I have been with someone off and on for the past 20 years who I suspect suffers from manic depression. Over the past 20 years the episodes seem to be getting more frequent and suggest a cycle. At present she is doing a 30 day stint in jail for drunk driving. She has done a total of about 4 years in prison out of the last 20.
I would estimate that about 80% of the time she is an absolutely delightful person to be around. Interesting, clean, charming, attractive and intelligent. This problem has progressed to the point now where her slips are amost once a month and they seem to last from 6 to 10 days. Zanyx and alcohol together are her drugs of choice. I have always suspected some underlying mental issue contributed to her addictions. Proffessional counselors simply say she is alcoholic.
Recently she underwent a serious surgery where she was confined to ICU for over 30 days because of a lingering lung infection. She had no access to drugs or alcohol but was on low doses of pain meds that didn’t seem to affect her.
While she was confined to the hospital the same mental illness and behavior kicked in. It is usually characterized by sexual aggression, more rapid speech, memory loss, lack of ability to follow any directions. Never physical violence but she gets pretty nasty verbaly.
Some physical signs that I have noticed that preclude these episodes are the bending of her right wrist in a funny fashion and a funny way she seems to hold one of her feet when sitting or lying down and an odd “swagger” in her walk. She seems to walk as if she is on a mission.
Phyc’s have repeatedly told her that she is normal. History includes probably fifty admissions to hospitals for od’s or injuries related to being loaded. 30 totaled out cars. about 4 years in prison. maybe 10 years in drug rehabs.
She easily finds jobs but seldom lasts more than 2 months, they love her at work until an episode hits and then she is gone. I have been trying to help her get on SSI but the Dr’s seem to think she is normal. I am baffled what to do. I can’t keep helping her but I see a lot of good and hate to just let her go.
I’m not sure what the factual question here is, but it seems to me that the very first step you should look into is counseling for your own codependency. I would bet that once you start making progress in dealing with your own issue of codependency (perhaps though individual therapy or a group like Al-Anon), your options for how best to deal with your partner’s mental illness and addiction problems will be made clearer.
Where the fuck are you getting “codependency” out of that post? 
You are diagnosing badger5149 with a mental problem on the basis that he is concerned about the mental health of someone else that he has known for 20 years. Aren’t people allowed to care about their fellow humans any more?
Having said that, I am not sure what to tell badger5149. If she has seen medical professionals and they are not diagnosing her, it is hard to see what more you can do. Is she willing to try to get some appropriate treatment again, or resistant to it? Does she have decent medical insurance? Unfortunately, in the USA, mental health is often poorly covered even by otherwise adequate plans.
I should have posed a better question. I am looking for better sources of mental health care. No insurance. And yes she is somewhat resistant in that she seems to be incapable of addressing to a proffessional this aspect of her life. She apparently has no memory of these episodes, or little memory, she seems to remember things in the begaining and toward the end but nothing in the middle. She had no idea why she was in the hospital after having a lung removed yet she was perfectly coherrent albiet a bit manic. A recomendation for mental health care in this field is what I am looking for.
Manic depression is characterized by extended periods of depression as well as manic episodes. If she is a delight when she is not manic it does not appear to be manic depression. It could be that the pain medication in the hospital was narcotic and an effect like alchohol on her. Lots of addicts are described as being charming when not drunk or high. Ravenman’s suggestion of Al-Anon sounds like a good idea. They would have resources to help you understand what is going on better than anyone on a message board.
I kind of suspect that there is an extended period of depression even though she seems to hide it. She isolates for long periods and has zero friends. She enjoys the casual interactions with people on her 3 or 4 dog walks each day but avoids close friendships like the plague. Quite a few patterns I have noticed that always lead up to another episode. Instead of her regular daytime shows and evening shows on TV she switches to music videos. This is usually my first clue. Shortly after that I will notice her holding her right hand in an odd position and doing little odd movenmets with her feet.
