DH has been in bed since sunday, what do I do?

[superspamiam]

My Dh suffers with depression. He has recently had to come off his ADs due to bad side effects. He has been up and down with his mood as you would expect, but things really took a turn after the weekend. He seemed on good form all of Saturday and then went spectacularly downhill on Sunday. From about 10 am he slept on the sofa until I told him to go back to bed. There he has stayed since then. It is now Monday evening and he has not surfaced at all. I have tried everything to get him up. I have shouted and pleaded for him to try and get up. I am at the end of my tether to be honest. We have two small children and they keep asking why Daddy is still in bed. I just don't know what to say to them. My poor 6 year old daughter was sobbing yesterday that Daddy wont play with her, and he wouldn't even talk to her. I am fucking livid to be honest and I want it to stop. God I am so angry typing this. Yes I know I am being selfish but I have just had enough. This is only part of the shit I have had to deal with over the last couple of years.
I just don't know what to do for the best anymore. He thinks counselling wont help.

OP if you need anyone to ring on your behalf, I have been known to get very stroppy when needs be.

I just feel so bad for you all.

I have scizoaffective and have actually found it damn near impossible to get crisis to offer admittance or home plans.

My dh has gone through all the emotions under the sun to have lived with me these past ten years. I still knew he was supportive. Op sometimes we hit a point where we don't know what's good for us. Those of us with mental illnesses then need a close person to call the shots and get us help.

Call crisis again.

Badlad your friend needs a medication review. There are other ads and there might be something more suitable.

Depression really is a crippling and often fatal illness

Thanks morphinedreams for the offer! I have told dh about the letter I gave to the GP so he at least knows how much I have already told him. It might help him to get dr to see how bad things are. Right now dh is feeling a lot better. Despite being in bed most of the day he is now doing bedtime stories for the kids. His mood seems to fluctuate so much. I know the next crisis is just around the corner though. I think this is why it's so hard because he will go in to GP looking a lot brighter and it will be hard for GP to understand how he can have been so close to suicide just a day ago.

I'm like this sometimes, op. I had to go to three doctors to get help recently, and was turned away by my own gp and an out of hours doctor. It took me going to a different gp and refusing to leave until I had a referral to get an appointment at a clinic. Three weeks later, and I was registered to home care. I had active physcotic symptons, couldn't move at times. My advice is to go and impress on him that he is unwell, and needs treatment. I only got it after being told repeatedly that I was, and took a lot of persuading. He might be seriously very unwell, and not realise. Keep trying to talk to him, and tell him that this can stop, but he needs treatment. Tell him it's an illness, a recognised one, and its unbearable, but it can get slightly better in time. I always find it helps if people tells its my depression speaking,and not me. If you offer him seeing a doctor as a release from his feelings, he might be more willing. I took 3 weeks of convincing, though, May be months and months as the problem built up. Try that first, and the crisis team. Some clinics have emergency hours, so you can ask your gp for a referral to them straight away and get seen on the same day if things are really bad.

OP, I think your GP sounds awful. Citalopram was concluded to be the cause of seizures, with no investigations or on going monitoring to follow? He was taken off suddenly, with nothing in place to help with that. That is OUTRAGEOUS. I am sure it has contributed hugely to his current state, and he does need checking out for another underlying illness or cause. Is there another GP you can try to see as time goes on?

Do you think you could persuade him to seek help about the seizures, and chemical effects of withdrawal on his mood, muscles etc? I would ring the crisis team as mrssmith suggests, she is a mh nurse so must feel your situation is appropriate for that. You are doing well, this must be very scary

I'm glad he seems a little brighter OP but you both need to see his GP and request a referral to secondary MH services.

GPs can't be experts in everything, it's just impossible and your DH needs to see a Psychiatrist by the sounds of things. If nothing else, Citalopram should not be causing seizures unless in overdose. I am always open to very rare occurrences however!.

MH services have been absolutely destroyed by successive governments. I work within it and I know that the overwhelming majority of staff are dedicated and want to do their best but are so limited by circumstance and sheer over-work.

I know there have been many days in the last few months where there have been no free beds in MH units in the whole of England and that includes private hospitals.

I worked in a Crisis Team for a while in a big city (not anywhere as big as London though) and we averaged about 600 phonecalls received a week!.

A decade ago, your DH would have been seen today by a team but the system is screwed now. But push for a MH referral, it's what your DH needs.

You should be there with Dh when he sees the gp - write down the run of events and things Dh said to you

Ps take a copy to pals also - even if no rules have been broken maybe they need to address the current protocols.

OP, ring the crisis team. Now. Your husband has told you he is suicidal, he held a knife to his wrists and he has told you it was only a matter of time before he did it. I understand this is stressful for you, but you have been given excellent advice here and seem to be doing nothing with it, aside from a couple of phone calls, you now seem to have given up. Call the mental health team and do not take no for an answer. I have had to call the crisis team out before and they were incredible. There is help available for you both but you have to go and get it! Imagine walking in and finding your husband, or one of your children finding him. There is a very real risk that he will harm himself. It doesn't matter what his mood is like today, do not ignore what you have witnessed. It doesn't matter if you feel you'll be letting your husband down by going behind his back for help, you will be letting him down if you don't. He is seriously Ill. Ring them. Now. Please.

