My Husband went from being 'okay' to extremely aggressive and Psychotic!!!

[vsantos]

Anyone please any insight would help me understand what is going on. I should say I can't have any feedback from my husbands Psychiatrist or psychologist because he has not authorized them to speak to me (so all I can do is to call in form time to time to give updates on his mood, but I get no feedback from them!).

   For the past 2 months my husband who was diagnosed 4 months ago with BP has been gradually feeling better with Depakote and Risperdal. For about a month now his father and I really thought his psychotic symptoms had disappeared, he has been 'okay' at home (depressed, sometimes cranky) but nothing exaggerated!
  Yesterday he was extremely angry and said al these 'crazy' things about me and other people, totally psychotic. His father and I were very scared to see how 'sick' his still is. To the point where he talked about "it's easy for me to end this situation, and i'll leave a note saying it was your fault" I guess he meant he could kill himself and then blamed it on me.
      anyway, I really didn't think he was still feeling this bad and psychotic!
     Is this sudden change 'normal' during the first months of treatment, could it be that Risperdal isn't really doing the job of taking his psychotic symptoms away, or could it be that he'll be psychotic forever?????
  Please help.
   A very dedicated wife.

[zzzmykids]

I have taken Lithium for about ten years, high dose to keep level. We all have meds that work for us, against us and just make us crawl in bed or get up and say I hate medicine! One of the least favorite to me that caused bad stuff was resperdol.
When your husband gets angry, it could be due to meds or a mania overload.  I mainly, since on meds get angry mania.
There is a service the police offer that is called Wellcheck. You dial 311 and say you need a wellcheck a.s.a.p., give address. The cops and sometimes a volunteer from a treatment center will come and acess the person acting irrational.
Good luck. zzzmykids

[Xila31]

Well, first off I'm sorry this has happened and it seems to me that perhaps things are not going so well with this treatment at the moment. There are literrally hundreds of combinations of medications for bipolar and finding the right ones can be very difficult and take a long time. Only his psychiatrist can do med changes. I'm sorry he has not given you permission to get updates. Maybe that will change.

It does sound like a suicide threat. Sadly we bipolar people do struggle with suicidal thoughts. Did you report this outburst to his psychiatrist? There is a chance he may need a short hospital stay if his psychosis or suicidal issues are getting out of control. It may not be easy to convince him to get to the ER if he needs help. Either way his doctor needs to know.

Although there is not a cure for bipolar and it is a chronic illness, people can go into remission or recovery. ILADVOCATE here on the forum is our number one recovered person and his story is a light of hope for all of us. Your husband can get better but it is going to take a while. Hang in there! It is going to be a bumpy ride.

Feel free to come here and ask questions and vent. Keep us posted!