I hear the alarm go off, think "oh yes, I should take my pill" then immediately forget. I've always had very poor short term memory and grasp of time - I get extra time etc in exams for it - it's good in a way because it gives my brain more exercise as I have to work a lot out as we go - I'm pretty good at covering up. I find it quite hard to separate out what is dyspraxia or whatever and what is mental illness (and what is just me being someone with a bit of an odd personality - I freely admit that I am quite odd!)
A day isn't really all that useful, as most of the time he is just keeping an eye to check I'm not relapsing, and things bubble along. When I'm well, which can be for months in a row, I'm utterly fine However, I get bad pretty quickly
Also my "bad" times are really variable It could be that I am anxious, and so get in a massive tizzy about tiny things, and so I need sombody to calm me down and encourage me to leave the house, lend a hand with the kids and so on I can deal with the kids the vast majority of the time, but long term things start to slip if I don't get support
Sometimes I get depressed, so I find it physically hard to move, eat, drink, change my clothes, get out of the house and so on, so he basically nags me into doing these things (this is when we argue most, as I, being depressed, hate being told what to do, and he gets angry because he thinks I'm not trying)
Those two states are not too bad though, as I am pretty aware of them
It gets dangerous when I start going high, as it starts pretty innocently, with me being more energetic and motivated, my thoughts get scattered, but then my thoughts are always scattered, then I start to get ideas that I somehow have the secrets of life, I spend money in a silly way, I get a really high sex drive, my heart beats faster, I sleep less and less, I get really loud and extrovery, then sometimes I start up with the hallucinations, and that's it, I'm seriously ill. Usually it doesn't go that far though, as DH will spot it, and tell me what he suspects, and if that doesn't help, he can encourage me to take the tranquillisers or sleeping pills, if that doesn't work, he can ring up the mental health team, or crisi team, or NHS dirct, or 999.
I also occaisionally get hallcinations, intrusive thoughts, delusions and so on in the other "bad states", but they are more likely when I'm high, mainly because when high, I am more likely to think I don't need help, to drink much more, and to get in risky situations. I suppose I have always slipped away from reality quite a bit, but it's harmless normally - I think most people have daydreams where they think they are real, or lose the odd minute or think about things they don't want to think about, or have little quirks, I just seem to get a lot of them, lol.
Thing is, I can be seriously ill, but 75% of the time I am utterly fine, it's just that I forget to take my pills The problem is, that often I won't call the professionals myself when I start getting ill, and a lot of the support I need is quite low level - ie just keeping an eye out. DH has been really good at that. He gets told by the doctors to hide my pills sometimes. What would happen if he wasn't there? The police have dropped me off into his care a few times. Once he refused and I ended up in hospital when I would have been allowed home otherwise (he refused partially on purpose to get me more help, and it worked)
Meh. That all sounds a lot bleaker than it is. I am honestly ok most of the time, and the times when I'm not ok are usually pretty mild - on the scale of a mild to moderate PND or something. It is just every now and again that suddenly goes worse.
I tell the HCPs about me not being able to keep track of the days and they just laugh and say "ooh, don't we all!" I have a watch now that tells me the day and date and time, which is great, so I can hide that quite well.