Family support

[Jess]

My husband was diagnosed with paranoid schizoaffective disorder this past year. In hindsight it all made sense.

All the craziness that I continued to attempt to fix and nothing changed. We moved 4 times in 4 years and every time his reasons seemed right and he was the person I trusted to make good decisions for our family. His jealousy and possessiveness I took as a compliment in the beginning. His mood swings I thought was the bi-polar (his original diagnosis). His increased absolutely off the wall psychotic behavior when drinking I thought was due to his ongoing battle with alcohol abuse. I literally had to sneak away and lie to go to NAMI meetings because he thought everyone was against him and he didn’t want me to go to a place to talk about him. I did everything just so he would trust me. So much more that I can’t even begin to explain was my experience leading up to his diagnosis.

He has come to realize he can’t drink and he needs meds. This in part was due to me not wanting to stay if he wasn’t taking care of himself. I am the only one he truly trusts and I feel completely responsible for his well being and I don’t know if I can do this for the rest of my life. I am angry at this disease.

You may suggest meds and yes he continues to try different meds but the only med we have found to work this far is a med I like to call the miracle drug, it’s a med that changes him to “normal” I have my husband back when he is on risperidol . Here is the catch it gives him heart palpitations after about 3 weeks and he feels like it is causing a heart attack. His family is in denial and my family is almost scared for me to be with him. Everyone always askes “do you feel like he will hurt you?” . He would never hurt me or the girls he trusts us but to anyone else I don’t really know . We have children and this is so hard on them. That is an understatement. I don’t know what to do for 3 girls this affects, a husband that needs me and no one that seems to understand how tired I am.