[Ready2Transform]

LOL CJ!  I can just see the reality show around this:  "When MLC makes LBS go DIY"!   

Bottom line is... this is MENTAL ILLNESS.... hopefully and probably temporary... but it is an illness and not a choice....

Amen.  This is what keeps me sanely detached and mentally focused, instead of wallowing in the details and being drastically disappointed in the most wonderful human being I've ever known.

[Anjae]

LG, I understand that your friend can not imagine herself attached to her husband for ever. Do you know here we can divorce a mentally ill person? That is grounds for divorce. I presume because some mental illness put the spouse, kids, relatives, you name in danger an no one expects a person to spend their lifetime with a mentally ill person.

Well, I have to the psychiatric hospital and to the psychiatric emergency of the general hospital, with my cousin a lot. I have to say some of the people there will never recover, no matter what method is used. In the future, when we know more about how the brain works and are able to repair it or replace parts of it, many things may have a solution. Now they don’t.

Outgrowing one spouse is a thing I think sometimes happen. I feel that about my husband, I outgrow him. He may grow to match me, of course but for now that is it.

Back to shock therapy. I would not say medieval. Only in the sense it brings to mind a form of torture. More like an outdated early/mid 20th century thing. On the other hand our brain has electric circuits, neurons, and so on, so, electricity makes sense. But it is dangerous. We still know very little about the brain. Even in the way they are currently using shock therapy, much smooth, the patient will still be numb, feel sick and so.

If your friend’s husband has a psychiatric problem therapy (assuming you are talking of a psychologist) will not do. If the medication also does not work… I don’t know, there are more modern medicines than Prozac, medicines that come from neurology. I would feel much better if psychiatrist used brain scans and studies rather them, most of the time, just determine a mental illness by the symptoms they see. Psychiatrist should start work closely with neurologist, endocrinologist and other doctors. Has it occurred to your friend that her husband may have a thyroid or other hormonal problem? Those provoke depression that does no go away with antidepressants.

[LettingGo]

AnneJ... interesting you talk of brain scans..... my BF husband was seeing Dr. Amen (pioneering research on brain scans to determine behaviors...) years ago... NOW, he has best selling books on the subject!! I would LOVE to see a brain scan of a man in Replay, but the alcohol consumption that typically accompanies Replay would skew the scan....

I would never advocate that couples stay together under ALL circumstances... just the few years of MLC, which seems like Bi Polar are a trial to endure as you well know!! However, if my husband had another illness that was NOT a choice, would I divorce him for that? Even a terminal Cancer diagnoses throws a whole family into crisis.. emotionally, physically and financially.... it robs families of their time together.... I heard a celebrity on a radio show the other day refer to her son's first years after a diagnoses of Autism as "The Autism years.... they drained me of all energy and personality..... I was COMPELLED to research and write books to educate people about this terrible affliction... but now that he is drastically improved, I'm ME again..." I reallly related to her statement... I feel that I have been in my own crisis and isolated to a degree... low energy and low level depression for so long.... but now that my husband is showing much improvement, I can see that I will have ME back!

[calamity]

I would never advocate that couples stay together under ALL circumstances... just the few years of MLC, which seems like Bi Polar are a trial to endure as you well know!! However, if my husband had another illness that was NOT a choice, would I divorce him for that?

Exactly. 

[Anjae]

LG, it would be fascinating to see the brain scan of a man or woman in Replay. They drink a lot but I think the scan would show more than the alcohol. Think everything is a mess on the brain of a person in Replay. And a test to their hormones may also reveal interesting things.

Thing is the “few” years of MLC can be many, many years and have terrible consequences for the couple, kids, relatives and others. If the couple is divorced than can remarry if they so wish and the LBS would not have to go through terrible financial problems not deal with several other things. Also, there is a different mental frame if one is divorced or remained legally married to a person in MLC with all it entails.

Well, if my husband would become an alcoholic or a drug addict I would divorce him. on the spot. And those are also not things one chooses. Terminal cancer is different than MLC. The family will be in crisis but there will not be a person having affairs, living with other person, blowing the finances, mistreating us. The family will unite and take care of the person with terminal cancer. Plus, at least here, there is an oncologic institute with a wide support for cancer patients and their families. Also, in terminal cancer you know the outcome. In MLC you don’t. One may remain married and endure many years of terrible things just to end up with no marriage in the end. We don't even know if we will like our spouses or if they will like us in the end...

