Posted by Gracie2 on November 1, 2002, at 20:54:40
In reply to Re: Divorce and Mental Illness » Cheryl Barnacle, posted by judy1 on October 31, 2002, at 11:20:41
At first I wanted to tell you to stay around and support him as much as you could without compromising your own sanity. I've been with my husband for almost 20 years; I've been rather emotionally fragile from the start and done some really unacceptable things. But I don't believe that I've been truely psychotic. Like other wives,
I've worried about and looked for infidelity, probably to the point of being paranoid, because I've never seen evidence of an affair.But when you said that your husband believed you were in the FBI (assuming that you aren't), this moves from the realm of paranoia to a real break with reality. This is definately crossing the line into severe mental impairment. From what I've read, most psychotics are not dangerous to anyone but themselves. Still, if you decided to live with him again, particularly if he was not good about taking his medication, you would start to feel more and more like a care-giver rather than a wife. You would have to be prepared for that.
I recommend that you watch the movie "A Beautiful Mind". Being a 2-hour movie, it can only touch upon the difficulties of being married to a person who suffers from psychosis. But I enjoyed the movie because it does show that a person with mental impairments can be intelligent - extremely intelligent - although they cannot function like everyone else in everyday life. They have their own drummer.
Whether you can live with that is a an extremely personal and brave decision that you can only make for yourself.
-Gracie
poster:Gracie2
thread:31806
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20021022/msgs/31919.html