Bravo. Great, great post. Thank you so much for sharing. Please know everyone, in NO WAY am I being critical about any mental health issues. I have General Anxiety Disorder and have to take medication myself.
I am simply saying Bipolar and personality disorders are hard to treat, and the person with the disorder has to want it badly enough to be willing to do whatever it takes to change their behavior. For many it comes with taking medications that don't necessarily make you feel the way you want to feel. So, self medication comes into play, which is why it's very common for that to be co-occurring with this type of disorder.
This is a very good post by ebecker, I really appreciate your sharing.
Originally Posted by
ebecker1982 
Yeah...so am I.
AA in Social and Behavioral Sciences.
BA in Sociology, emphasis in Deviance, Minor in Psychology (UC Irvine Class of 2007)
Fellowship in Community Mental Health (Mental Health America - Los Angeles in Conjunction with the California State University at Dominguez Hills.
MBA from the University of Redlands School of Business.
Pretty decent credentials. And I still can't fix my addict. But top that off with this!
5 years of experience in the mental health field, split between working in a Community Mental Health Full Service Partnership (1 year) and working in Residential Dual Diagnosis Facilities (4 years) the latter of which required me to assist in administering medication to residents and to help them research and understand medications, side effects, etc.
I'm also Bipolar Type II and spent about 10 years in therapy so I know both sides of the couch and know what some of those medications do myself. Spent a lot of time in peer support groups.
Let me tell you, you can have all the education and even professional experience in the world. You can suffer from mental health issues and have gone to therapy yourself. You can share your knowledge and insights and lessons with your addicted loved one. It's still not going to fix your loved one. It may help you understand them on some level. But it won't fix them.
They have to fix themselves.
What you're talking about is a dual diagnosis situation. Where I worry a bit is that you're coming across right now with that idea that "if I just understand enough about what caused these problems, I can explain them." Great! You've explained them. I don't mean that as a personal dig at all. But ask yourself...now that you've explained them....has it made your relationship with your wife any better? Has it brought her any closer to sobriety? Has it improved her relationship with her children? Has it brought her any closer to coming home? Has it rid her of the attachment she formed with her affair partner?
These are serious questions.
I get it. I'm having a hard time of letting go of some things myself right now, chief among them anger. When she talked to me about how she experiences symptoms that essentially sound like Dissociative Identity Disorder, I became an absolute student of the disorder, tried to learn everything, understand everything, urged her to get into DBT or CBT......
The reality is until SHE decides to get better, all your knowledge, all your explanations, all your efforts....are very likely to fall on deaf ears.
And damn. I hope I'm wrong. Because I do believe you love this woman, I do believe your intentions are absolutely good and that you want what's best for yourself, your kids and your wife. But I'm afraid you're going to bang your head against the wall and get occasional small progress, occasional no progress, and occasional steps back.
But I've seen it too many times and now I'm living through it myself. This process you're going through? Somewhat different scenario, but I went down the same rabbit hole looking for answers. I needed to. And maybe you need to. But it might not work. And that's okay. Just please...be honest with yourself. And talk some of this out with a connection (maybe a sponsor?) from AlAnon if you have developed that sort of relationship with anyone.
In NarAnon, there's a man we call "f---in' Richard" and he wears it as a badge of honor because he drops knowledge bits and we just go "damn, f---in' Richard." I've only been going a short time and I already know. But there's two bits he drops.
1.) Addiction is the only disease where the only real cure is more pain. (It's that "hitting bottom" idea. As bad as things are, she might not yet. She might need more pain before she truly sees what she's doing to her family and to herself.)
2.) Trying to "fix" the addict is like pulling 648 levers. You pull all 648 of them, and you find out that all you've accomplished is that you wore out your arms. Or your brain. Or your heart. Whatever the case may be. Ultimately only the addict knows which levers to pull and in which order, and they won't realize they know that answer until they truly seek recovery and work their steps toward health (12 step meetings would call these 12 steps, other forms of meetings would have other definitions.)
I get it. A thousand times. I get it. And you're going to go through your process. Just remember the folks here have all been there, either as friends and family of an addict or as addicts themselves. And in some cases as both! This woman in my NarAnon meeting on Wednesday night referred to those folks as "Double Winners." Go through your process. We're here for you. And while I know this isn't strictly 12 step, there's one thing from that I can close with that I think is appropriate for all forms of support: keep coming back.
-Eric