Home→Forums→Relationships→Time and money strife in marriage
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Maria_L.
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July 12, 2016 at 7:50 am #109469
Anonymous
GuestDear Icy:
Happy belated birthday: 32 years young two days ago!
See, I read some of your past postings. Therefore I have a bit of the bigger picture than if I only read this one. I hope you welcome me addressing the bigger picture, do you?
In one you were upset about a car accident your husband was involved in. You were happy he wasn’t hurt but you were very angry at him for the expense caused by the accident. And you expressed your anger at him. You were also coming out of SSRI at the time, and wondering if you’d have been less angry if you were still on that drug. Your husband wanted you to go back on psych drugs.
A month or so later, I think, you went back on psych drugs, a different doctor, and got on “a lesser dose of wellbutrin xl and celexa and that was my magic happiness combo… and am taking the supplement 5-HTP.”
Are you still on that “magic happiness combo”? Has it helped you since and now?
A question as to this thread: you and your husband have a mutual financial account and separate accounts: a We account, a He account and a She account?
anita
July 12, 2016 at 9:15 am #109473Icy
ParticipantHi anita. I hope you are doing well. 🙂 Thanks for the birthday wishes! I’m sure I sound like a wreck with my past posts lol. Sometimes I feel like one too. xD Addressing the larger picture is good. I know there is a lot that I cannot see since I’m so close to it and since I have emotional and past depression/anxiety/trust issues..I can miss a lot even though the answers and reasons may be right in front of my face.
Yes, I’m still on the same medicine, with the 5-htp. It seems like it is keeping me stable most of the time. My emotions are out of wack though at times. I get frustrated with myself since one hour I’m all..oh I love you so much and the it can be..ya not sure if this is going to work with us. It’s always a battle to get the right medicine and make sure it continues working. 🙂
And yes, we each have our our acct and a joint. We each get a little bit each month to use as we would like to. The money he is getting from his second job however, he has going into his own account.
July 12, 2016 at 6:24 pm #109506Anonymous
GuestDear Icy:
I was on three psych drugs for 17 years and although at times I felt good about it, my life did not improve during those 17 years but got worse. So I am not a fan except for short term while attending psychotherapy and gaining insight plus learning skills to manage anxiety and regulate emotions. It’s been a bit over five years since my first good psychotherapy (I was then still on those drugs) and it’s been two years ten months that I am psych drugs free! I can’t believe it. I was told by the psychiatrist that “prognosis is poor” that I will have to be on drugs for the rest of my life.
So this is my little victory, okay, BIG victory. But I am still anxious, this very day. It takes forever to heal and I don’t know how much I can heal. Anxiety is very powerful. I think fear is the most powerful emotion. I am 55. You are twenty three years younger. I sure hope you get on what I call The Healing Path as well.
So while you are on those drugs, do the psychotherapy thing- sliding scale, low cost… with a competent therapist. Learn Mindfulness, learn the skills. It is a long road but I experience significant, a whole lot of better living being five years on my healing path.
Otherwise, things will be just as they are for you, at best, five years, ten years, twenty years from now. Different med combinations, up this, less that, something new and on and on and on. These drugs don’t make life better, other than at times feeling better, they don’t actually improve life circumstances, relationships, job..
Usually I am more focused answering threads, this evening I feel scattered. Post again, will you?
anita
July 12, 2016 at 6:49 pm #109507Icy
ParticipantYou give me hope Anita. My doctor told me that I’ll probably be on the meds forever. At first I was ok with it, I felt like..ok..if I need them then..ok I guess. Now I don’t feel so enthusiastic. I know I was depressed in the past but now it isn’t so much about feeling hopeless and is more so, the raging different emotions. I haven’t been officially diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder but after taking many online tests and just reading the description..it is me, 100%. I’m now thinking that I don’t need the meds that I’m on so much as I need to learn to control my vicious mood swings and stop the black/white, end all be all thinking. I don’t know how to do that currently. I have a bad fight or flight reaction also and as soon as things start to go south, I feel the urge to jump ship and run away from it/hide from it. I was off the meds for about a year or so a long time ago and boy did I relapse hard after that and since then I’ve been too afraid to try and wean off of them again. I can be a true terror of an emotional nightmare with my meds at times…god..what would it be like with out them?!
