I'm very sad and lost. Can't stop crying and don't know what I want. This is quite long.
My childhood history is that my mother left me to live with my violent schizophrenic father when I was 4. When I was 6, I went back to her because my father was sectioned, twice. We were close but he died 4 years ago. As a child, I became a people pleaser who puts other people first, but my relationship with my mother is still strained. She would constantly tell me to "just get over it" if I was upset over anything and had a running joke about how hard I was to live with.
I met my husband when he was 25 and I was 18. (15 years ago). Things moved very fast with him moving in with my mother and me pretty much straight away. I felt loved, possibly for the first time, and so when he had a psychotic breakdown 6 months into the relationship I stayed with him. He had previously had a voluntary stay in mental hospital.
We moved out together when I was 20, and things were good ish, for a while. Both working, going on holidays, happy life. He was never the perfect husband (always quite dependent on me) but i love him and made allowances because I understood mental health. I thought we were strong together.
2.5 years ago, the week before my 31st birthday, I got sick with a post viral body spasm and nervous system illness. So I get violent spasms every 10 seconds or so whenever I try to rest. Ive become disabled, no longer able to drive or walk very far. It's very difficult for me to be in public as I spasm (sometimes falling to the ground as legs buckle), scream, cry and my body feels like I'm in a war zone, reacting to light, sound, movement, smells (e.g. today i opened the door to delivery man and screamed because the package had a squiggly line on it ...!?!) while in my head I know I'm safe and my bodily responses are well out of proportion. It's also hard to do things at home- even writing this I'm having to take many breaks.
I've had little to no help from nhs, I'm on a waiting list but we'll see... I've been testing out alternative methods of recovery that have worked for other people.
After a year of being really sick I started to make little improvements. (I wouldn't have been able to look at a screen or write this for the brain fog in the first year) for 6 months I was making improvements but still very ill.
My husband begun to get mentally unwell. It had obviously been a very stressful time for him. First he started saying that I was faking being unwell and that he would like to stay in bed for a month. (I know that if people haven't had a chronic illness it's hard to understand how bad it is... but he has seen me having these spasms that look like seizures, multiple times, everyday...)
He would say "how can I believe what you say when you are always winking at me?" (I now have multiple facial twitches I can't control, including winking"
He became too stressed to go to work anymore last December but quickly became more and more ill. He completely lost his mind and turned into an aggressive zombie.
He would be constantly pacing around the flat, not engaging with any activities, not able to have a conversation, refusing to take the meds he had been on for 12 years. Being aggressive and arguing with me over nothing e.g. he comes into the bedroom and doesn't like the song on the radio.
The mental health team discharged him because he was too aggressive and not willing to engage...
So there's really ill me, just trying to help him get better on my own. By being extremely patient and getting him to slowly engage with his activities again and slowly encouraging him to leave the house, go for walks, visit family and friends.
He has treated me really badly. Being aggressive including screaming in my face, calling me "c---" , repeating "you have nothing to say", feeling that he is the victim and that my illness is something I'm doing to him.
Obviously this is very bad for my nervous system disorder. I walk away and refuse to engage. He says I'm giving him the silent treatment. I do most things to keep our lives going (order shopping, do more than half the chores and have to remind him about the others even after making him a weekly rota and setting up an app for him to follow, i look after the cat, and do all other "mental load" including his benefits application and attending appointments with him)
He has gotten a little better in the past few months. (Less aggressive now I've got him to be more active) but still can't concentrate on conversation. E.g he will gloss over half way through a sentence (that he is saying or I am saying), get a dazed look on his face then walk put of the room. I've been trying to encourage him to reengage with mental health services.
But he says he feels well. He feels better that ever. So why is he not going to work or engaging with the world independently. No answer.
Saturday night he told me our relationship was over a long time ago and he sees himself as more of a carer (remember I do so much more for him than he does for me) and he is staying as a friend To look after me.
He also said he has always been really jealous about any men talking to me and bought up a random acquaintance from 14 years ago that I only vaguely remembered that he was jealous of (there was nothing to be jealous of) and asked me "what was the real reason you left your job?" (I was/am far too sick to work!) and "did something happen there that you didn't tell me about?"
Ah. And was talking about the recent family gathering of mine, where we had had an argument in front of everyone... except that didn't actually happen, there has been no such gathering..!. and other weird things.
So the next morning I tried being nice and asked for a hug. He said he will give me a hug as friends.
I took a bath, had a think and then asked him to pack a bag and leave. He tried to argue "what !! are you gunna change the locks!?!" I told him I hoped I didn't have to, he packed a very small bag and left.
I did text him to check he is safe and not sleeping in the car again as he would probably freeze to death. This morning i booked him a telephone appointment and told him to reengage with the mental health team and to remember to ask for another sicknote. He had the appointment because he text me the sicknote (I guess so I can submit it to benefits for him) but he ignored me when I asked him about the appointment.
So now what?
I know my life would be a lot easier on my own. But I'm scared of being alone (remember those abandonment issues above) I feel very isolated because of my illness, but i know that he is a perpetuating factor, preventing my eventual recovery, while he is ill himself instead of supportive.
I have a few good friends but a lot of the time I'm too ill to see anyone or have a prolonged face-to-face conversation, so that adds to the isolated feeling.
Thanks, this has been cathartic to write I guess.