Dear All,
It is great to have found this page. I, too, feel quite hopeless. My wife of 11 years, who is a Russian living in the US has convinced herself that she will leave the US and marry Vladimir Putin. We both work from home and she rarely has contact with people. She isn't interested in seeing my friends, and she has pushed away her mother, and her closest (former) friends. She spends much of the day ranting and raving, speaking to voices in her head. The dilemma I find myself with is that she wants to leave me, to go to Russia, but she has nowhere to stay there, and her illness has gotten to the point where I don't think she can really communicate with people all that well. She wants to quit her job and to make documentary films. She has also taken to drinking beer all day. Sometimes she will have moments of lucidity, and she has admitted from time to time that she does have psychosis. She also is interested in psychology and listens to psychological lectures/blogs, etc, but she accuses everyone around her of suffering from something, never herself. Sometimes she can scream about stuff (in Russian). She also thinks she has psychic powers. I almost have to laugh - or else I'll cry! And the person she's become over the past year or so is really not someone I want to spend my life with, but I know there is a good person inside there. She pushes me to want to go away, to work, or to be with friends, but at the same time she needs me there - but abuses me verbally when I'm there. My biggest fear is that she does leave, and ends up alone in Russia, no money and no one to take care of her, and then what? I don't know what kind of job she can secure on her own, or where she would live. I've even spoken to my local police, given them a "heads up" that they may need to be called in, to be taken involuntarily to the hospital. But I'm also afraid that this will push her over the edge and she will continue to refuse treatment and will leave for good after that. But this may be my only hope.
I forgot to mention that we have seen psychiatrists before. 2 years ago she was first showing signs of psychosis, and she was given antipsychotic drugs. They worked pretty well, but she didn't like the side effects. Then she went off them. Then months passed, we moved out of the city into the country, things were more or less okay but she was depressed. Then we saw a Russian psychologist who helped but was very expensive (not in our healthcare network). Then one day she said she would divorce me and leave, which shocked me, and I got a call from the psychologist saying she had canceled her next appointment. I explained the situation, and the psychologist told me that she may be having a psychotic episode and that I shouldn't really take what she's saying seriously. That helped - and I find myself doing this all the time these days. That night she "came to" and said she didn't want a divorce and was going crazy. Later on we started seeing a psychiatrist who gave her antipsychotic drugs, but she wouldn't stick to it - thought they helped. Then we stopped seeing that doctor, and later saw another who gave her just antidepressants, which also helped a great deal.
At this point, she discovered *mod edit* a Russian psychologist and more of a hypnotist/psychoanalyst. She became very interested in his videos and his methods - claiming that he can "cure" psychosis. This guy has an institute you can go to in *mod edit* Russia - and my wife decided she would go to this. I was totally against it and ultimately accepted that, hey, maybe it would help? Couldn't hurt, at least? And she went for a 7-day psychoanalytical treatment, with hypnosis, and all day programs. I was worried sick but was hopeful that it might help, especially being in her native language, and being something she believed in. 2 weeks later I went to pick her up at the airport and she wouldn't kiss or embrace me. She would to seance-like stuff, talking about people and countries and almost like an exorcist or some sort of psychic, talking and spitting out nonsense. Needless to say, the treatment made her condition worse than ever (and cost a whole lot on top of that). And she's been pretty much like that ever since. Now I'm the only person she'll talk to, though she continues to declare that we'll get a divorce, and I'm talking to her mother and brother, and close friends who all want me to have her "committed" - but we can't really do that in this day and age. She has to be a threat to herself and others, which I'm not convinced she is (yet). Though she has punched me!
So I'm now in "babysitter" mode - basically sitting here, watching her, trying not to get wrapped up in what she's saying (a lot of it seems intended to get me angry). I figure it will either improve on its own, or it will worsen to the point that she recognizes she needs psychiatric help - or it will worsen to the point where I have to have her taken away by the police. Can anyone relate to this?
Any advice would be appreciated! I don't want to have her leave me and end up alone in a different country, while having a treatable illness. Should I just call the police and get it over with?
Thanks in advance!