trying to explain that i am hearing things and he says i probably just have an ear infection. i try to explain everything else and he says i'm being a hypochondriac and overthinking.

i really try hard to watch my moods, i dont use bipolar as an excuse to be a jerk but he doesnt accept that i'm really sick. i'm afraid that if he does get out of denial and accept im bipolar and have psychosis issues once and a while he'll leave me.

any suggestions on how i should approach him about waking up to the fact i'm sick right now?

[blueoctober]

yagalada, perhaps it would be beneficial to go to couples counseling? If he's not willing to go to couples counseling, you may want to go yourself. The therapist may have ideas on how to deal with this. It may also help for your husband to go to a Pdoc appointment with you. I went to a bipolar education group that was excellent and there were many spouses, family members that were there, so perhaps they offer a similar program in your area. The book in my signature is for spouses and family members......based on your post I don't know if he would be willing to read it.

We can't force people to understand, empathize with what we're experiencing and perhaps his bias comes from his experiences growing up. It may also come from his fears of his own experiences with mental illness. As far as people using it as an excuse I'm sure there are people that can do this, but it's also difficult to make that judgement without actually experiencing what they're going through.

[Moose72]

Ugh. I went through this with my now-ex-boyfriend. It's horrible. Every excuse given except the reality: bipolar 1.

[PT52]

Originally Posted by yagalada

long story short: my husband is a very awesome supportive person most of the time but he does not believe in medication and mental illness for the most part. he often thinks that people use bipolar as an excuse for bad behavior, and his mom and sister definitely do that but not everyone.

my husband has been through the mental health system too for major depression, he had some bad experiences so i think this is also contributing.

i'm trying to explain that i am hearing things and he says i probably just have an ear infection. i try to explain everything else and he says i'm being a hypochondriac and overthinking.

i really try hard to watch my moods, i dont use bipolar as an excuse to be a jerk but he doesnt accept that i'm really sick. i'm afraid that if he does get out of denial and accept im bipolar and have psychosis issues once and a while he'll leave me.

any suggestions on how i should approach him about waking up to the fact i'm sick right now?

My husband accepted my diagnosis, but expected I would pop one pill and be "cured". He would also ask over and over how come I didn't know sooner and other questions that I couldn't answer. One of the hardest things to accept is that you can't live in fear that he will leave you. It causes you more anxiety which can trigger episodes and it could end up self-fulfilling prophecy. And, no matter what you do, he might leave anyway, because he is the only one in control of his actions. The other thing that is hard to accept is that he is an adult and even if his experiences in the past make him wary, he still has the intellectual capacity to understand your position. You've explained it to him, now the ball is in his court. Men are "fixers" and they can be total jerks when there's something they can't fix.

What helped me was to stop talking to him about it and moving forward with my therapy on my own. If he brought it up, I'd keep it light and short. As soon as I decided not to participate in the argument, it stopped. Because it takes two to tango. It took a while, but now my husband is very supportive. He asks questions now because he really wants to understand.

Maybe you could ask him to just be supportive of what decisions you make for your own well-being. Tell him you don't always have to agree in order to be supportive of someone you love. Ask him to be patient while you figure this out and try not to judge you based on past perceptions.

Sorry if this is long - this kind of thing makes my heart hurt because it doesn't have to be that way, and you don't deserve it.

[lonegael]

Agree with Pt52, at some point you have to take care of what is happening to you regardless of what he thinks. Thats hard for us to do because we mistrust ourselves so much, it's hard to remember what we feel, if we really saw what we thought we saw, if things were really so bad, but, generally, we did, and they were. This is frightening stuff, and if there is one thing that particularly frightens a lot of people it is the loss of control that mental illness stand for in their eyes. It is easier to deny it than admit that yes, it can happen. It sounds like the less said about it to him, the better, at least for the time being. Give him some time and break it to him slowly. HUGGGSSSSS

[yagalada]

Oddly enough, I was upset about a dr's appointment on friday crying about having to be tested for a bunch of things and worried I might be really physically sick. My husband opened up to me and said that its easier for him to brush everything off because he's worried for me too. He said he he sees whats going on with mania too and it hurts him because there's not much he can do. I'm just going to let everything drop now because I know he's hearing me, which is all I want. I know he needs his own space to process everything now. And I kinda do as well, because life just feels out of control lately.

[PT52]

I hope that you find your balance again. Sending lots of peaceful vibes...