Autism is like cancer. The kid with autism does not have the capacity of wrecking havoc, get other person, abandon, mistreat, destroy the finances and so on. And there are also institution to help autists and their families.

I have a bed ridden grandmother I look after. We all know what is to come but it is totally different than husband’s MLC. Grandmother needs to be look after but she cannot cause damage.

Nothing I know leaves the scars of a MLC. Even because we don’t have to reconnect and reconcile with a person in terminal cancer or a bedridden. They will die. The autist kid will need care for life but it is also different.

I have me back for a long time. What I don’t is the financial resources to go and be me, in the sense of starting projects I would like to, travel and so on nor the freedom to remarry. And the reason is husband’s MLC. Since I have no children, what is the point? It is a mystery.

Husband has show no sign of improvement and he has left nearly 6 years ago and caused so much damage and destruction that I don’t know… I doubt is brain will ever be in working order given the life he leads. Just to not mention his body.

[superdog]

I don't know for sure this is related, but it's quite a coincidence.

My BIL was also in MLC with his wife getting the usual MLC treatment from him. ( a bit worse than my h) and he was very depressed for a very long time. He took meds for it too.

My BIL started this around 2008 a year before my H and he was diagnosed with MS a couple of months ago. The type he has can lie dormant since birth with a trigger which brings it into full play. I am now suspecting that all the stress and depression from MLC is what his trigger for the MS has been.

My H has only just recently started taking anti=depressants and it has gone untreated for so long now that it HAS to have had an affect on his health in other ways. Everything you read on depression tells you that untreated, has serious potential for further ill health.

SD
x

[Anjae]

Superdog, I suspect part of my husband’s problem has to do with the thyroid. SIL and MIL both had thyroid problems and SIL had been wanting husband to be tested years before he left. Husband did not care. If husabdn has thyroid problems that would be a reason why, when he had been previously depressed, Prozac have not worked on him.

LG, there is the issue of MLC not being an illness/disease but di-sease. Yet, RCR says she is writing her book from a clinical point of view and we all know MLC involves depression. So, is it an illness, even if temporary, or is it not? I’m inclined to the first, even having in consideration the fact that it may have to do with unresolved past issues. The consequence of those issues cause an emotional and psychological condition of illness.

If it is an illness, no matter what bring it up it can be cured or mitigated. Don’t think it can be cured but think it can be mitigated. Of course we would have to be able to have the MLCer go to a bunch of medical tests and take some medication. And that, of course, is the tricky part. Alcoholics and drug addicts know they have a problem but it may take them decades to ask for help. And some never do.

[kikki]

Woah - what have I been missing!  Electric fences, and LBS DIY 

When my H first lost the plot, he ran around like a headless chicken saying there was nothing wrong with him - and he wasn't going to take medication or have ECT (huh?) - no one was suggesting that at the time.  They certainly suggested medication some months down the track, but not then.
He KNOWS something is up. 

Personally - I believe MLC is an enormous cocktail of disease (depression etc) plus dis - ease (developmental, emotional, personality style factors, plus childhood trauma).

I've always said that I too would love to lock them up for the duration - or at least put them out to pasture!!

[Anjae]

I've always said that I too would love to lock them up for the duration - or at least put them out to pasture!!

Yes, yes, our health farm for MLCers.  With a full sports and outdoors activities compound. We could even get than a car racing circuit for the ones who love speed and do mad things with car and motorbikes. And lets not forget the lake for the boats aficionados and some hills to rock climb. 

In the meanwhile some doctors and scientists could be examine them and we would be having a fun, quiet life. 

But we need to have in a country with lots of space. My country is too small for such thing. Can be do it in the US, Canada or Australia? Is NZ big enough, Kikki?

[kikki]

Is NZ big enough, Kikki?

LOL I suspect not Anne - because if this is enforced health farm, then there will be so so many of them there.

Any of our available land tends to be bush and national parks.  Can't imagine the 'greens' agreeing to such things.

There are vast tracts of Australian desert that are uninhabited though.   Maybe that's a possibility?