I hope that one day I can get off the meds. I don’t like being dependent on them but with my experience of being off them, sometimes I wonder if it may be better as I said.
July 12, 2016 at 8:36 pm #109511Anonymous
GuestDear Icy:
When I first read the diagnosis of BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder, I thought bingo, perfect fit. I read it for the first time in my mid/ later twenties. Without mentioning this to my first competent therapist in 2011 when I was 50, he diagnosed me with BPD and based his therapy on this diagnosis. It was CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and Mindfulness.
For 30 years before this official diagnosis I very much displayed the behaviors to the extreme. At this point, five years of heavy duty healing, guess what- you may not believe it possible- but I no longer fit the diagnosis, not at all. I am still anxious (went for a fast walk outside to relax after I posted to you before) but no BPD behaviors, not even inclinations. How is that possible…?
We are not born BPD or even anxious, not more anxious than any other baby. We become these things because of emotional injuries suffered as children. This is why I use the word Healing, healing from those injuries.
Everything about us is physical. Everything we feel involved chemicals. So when we get injured, when we are scared repeatedly as children, when we are abused, chemicals are involved.
There is no healing in taking drugs. There simply isn’t and couldn’t be. When I got off drugs I too was worse, but that was not because the drugs helped me, but because I got addicted to them. I felt worse when stopping drugs than I did before taking drugs. It is the addiction, the dependence on these drugs.
Almost bed time for me. Post again, please. Didn’t talk about the problem you brought up on this thread yet, the second job etc. Maybe tomorrow?
anita
July 15, 2016 at 3:35 am #109717Maria_L
ParticipantHi Icy,
Just read your conversation and I am sorry to hear about all of your problems, the one you presented and the ones in the past that lead you to medication. As someone who had a brief history with anxiety and medications, I would also suggest to look out for long term solutions without them, cause as anita said, withdrawals are much worse than the anxiety itself. Take them as short as you can till you gain your perspective on how to deal with your issue. There are so many resources online that can help, so many success stories, books, online courses. A good psychotherapist that is experienced with this issue also can be crucial.
Since the whole ‘anxiety’ thing is still fresh for me, I can tell you what helped me…. what really helped me, and what made things worse…
-Most beneficial of all is exercise, exercise and more exercise…. After a very long walk, long shower and mint tea, I feel much better than even after taking medication. This was my hidden weapon to fight withdrawal.
-Cognitive behavioral therapy, and any research that tells you how the ‘happy’ chemicals in your brain work. Yes, happiness is chemicals.. stress also.
-Yoga, meditation and learning how to ‘ground’ yourself. Breathing exercises. You have to teach your body how to relax, how to balance. It can take time, but if you are persistent results will come for less than two months. Sometimes the cause of our problems is stuck in our ‘reptilian’ brain, that freaks out and finds danger in places we can’t understand, and we have to teach it again to relax, to accept new ways. I am not an expert, but as you said you have a terrible fight or flight response… This might mean you have to balance this part of your brain, the most primitive one.By any means, I don’t think it’s good to take any online test you find, to present your problem to random people who don’t understand it well and might even say something hurtful as advice, to read forums and testimonials of people who had your problem and wrote discouraging things while they were very distressed. While you are in your sensitive state, you are not ready to deal with just anything you come up with. This is why I asked for a therapist, and he totally agreed with me. i told him I want to deal with this at the right place with the right person.I found very disturbing to bomb my mind with random internet facts, I just got tired and more frightened. And also, even though you attend therapy, you have to do the ‘heavy lifting’ yourself.. There are many ways to deal with this and you can find yours. So the ‘therapy’ doesn’t end in the doctor’s office… And no one, even here, can work things out for you, but you can always get very good guidelines and starting points..
