Wife has ppd - what can I do?

Hi,

I'm new to this forum. My husband and I have been married for almost 7 years. When I first met him he was what I always wanted. He was soft spoken, generous, dependable, lovable humorous, worried about me.
The paranoia started about 3 years ago. We lived in an apt and he thought the people at his work had our apt bugged because some of the stuff we talked about in private in our apt his work would talk about the same thing the next day or so. He asked me to have the locks changed. So, I had the locks changed.

But, in the last year or so his paranoia seems to be getting worse. Where do I begin.
He finds hidden meaning in everything. He thinks that people are out to get him and that they think he has done something wrong and when it call comes to a head he's going to take legal action. He's always referring to when he gets his millions. He doesn't laugh anymore, he's always so serious. He takes alot of things I say to him the wrong way, I guess as insults, then he gets very angry and critisizes me. He's easliy agitated. If I speak an opinion I have he seems to get angry and agitated with me. He has already said stuff that would lead me to believe while watching tv he's being told things. Things that happen that would be coincidences he finds hidden meaning in them and thinks there is a reason why they happened. He has mentioned to me before that he was seeing alot of the color blue, wether it was alot of people wearing it or blue cars, that this meant everything was going to be ok.
He's verbally abusive and every now and then when he seems to be in his aggitated state if we're in the car he will hit my leg or somthing if I say or react to what he's saying in a way that he thinks is inappropriate. So now he's become physically abusive. He always turns it around and makes it seem like have done something to make him angry or think the way he is. He threatens me with divorce if I don't do something he doesn't approve of, something I say that he doesn't like or if I don't do something he expects me to. Last but not least, he talks to his mother sometimes 3 times a day. He calls her on the way to work on the way home and sometimes in between. He listens to her about alot of other topics instead of me. His whole family has blown this off. I have read that he might be calling his mom so much because talking to her is like being in the womb again and he feels safe.
He has gone to a regular doctor before, they gave him a therapists cards. He never went. I think part of the reason why he never went was because his mother told him he had aniexty because he was stressed. Then about a year ago he went to his regular doctor again and I tried to tell the doctor what was going on, but, of course my husband denied everything, so I looked like an idiot. The doctor put him on an aniexty pill, which apparently isn't working.
So now it's just getting intolerable. I don't know from one minute to the next or what day to the next that he's going to he in his paranoid state. At this point it's hard to be sensative to him if he does have ppd. I just don't want to and feel that I shouldn't have to listen to his paranoia.
So, long story short......I made an appt again with his regular doctor. I will go with him. I will tell the doctor what's been going on and get a referral for a therapaist. I hope this time he doesn't deny everything and he opens up. Even if he opens up a little it would be better then not at all.
I think and hope he would be the person I used to know if he goes to therapy and is on the proper meds.

Any thoughts from anybody, on maybe how to handle the situation at the doctors office??

I'm in the same boat. My husbands PPD gets much worse when he is facing times of stress. I try my best to keep things calm for him, but having two small children... well, it's not always easy.

What makes things even MORE difficult for us is that i myself suffer from HPD, so together we seriously clash. Our love has seen us through some very tumultuous years. I'm often being accused of trying to poison him. A simple comment like, "Did you enjoy your dinner" can be twisted and turned inside his disorder to take on a menacing meaning and he often goes into the bathroom to put his fingers down his throat to stop the 'poison'. At first this behaviour from him terrified me and at the same time completely insulted me, but i've learn to accept he cannot help it.

He refused to admit there was anything wrong with him, until one night he saw flashes of images where he thought he'd stabbed our baby son. I took him to hospital that night and i must say, he was relieved to get there. They diagnosed him, medicated him and sent him home a couple of days later. However, the second he walked through the door, he threw away the medication because he thought the doctors were trying to kill him with the tablets.

Sometimes we have to talk in whispers at home because he thinks we're being bugged. I could go on and on...

My biggest fear is for the sanity of my two children (both boys). With BOTH their parents suffering from PD's, i worry and i pray that it will leave them both alone..

I have pdd and my husband goes through the same things I know it is hell. its hell for me too.

My husband says -
you gotta actually get her help she is not going to admit to it people with pdd 9 out of 10 times don't admit they have a problem. but they do its going to be hard for her to admit to, because she doens't trust anyone. But she needs help and she needs to talk to somebody.

Try to calm her down, in times of 'episodes'.

Me again- Be understanding research depression causes and things. Stress, more stress will make it work I know its hard.. but it can get better.

Its a long journey, a hard journey... but together with your support its possible.. you need to get her to realize that she has a problem

mabey have her look at this page

to get it in her head.. tell her genltley your worried, you think she 'might' have pdd. and please to read the page:

http://mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php? ... d=569&cn=8

Well, it's been awhile since I've been here. I appreciate the responses.

I pretty much have the answer to my question, in that I've realized there's nothing I can do to change my wife's thinking or behavior.

I do have some advice for any others in a similar situation: cut your losses. Invest your emotional capital in a relationship that has a chance to pay off.

(This is also good stock market advice BTW. And just as hard to follow.)

