Not sure what I have

[Guzzard]

where do you guys live? (You don't have to be specific) but What are your winters like?

I think it's safe to say She has at least moderate seasonal affective disorder. Combined with her bi-polar illness, it's a rough combo.

The midwest, and yes, she was diagnosed with it in additional to bipolar. Her depressive cycle was Oct/Nov thru Jan/Feb. Her hypo/manic cycles was Mar/Apr thru July/Aug usually.

At the meeting there, the women openly discussed anti depressants and which ones worked for them. 2/3 of the wives were on them in the winter, and many owned full spectrum/sun lamps, and or used tanning booths.

This^^ was a revelation to me. The utter openness they showed, admitting how widespread SAD is, was reassuring to me b/c I certainly felt it. And I had a newborn so I'm sure hormones and sleep deprivation were a bonus.

Just wanted to ask about the winter issue up front. So did she ever address that part?

She addressed it with limited results. We had activities and events throughout the winter to try to help and she also used various sun lamp techniques and we do vacations to sunny warm places. Most winters were manageable for us... however, that is from my perspective and I guess I don't know her true feelings. This past winter she obviously was in the worst depression I have ever seen. She went to the psychiatrist feeling she would not be able to cope. This is when she was put on 1500mg Seroquel and she told me was for acute depression with psychosis.

And what do you see as your role in all this? Anything you'd do differently if you had it all to do again?

I'm not saying "it's not her, it's you!" I merely want to point out this:

if you were a perfect h, it'd be bad news.

B/c you'd be powerless to do anything about this. Whereas if there are things to work on in yourself, you have work to do and you are not powerless. Make sense?

Yes, absolutely there I are things I would do different. First and foremost, I would have become more knowledgeable about the mental health issues and taken a much more active role. As I mentioned in a previous reply and not to get long, that to me means basically a comprehensive plan of me help with mood tracking, triggers, more open discussions about feelings and emotions, etc.

For me personally, I recognize that I can close off emotionally when an issue arises and my analytic brain tries to process how to confront it and there simply is no good outcome. For example, due to the EA, I would close off at times....this was not all the time nor constant... but in these cases with her obsessive attraction to older men and the specific EA.

Why did I close off emotionally? Because in the case of the EA, I felt certain she would not give it up. I felt certain her emotion was going to OM and I was not getting it. I also had evidence that she was not telling me the truth.So I closed it off. It was also a boundary for me that I was letting slide rather than face the music. The right thing to do would have been to confront it, identify my boundary, and accept the results. I think this also created a stressor in our relationship that I would have handled more delicately with the knowledge of the mental health.

Boundaries... I let too many go and slide. There were a number of other items related to the mental health that I didn't even mention in my posts. These were not dealbreakers for me, but had I confronted them perhaps I would have become more aware of her actual feelings. These were things that weren't relationship "problems" but they were not normal behaviors. For example, buying things and never taking out of the package or ever using.

I am not sure on this one because my W was always telling me that she was being open and honest with me and that she felt comfortable with me in that way. Clearly that isn't the case in hindsight. I am not sure what I did or didn't do to foster it, especially being told that I was. People seem to always open up to me more than others, so I am really stuck on this one. I took what she told me about this at face value and assumed I was doing all the right things to foster it. In hindsight, I missed some clue and opportunities, but I really feel that was a result of being told I created the environment, but apparently didn't. I guess if I had known that, I would have (a) looked for how to create it and (b) paid more attention to the smaller clue and opportunities. I feel bad about this area, because I somewhat feel robbed of it.... if I was not doing it, I really would have appreciated being told....but I was told I was doing it...so now I lost on this. Does this make sense?

I guess also showing more emotion in general. I have generally been very even keel through out life. I ALWAYS showed my W great love, romance, appreciation, caring, kindness, etc... but about other things in life I generally am not emotional. For example, if I bought a new car... I like it, but I am not excited by it, it's just a car. Or if we saw a movie, I think its good, but it's not the greatest movie ever. I know this sometimes bothered my W and maybe I need to show emotion, but I guess I felt that I showed it with people and I don't care much about "things". So I not really sure one this one.

Maintaining more of my own interests. Many things that I loved to do by myself morphed into things we did together because my W at least said she loved these things too. So we did a lot of these together. That makes it harder now for me to get back into them. I should have maintained some of those things as just my alone items. I hate to regress, but now I wonder if these were things my W really loved like I did, because I saw/see her doing this sort of mirroring with OM.

Maintaining my own friendships. I generally only spend my time with a few close friends. I do not mind social circles, but I really only invest a lot of me in a few people. These few are the ones I value the most. I don't maintain more superficial friendships. I should put more time and effort into increasing the number of people that I invest in and I should allow more time for maintaining a bit bigger outer circle. Sharing and learning from others experiences and lives enriches me, provides me a larger support network, and helps me grow.