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Wife with Schizophrenia

8985 Views 37 Replies 16 Participants Last post by  Tears In Heaven
I've been married to my wife for 21 years and about 6 years ago we learned that she suffered from schizophrenia. She never suffered previously, or if she did we never realized it, we've been together since 1985, and have been blessed with 2 wonderful boys. The illness came on rather quickly, and has affected our lives ever since. Over the six years that she's been suffering, she has been on several different medications, and only one that has shown positive results. She was on the only medication that worked for two and half years, and things during that time were tolerable. About a year and a half ago, she as well as her psyciatrist, decided to wheen her off that medication because of possible long term neurilogical damage that could develop. Since changing her medication she has continued to get worst. My hope from through all of this was that there would be some magic pill that would make this illness go away, and my goal has always been to do whatever I needed to do to keep my family together. She has been unstable for about a year now, and our lives have been a living hell. I don't ever seeing her getting back to being the woman I married, and I see her behavior now having an affect on our son's. I feel my only choice now is to take my boys and leave, because I feel my wife, and their mother left about 6 years ago. We are all she really has, and I understand her illness is not her fault. But I know I have to do something before I lose my sanity as well.
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My sympathies, Namdeer. My ex became bipolar when our son was young. It was a very difficult time not only because of her behavior changes and the difficulty in finding a suitable mix of stabilizing drugs, but because our marriage was already close to over. I endured about 6 years of that, and finally she was stable enough that we went ahead with our divorce, and I could be confident that she could share custody.

My second wife had badly treated Lyme disease that was subsequently misdiagnosed as something else, and was very ill for 8 years. Our relationship was almost ideal despite this, even when eventually she had auditory hallucinations when it got to her brain. We finally found a specialist who successfully treated her a few years ago, and aside from some minor neurological and heart damage, she's again her wonderful self.
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