And don't have kids. If you have the sort of life experience that has you visiting forums like this just don't do it. Save having kids for the folks whose childhood memories consist of summers at the lake and noodle salad.

I thank God every day that my wife and I didn't bring kids into this mess.

Larry M.

If this is really you, it unbelievable that you came back almost 2 years later with the same problem.

Larry, I am in a similar situation. I really need your input. So are you still with her? I know it's really difficult to break away from a person with ppd, did you do it? Are you still trapped with her?

You're lucky you don't have kids.

Please respond.

Depending on the laws in your state, inpatient treament in a mental facility may be the only answer. Especially if the person exhibits the paranoia, litigiousness, perceived secret threats, and overanalyzation of the most trivial things said or done. Poisoning? Wanting millions? Wire-tapping? Physical and verbal sparring? Been there and lost the battle. My father is a statistic of the millions of mentally ill homeless now. I cry for him now even though I was his biggest opponent. If you have to go thru the courts do it QUIETLY and QUICKLY. This is the best advice I can offer anyone.

DO you want the short or the long version?

I fyou have no kids, divorce her. If you have kids get a divorce and the custody of the kids. If mother is paranoid, you'll get the custody.

Other way there is not. Keep away from here!

hi everyone,
well, for someone who has dealt with paranoid personality disorder I can only say one thing, it's unbelievable how you guys have been with partners who have this problem when it's so easy to fix. Any anti-psychotic can help with this problem if given at the lowest dosage. Usually they are prescribed for bipolar and schizophrenia. well, i imagine that with your partners being paranoid, they probably have anger issues as well that comes with the paranoia. At least that was with me. I dont know how people don't seek help for this but I personally saw that something was wrong with me because i was suddenly getting jealous over things i imagined to be true about my boyfriend (now ex) and weren't. I couldn't even deal with myself. It is horrible. Anyways, my cure was Zyprexa at the lowest possible dosage you can get from it. I don't remember because it's been so long but i think it was a mere 2.5mg of it. Not much but it did the trick. The problem is that people with paranoia usually also feel very irritable and they can often think too much. Zyprexa slows down the irrational thinking processes and allows you to focus only on the possitive. Besides medication the only other thing that can help along with it is therapy, but the medication does a lot of the work to improve the person. If the paranoia comes with other symptoms associated with it, then it's possible the person may have other personality disorders or even be schizophrenic, because schizophrenia also includes delusions which is also paranoia as one of the symptoms of it. In that case drugs like Zyprexa needs to slowly be increased until the person feels relief. Well, maybe it doesn't work for everyone but the other solution is Risperdal. My new boyfriend has paranoid personality disorder and he got really bad yesterday. It seems that on the first day of taking Risperdal it just heightened his paranoia, but by the second dosage he seems to be getting better as suddenly thinking i'd cheat on him is not as much on his mind. I hope tomorrow he will be better, but i too know now what it's like to be on the other side of the spectrum. He was actually started on 1mg but i don't know if that is based on weight or if that is the amount patients are usually given of that drug. Well, I hope I have been of some help.

Bye.
Vera

Well, I'm sorry LarryM, that it didn't work out for you and your partner, and yes, I agree it's good you didn't have children.

"confusedone"-- I find it amazing that you would even allow a doc to give you meds. There is NO way I'm putting "poison" in my body-- all the side effects-- who knows in five years time I might not be able to decide what to eat, how to tie my shoes or have any childhood memories. (they dont' do long term studies much on meds-- they just want to hurry up and make that money) NO-- I don't trust drugs...... I had to even be convinced that the thyroid meds I take are really needed -- I tested the doctors-- quit taking the medication for a while and when blood tests came back that I was in dire need of help-- then I believed I needed it.

How are you able to trust and accept that your body can't handle things on it's own?? that boggles my mind........

mariposa

Hi Mariposa,
I understand what you mean. In fact I don't trust drugs that much either. Many a time I have refused meds even for infections because I'm either allergic to them or I've read that they cause mood/mental changes. It's very upsetting to me that these drugs that are meant to help people cause people major depression or other mental illnesses. The thing is that once you are mentally ill, you do need treatment and it's not advisable in cases of suicide or potential harm to others that you would recommend ever staying away from medication. Not to say that this case has come to that. Just like some medications destroy your brain, luckily, there are medications that help control it if not to actually cure it. If I had not taken my zyprexa then I would have died. Paranoia is not something to joke about. Some people can become very bad to the point where they kill others if they cannot control it. Or they end up killing themselves. Usually if they become so bad that they become paranoid schizophrenics. I give advice based on some of my experiences and what I have read or heard. I think it helps in all cases and with everyone. I think when it comes to anti-depressants or anti-psychotics, it's safer to take them then to end up dead or end up killing someone, but everyone has to decide what is best. No one really knows the situation unless they've been in one like the one I was living. Not all people's paranoid personality become so bad to turn schizophrenic, but even for the person itself living with those constant thoughts about things that don't make sense, it is draining and can turn one mad. My condition was not severe but because my paranoia was so bad, I tried to jump off my third floor building because I could not believe whatsoever that I had a faithful boyfriend. Now tell me if I did not need to be medicated when I did such a thing?

Thank you!