The Bipolar Spouse

by M.K.
(Graduate Student)

Bipolar disorder came into our lives quite unexpectedly. Yes, we knew mental illness was hereditary in my wife’s family and that Andrea had been unofficially diagnosed with hypomania in college. No one ever told us to be on the lookout, we had no reason to even consider the possibility. However, when she was finally correctly diagnosed over a year after her initial manic episode, it all seemed to make sense for the first time.

My wife and I have lived with bipolar disorder for over two years now. While she was the one diagnosed, we have travelled this oft bumpy road together. This is a short account of our journey thus far with bipolar disorder.

Nearly two and a half years ago as we were approaching the end of our term of service in Peace Corps Thailand, Andrea began experiencing mental and emotional shifts in her mood and affect. Andrea sought medical advice from our medical director and went to a psychiatrist in Bangkok where she was misdiagnosed with depression. Surely she was struggling with depression but that was only half the story as we were to later find out. Andrea began taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills. As it turns out, these medications can actually exacerbate mania.

Andrea had become obsessive and delusional in her thinking. She was unable to function outside the house. She wasn’t sleeping and would obsess about the most insignificant things. When we left Thailand at the end of our service, Andrea was to travel from Thailand to Kansas, Kansas to Ethiopia, Ethiopia to Indiana, Indiana to Kansas and finally Kansas to Utah! As if it weren’t enough starting our lives afresh after Peace Corps, Andrea went to Ethiopia with her sister to help adopt a baby boy.

I didn’t hear much from them while they were in Africa. I drove to meet them at the airport in South Bend, Indiana. When they arrived, Andrea looked vacant, gone. There was no life in her eyes, she hardly seemed happy to see me. I chocked it up to stress: she had been through a hell of a lot. The two of us drove back together to her sister’s house and that’s when I realized how far gone was Andrea. She was sure that I had slept with all of her friends while she was away. She was completely paranoid. I didn’t know what to make of it other than it was a continuation of her delusional thinking from Thailand.

After a couple nights of solid rest at her sister’s, Andrea slowly came back to herself. Her sister recounted Andrea’s strange behavior in Ethiopia. I can’t remember too many of the details other than that what I heard was disturbing to say the least. Andrea and I travelled back from Indiana to Kansas where we readied to move to Utah. I was to enter training at a wilderness therapy program to be a field instructor. Andrea had already secured a job at a local Head Start. Packing what few possessions we could fit into our car we headed to another foreign land to start our lives anew.

I entered training not long after arriving which required spending time away from her in the backcountry. We had difficulty arranging an apartment immediately and Andrea was forced to live in a motel. The first night I was able to come back and see her after training, Andrea appeared ready to crack. Her state was so fragile: a light breeze could’ve blown her to pieces.

It was like she was waiting to have a place to finally let it all out. That weekend we moved into our apartment and before we even had the car unpacked, Andrea started acting very strangely. What was more disturbing was how distant she became from me emotionally. This was someone I had known and loved for years now. She no longer acted like the same person I married.

We moved into our apartment on a Friday and by Sunday Andrea was in the hospital. Over the course of the weekend her condition deteriorated to the point where I feared for both of our safety. Andrea’s behavior had become erratic, even psychotic. She would get impulses to go do the most random things. I literally had to carry her to the car to drive her to the hospital. She was so gone I half expected her to jump out of the moving car on the way!

The doctor and social worker were amazed at the intensity of Andrea’s elevation and mania. I watched her as she was taken in the back of an ambulance to be admitted to the hospital’s behavioral health clinic. I went home that night to an apartment in a strange town, hundreds of miles from family and friends. I felt a strange sense of relief mixed with devastation and despair. My wife, partner and best friend was in the hospital by herself in this strange new town.

Andrea spent six days and her 28th birthday in the hospital. The doctor sat us down before discharging her and gave Andrea her accurate diagnoses of bipolar disorder. This was only the beginning of our journey. Since then we have worked together in couple’s counseling doing a lot of psycho education around bipolar disorder. Andrea has found a medication she is happy to take and has been helpful in stabilizing her moods. We keep some stronger medication around for when the mania creeps back as it inevitably does. Through the support of skilled therapists, appropriate medication, a stable life and a loving partner, Andrea is thriving once again.