Nonfatal physical illness can do this just as effectively as mental illness. Trust me, I’ve been there.
I wouldn’t be worried by the medication per se. That drug has many alternate uses (described by some other posters). If you were fine with your boyfriend’s mental health prior to seeing that use for the drug then I don’t think that you should be any more concerned now.
If you are still feeling very anxious however, consider asking your boyfriend if he’ll let you talk to his doctor. This is not a request even a fiance will automatically say yes to - medical information is sensitive after all - but he might. Alternatively, you could get him to ask why he’s on that specific medication.
The boyfriend could presumably waive that if it came down to it (and he sounds like the type who might).
I think the doctor can speak with her if the boyfriend authorizes it.
Wow! Just when I think I’m on everyone’s ignore list …
Well, thank you for your input. I am probably panicking about this because I spoke to my friend who is a nurse/pactitioner. She told me that firstly, he is on the smallest possible dose and it is most likely being used as an off label sort of thing. He seems to feel that it is helping immensely. I am not sure for how long he will be taking the drug. I am concerned that it will eventually lose its effectiveness as he develops a tolerance to it, and that there will be problems as he searches for a substitute. I spoke with him earlier and he said that first thing Monday he is going to sign whatever needs to be signed in order for me to speak to her directly or to have the both of us sit in with her together.
In response to it being a deal-breaker for me, I just have to say that of course you marry in sickness and in health an if one spouse becomes ill it is your duty to care for him, but anyone is a fool to go into a marriage knowing that it is a matter of time before your spouse becomes terminal, or so mentally effected that he may become abusive. You are not being do-gooder, you are being a masochist.
There is a wise saying, “marry in haste, repent at leisure.” I see nothing wrong with you saying you are not ready to marry him yet. You and he have both had major, major life events in the past year and to my cautious self it seems way too early to be talking marriage. For his own good, I think he should be stable before setting a date to marry. For your sake, give yourself a little more time to heal from the loss of your husband. Love each other, just don’t rush into marriage.
Have him go off his medication for a month. If you can stand him, marry him
Then we are all fools, since we all die.
People are no no less vile to their partners because they have a physical and not a mental health issue. People who are preoccupied or self-focused because of anything will behave similarly.
[psychologist]I have not seen any correlation between general mental illness and “becoming abusive.” [/psychologist]
Bad idea! Really, really bad idea! Really outstandingly bad idea! (Sorry, Yogsosoth - I’ve got all the respect in the world for the Old Ones. But you’re way off base here).
Going off one’s psych meds without a doctor’s say-so is dangerous, just as it’s dangerous to stop any other course of treatment prescribed by a doctor. Not only would it be cruel and dangerous to force someone to endure the symptoms of a mental illness without treatment so that you can see “what it’s like” - there’s also a danger of withdrawal symptoms when you discontinue some psych meds.
Don’t do this. Don’t even suggest that your boyfriend do this.
On second thought, you’re probably right. Would be interesting though. I suppose it depends on how badly he needs the meds. Maybe it can be eased off for a couple of days, then restarted?
Yep, I was put on a drug that is best known as an antipsychotic for antidepressant-boosting purposes about a year ago. If I understand it correctly, it had been used off-label for that purpose for a long time, but it recently had been approved by the FDA for it, so it was no longer off-label. Nevertheless, I was extremely concerned about going on an “antipsychotic.” I didn’t want the suggestion of psychosis in my record anywhere. Fortunately, my doctor was understanding and didn’t pooh-pooh my concerns. In the end I decided to try it because I trusted my doctor’s judgement that the potential pros outweighed the cons. As it happened, it didn’t do a damn thing for me. Oh well. We tried something else that works better. So what I’m trying to say is I understand where you’re coming from.
But I think everyone’s ignoring the elephant in the room–that a big part of the problem might be that it has been a very short time since your husband’s death. It may be too soon for you to be engaged to another man. Would it be possible that you’re siezing on this drug thing as a justification for taking a step back and reevaluating whether you want to marry again right away?