And when it comes to your husband, as i understood he works two jobs, but he prefers the second one? Maybe he should just stick to that one… just a suggestion. I know the money will be tight again, but i can also relate to this. I’ve been with my partner for 8 years, 3 of them we both had terrible jobs that took the best of us, but were well paid. Money didn’t make us happier. We’d go on vacation on a beautiful beach in Greece, but we barely talked, he was stressed and panicked, I was desperate and bit depressive. It took a toll on our relationship and health. We knew it would be just a matter of time till we ‘break’ and maybe loose each other. So we decided I should leave my job, and he got another one, less paid. We only had 50 % of what we used to earn, but it was the best decision we made. No more exotic vacations, expensive restaurants, weekends in spas, shopping the next few years. But sometimes in life you can’t have both and you have to choose over your career or relationship, and only hope you’ve made the right choice. As long as you support each other and you are on the same page about those decisions,and it isn’t brought in later conversations as a sacrifice someone made.
Sorry about the long post and maybe giving too much of my story, but I feel deep in my heart that you can work this out, as many other have in your place. I sincerely wish you all the best!
July 15, 2016 at 7:15 am #109731Icy
ParticipantMaria, thank you for your encouraging story. I too wonder if my meds aren’t holding me back. As I’ve said, anytime I’ve really tried to get off them, even weaning away properly, the fall out can get pretty bad, so, of course, my husband thinks that getting of them is a bad idea. He likens it to a bipolar person feeling great and thinking they do not need medicine anymore, yet, they feel so great BECAUSE of the medicine. I understand that and sometime wonder if that is what the drug companies want since you get scared to go off it so then you always stay dependent. I try not to think of conspiracy theories though, lol.
I mean, I don’t really depressed like I used to. I do feel very out of wack at times with my emotions as I’ve said…as in..one hour I can be all lovey and the next it can go to yuck, I dont like you much. It’s such an odd feeling and it’s draining.
I agree with the exercise. I have such a hard time waking up early as it is but I know that it is the only time I can get in some exercise, so I need to really push myself there. I think starting a good, solid habit of exercise would be better to do first and then try possibly weaning off of medication. Starting a new healthy habit plus weaning off meds would not be a good combo. I am starting to eat better and taking vitamins and do notice myself eating less, so that is a plus!
As far as the job goes, my husband would love to be able to make his second job his only job, however, it is just not enough money to live on alone. He is hoping that it could turn into that and that is one of the reasons why he is really giving it his all, even thought it is really hurting our time together.
July 15, 2016 at 11:14 am #109748Maria_L
ParticipantIcy,
I sincerely send you all the good vibes, and I hope your husband can make the transfer to his second job and you’ll have more time together. Many relationships go through hardship till they gain financial freedom. I hope in the long run this will make you stronger… As long as this dynamic lifestyle doesn’t affect his health (that’s the one red flag not to be ignored).
And I felt the same way you do when it comes to cutting the medications. While I was taking them for some time… after a month, I also thought I am fine now… It’s just a small dose , I can do without it. So I made the first big cut, I wanted to reduce round 40% at once… and ta-dam.. I literally went crazy. Couldn’t sleep for days, and even my own thoughts scared me. And I am not even close to bipolar, prior to this year I have never even had anxiety in a form of disorder (I am in my early 30’s). It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s just the pills take over some functions of your brain, when it comes to producing the ‘happy’ chemicals. When you cut the pills, the production of the ‘happy’ hormones is cut too, and you need some time till you stabilize again.
I wouldn’t wanna bother you further, I just wanted to say that me, as many people out there, fell in the vicious cycle of medication, and felt the way you do. You are not alone, maybe while your husband is busy you can use this time to reflect on yourself,to discover what triggers your bad mood (think when it started first!), and to seek for solutions how to bypass the bad reaction. Of course, none of us here are doctors and we can just offer our open hearts and willingness to help, 🙂 But at least, it can’t hurt to seek for ways how to ‘produce’ more happy hormones (serotonin,endorphin, oxytocin,dopamine) the natural way 🙂 Socializing, workout, learning new things, spending time in nature are some of the many…
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