As for me I remove myself durring these periods but check on her once a day and drop off some food. They usually conclude with an ambulance or police car taking her away.
I have family members who exhibit similar behaviors. We’ve tried to help them, but to not avail. Lesson learned: not everyone can be helped. And it’s not due to inadequate healthcare or treatment. Some people simply cannot be helped.
I think being unable to leave a relationship in spite of significant consequences (“I can’t keep helping her but I see a lot of good and hate to just let her go”) when the other person is an untreated addict (“Zanyx and alcohol together are her drugs of choice”) who dole out mental abuse (“Never physical violence but she gets pretty nasty verbaly”) on a frequent basis (" her slips are amost once a month and they seem to last from 6 to 10 days.") are pretty much the red-flag warning signs for codependency.
I’m surprised anyone can read that OP and not immediately see that badger5149 is completely stuck in a relationship (of some kind) that he knows is unhealthy and traumatizing, and yet can’t get out of and is incapable of dealing with it on his own. My heart really goes out to badger – I can hardly imagine the heartbreak of someone going in and out of rehab, jail, and hospitals so often, and I would bet anything it is the same type of experience that other companions of addicts have been put through. Let’s keep in mind that codependent relationships were first observed as something that the loved ones of addicts routinely went through.
On preview, I see badger is asking a different question, so I won’t continue the hijack, other than to add that I hope badger can seek some more in-depth, professional assistance than we could possibly provide. I truly hope he does the right thing.
Many mental illnesses are hard to diagnose in a person who’s continually using/relapsing to drugs/alcohol. It’s generally best to have the patient be free of mood-altering substances for a good year or more, and see what happens to their symptoms, before giving them a diagnosis such as depression, bipolar, etc. Many long-diagnosed mental illnesses to seem to clear up in folks who manage to stay sober long enough too.
Of course, many folks have both alcoholism AND other mental health diagnoses which need treatment specific to them.
Or as a pshrink friend of mine says: “Some people have ticks. Some have fleas. Some have ticks and fleas.”
A lot of my patients have ticks and fleas, some in the metaphorical sense, some in the literal sense. Some in both. :smack:
Manic depression is a frustrating mess.
I have a few family members with it. There’s really no cut-and-dried “cycle”, and no easy test, what SIL did was go on meds (Lithium worked best) and see if it helped. OMG did it ever! On meds, totally normal, happy, functioning wife and mom. Forget meds, and watch out: she soon decides the meds are keeping her from Creativity and Her Next Big Adventure (like quitting her job and hopping a train to Mexico).
She doesn’t get much depression; just a lot of manic.
First question we ask when she says she’s had a great idea: “Have you been taking your pills every day? No? Go do that right now, NOW, and then we’ll talk, Now. Yes. Go. I’ll hold.”
Ravenman, I appreciate the input. I will readily admit to having my own issues and fully realize there is a trade off here that is somehow working for me. I have the all American clean cut girl for about 3 weeks then I have about 1 week of wild sex. I don’t do well in relationships in general because I simply can’t seem to pull myself away from things and hobbies I tend to obsess over. In the evening we laugh and talk and make love, we cook together, and for some strange reason I am able to be affectionate toward her which I have always found difficult with other women. So yes it is not a one sided issue.
Laughing here! That sounds more like me!
A monthly cycle sounds a bit unstable even for bipolar I. Granted, if you add some alcoholism and schizoaffective comorbidities to it you could conceivably come up with someone as breath-takingly irresponsible as your friend.
The resistance to pain meds is interesting in combination with alcoholism. It’s tempting to say chronic mental pain of depression (self-medicated with alcohol) has “hardened” her to some extent. I know my own methods of dealing with depression have dramatically increased my pain tolerance as well as drug resistance (apendicitis felt like a minor but unmoving gas pain for about a week, I went to the doc because I figured out what was going on, doc confirmed it and sent me to ER; wife insisted they give me morphine which didn’t affect the discomfort or my sobriety).
As for your friend, if she can’t accept having a problem with alcohol or craziness, there’s really nothing you (or she) can do to get better. Considering most people make decisions that are reasonable to them in the moment, she may not even realize she ever behaves inappropriately. Life’s just hard and she catches bad breaks. With that in mind, of course she can’t open up to a shrink–she doesn’t have a problem.
I’ll echo the sentiments that alcohol is a big factor. Not sure what Zanyx is, but adding more drugs to alcohol seldom makes things any better. And it’s easy for someone with bipolar or addictive issues a clean bill of health from a doctor if they just act normal and explain their actions rationally, so that doesn’t tell you much. But this does sound like people I’ve known. Behavior that could be described as bipolar or BPD, but really is just one of the clearest signs of ‘alchoholism’, radical personality change when intoxicated. The time spent in the hospital could be a red herring, or manifestation of the same symptoms as a result of the medications she was taking, possibly saving them up to get a better high. But IANA doctor, and there isn’t a lot of info here. Like every other person who is having issues of these kind, if she doesn’t admit to them and seek help, it will take some pretty bad stuff may have to happen to her before she takes steps. And even then I’ve seen people complete court ordered probation where they had to stay off drugs and alcohol, and stay out of trouble, and then as soon as the leash comes off the behavior starts up again immediatly.
I assume that was supposed to be Xanax.
I’ve been with a girl who has the exact same cycles. Her cycles were about every three months. She has been through multiple stints in rehab, therapists, ect… She did the lithium treatment as well and seemed to work but when she wanted to go on a tear she would quit the medicine and be 3 states away staying drunk for a couple weeks… After these trips she would be suicidal and try half heartedly then spend a couple days in the hospital with the doctors saying she just needs to lay off the booze for a while… woof
From what I’ve seen the alcohol is the way bi-polar people self medicate to slow down the manic highs and try to escape the come downs so the alcohol isn’t the underlying problem, the mental illness is. They are normal sweet human beings until their brain switches then there is nothing anyone can do but sit and wait for it to be over. It’s traumatic every time and they blame the world, go through the apology stage, back to normal, and then repeat… I really do feel for you and know exactly where you’re at.
First of all, is her monthly slips related to her ovulation/menstrual cycle? Don’t know why it would but that might be an important piece of information .
Second, I’m going to go out on a limb and ask if she has ever been evaluated for temporal lobe seizures. I lived with a woman for two years with MD and while I saw some behavior changes when she would have an episode, I can’t recall any physical symptoms. It appears there is a link between Xanax use and temporal lobe seizures and while some of the symptoms you describe match what I observed (the sex and talking during the manic phase), some of the other ones I never saw. I also don’t see any of the depressive phase in your description. Does she lay in bed and cry with no motivation to do anything? Does she express suicidal thoughts?
She is now 60 and has had this problem since high school. The frequency has increased but not the severity. A couple of years ago she had a hysterectomy but no noticeable change. She was still having menstruating up until her hysterectomy at 59 which I thought was unusual. When we first met she might go a couple of years at a time ok and then fall hard and over the years has gradually increased to the point it is now. At 21 she spent close to a month in a coma from an OD, I sometimes wonder if their may be more brain damage than seems apparent. She has a memory for song titles and singers, actresses, actors etc that is unreal. I have never heard of most of them and she instantly knows them.
badger5149, I know from experience that if someone’s an adult, you can’t really force them into any sort of treatment/therapy/whatever if they themselves won’t admit they have a problem. I know this from experience because for many years as an adult, I denied having mental illness (or rather, denied I needed help.) Now I admit to it, and I’m getting help for it, and I’m a better person.
badger5149, I suggest you try to discuss it with her.
How much Xanax is she taking? Is she under a prescription, or is she getting it illicitly? If she is taking Xanax irregularly, maybe benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome is part of the problem. That shit is highly addictive, and if she goes without for periods, it will cause breaks such as you have described.