I agree 100%. Marriage is difficult enough with someone who’s sane.
My advice is to postpone things a bit. If you are having second thoughts, there is a good chance that deep down, you know you are making a mistake.
Well, 'Bean, your point is well-taken, but I had grieved for many months for my hubby before he finally passed. I wasn’t looking for anyone at that point, but he just came into my life and love isn’t always on time. I do not think that I am trying to move away from this man, as I do truly love him and all of his good traits which way outweigh the neg ones (one, really).
So, tell me, what was it that finally worked for you?
Susan, perhaps assuming that if a person has a mental disease that he is more likely to abuse is slanted thinking, but aren’t they more unpredictable? Isn’t mental illness even less well understood by medical science and harder to treat than physical illness?
I think you’re making way too much of a fuss because he’s taking an antipsychotic med. Using antipsychotics as an adjunct depression therapy is all the rage these days. Here in southern California, almost every practicing doctor has now embraced the prevailing medical theory that all women are born with a congenital sertraline deficiency. Just turned forty and you’re still single? You don’t even have to ask your doctor—Zoloft is right for you! Tossing some second-generation neuroleptics into the mix is just the tres chic thing to do now. Haven’t you seen the ads for Abilify and Seroquel? You don’t have to be cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs anymore to take them. Half my wife’s friends are on them.
So, my tongue-in-cheek aspersions against the antidepressant industry notwithstanding, you’re totally off base in assuming that boyfriend has an organic pathology that he’s going to pass on to his offspring. From the way you described it, sounds to me like he’s got a little PTSD going on, got a scrip for an SSRI, and later needed a little booster when the first drug didn’t quite cut the mustard. Big schmeil. I’ll bet he’s off both drugs in a few years, tops—probably a lot sooner than that.
It’s not that simple. It’s one thing to know that there’s a chance you’ll have to deal with a tragedy in the future. It would be different to go into something knowing you are facing horrible suffering and inevitable death in a few years. I married my husband knowing he’d had cancer and there was a chance he’d develop it in the future–but if he’d had CF or MD? I would have been gone long before there was any chance I’d fall in love.
I’ve got to say “no” to both of these, in my clinical experience. I think what you need to do is talk with him and his doctor so that you have some information. You have a lot of concerns and discomfort that those conversations might decrease, or at least clarify.
If you don’t actually know what his mental illness is and how it manifests, I don’t think you know him well enough to be talking marriage yet.
To marry a person is to accept both his good and bad; if you can’t, then you better not. Just a friendly advice.
As to the question is your boyfriend crazy? Crazy is too vague here. Mental illness usually have different symptoms, some more tolerated than others (mild depression vs. manic depression, for example). Crazy is essentially a social label. All mental illness lead to some degree of irrational thinking, but not all would cause someone to cease functioning in society. So unless you know the medical term of the illness, it’s hard to say what sort of impact it would have on married life.
That said, a mental illness is pretty much chemical imbalance in the brain and could be cause by lot of things - and fixed by lots of things. Diet, for one, would help to remedy some of the imbalance problems. I have been encouraged to eat more fish, broccoli and yogurt, for instance, for my depression. That’s not necessary a ‘crazy people diet’ - someone else could eat those for other reasons too. Same for those medications.
ETA: On unpredictable and understanding of mental illness: I’m not a doctor; I suggest finding some books on depression/psychotherapy and find out. It’s not 100% mysteriously, but it’s not clear-cut. It’s ‘difficult’ in a sense that the person has to play a big role in altering his moods, thinking and behaviour - it won’t just go away by popping a pill; but if you don’t pop the pill, the former is not going to happen easily.
If you are having such serious doubts this late in the game,whether right or wrongly, you are not ready to marry this man.
It could be that you are not really ready to marry anyone yet.
The subconscious can be a funny thing.
“Late in the game”? They’ve only been dating for 6 months. Her last husband died a year ago. Did I somehow stumble onto the Black Widow Forum? :eek: