wife left, wants divorce, possibly bipolar

[ryepatch]

[quote=ryepatch]

I think anxiety comes with being a LBS. I had to take sleeping pills the first couple weeks after W told me she was leaving. Did you have anxiety problems before your marital ones?

yeah, i did, i've always had some anxiety, just thought it was justified by the stresses in my life. for three and a half months the anxiety's been out of control because of the situation, but i've realized it's a real problem and i've always had panic attacks, which are real and the symptoms are real even if it's caused by stuff in your brain, your brain directs your heart to start pounding, etc., plus you get a weird feeling of dissociation from yourself.

i've realized that my anxiety has been seriously affected by her moods, and that's what caused me to crack down on her, put pressure on her to figure out RIGHT THIS MINUTE what her problem is, which doesn't work if you have a mood disorder. so she'd come up with explanations under pressure, and we'd come up with solutions which would never get to the root of the problem, and she'd get even more frustrated and her moods would swing even lower after each attempt and she started believing in the "explanations." so my anxiety would get even worse because it seemed like no matter what we did, she would crash and not be happy with the results.

i've always had trouble falling asleep at night, too. . .

i'm on antidepressants which have taken the edge off the anxiety most of the time in the last couple weeks, and i think just figuring this out will help.