Any GP worth his salt would know that depressed people have up and down days and that they cannot just judge them from the day. Will you be going with your husband? I would suggest outlining your concerns, list them and take your letter if you need to. I would also say that you're going to change GP if something is not done - I know it's hard but you need to be firm.

The offer is always there if you need any help, I know how hard it is x

Please please get him to see someone urgently.

My husband threatened suicide in front of our children just before Christmas. He had severe depression and was refusing to get help.
I would not like you to have to deal with traumatized children like I have had to.

Jousting reading through this thread, and I can believe what as happened to op regarding gp's

On Monday I took my sister to gp as she cant sleep, can't shut her mind off at night , generally exhausted she was crying uncontrollably.
She'd told me her gp had told her to stop taking her duloxetine couple weeks back, wtf anybody knows not to just stop ads .

So I told the gp, why did you just let her go cold turkey!!!!!
He said it's ok and fine to just come off duloxetine !!!!

I said oh no it's not, nobody should be going through cold turkey SE,

Can you believe a GP saying that, no way would I do this ever.

There are crap gps out there

That's the problem with GP's - Jack of all trades and Master of none (in the nicest possible way). Psychopharmacology is an incredibly complex area and medication should always be titrated \ stopped as per guidelines as withdrawals can often be horrendous. Sadly, when dealing with primary care practitioners the knowledge gap often reflects this.

How are things going OP?

In the past I had problems getting the crisis team to see my husband as in some areas the GP needs to refer them now and getting him to a GP or getting one to come out was impossible.

Thankfully now they know him they do allow me to call them directly.

I'm thinking of you and your dh OP x

I am off to uni soon to train to be a MH nurse but the way the mental health system is at the moment I now have some doubts.

I am friendly with a few MH nurses who are always moaning about how many people with MI are being let down right now, transferred to hospital hours away from family due to lack of beds or not even admitted at all when they should be.

My husband is 'lucky' enough to get support from the crisis team but has very little help so he doesn't end up in a crisis in the first place. They can't even get him a CPN any more as there aren't enough to go around, even though they know full well that he had a lot less admissions when he was under a CPN. Trying to get a care co now and that is turning out to be difficult as well, apparently there aren't many of them either.

Sorry I have not been back on here for a few days. Dh is a lot better now, but I not sure for how long. He still hasn't been seen by the community mental health team but he has an appointment next week.

I can't believe how long it has all taken to get him in the system. At least he is not in acute danger of suicide at the moment, although I know he still has thoughts regularly but not the compulsion to actually carry it out.
I am struggling to process everything that has happened over the last few weeks. He is signed off work and is still waiting to see neurology as we still don't know if there is something underlying that was causing the seizures. Its such a worrying time and I am starting to feel the strain. I have arranged a telephone counselling session for myself through work so that might help a bit.

We went to a family party yesterday and I got upset over something fairly trivial and ended up in tears which is a bit out of character. I think being around other people with their normal lives highlighted how messed up ours is at the moment. I find it really hard to talk to my family about this. I have a very good friend who has had some personal experience of this so I will talk to her. It is lonely dealing with it on my own.

You're doing incredibly well, don't feel bad for finding things tough. Glad you're getting some help for yourself too, you must prioritise yourself too...you're the one holding it all together. In my experience, people want to help but won't always know how. Ask for them to babysit, cook a meal or do a basket of ironing if that would help.

And keep posting, the mumsnet community have helped me through many difficulties, big and small.

Hi OP, I'm glad your DH is a bit more stable and has an appt. for you, you are doing really well. I know it can seem like no-one in RL understands, but it is worth trying to get a few people in the loop to help you, don't exhaust yourself trying to explain though. It really is nothing to be embarrassed about, even though it is quite natural to feel awkward discussing it. There are lots of people out there going through similar things, and lots of people on here who understand. Here's hoping things are better soon, hang in there.

There are some very good books aimed at children which explain about depression in a parent. I was suicidal 4 years ago and bought them for my DC's (when I was feeling better).

Your mental health services sound awful. I hope you can find some support for yourself in a friend/family member.

Thank you very much for coming back and updating superspamiam I'm sorry life is so very hard for you and your husband at the moment and I'm glad that you have a friend in whom you can confide. Regarding the seizures, it's so complicated because neurological symptoms can be linked to emotional states due to chemicals produced in the brain. For example, I developed temporal lobe epilepsy and the cause was emotional. Every working day for 11 years I was concealing strong emotions and the strain took its toll. Just an example to show that these things are interlinked and neurological symptoms shouldn't be viewed in isolation from emotions.

Wishing you and your husband all the very best and hoping you both get relief from the distress soon.