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I am desperate

persevererSenior Contributor01 Sept 2016, 12:02 am AEST

I am desperate

Hello, I am so pleased to find this forum. My husband has schizoaffective disorder, our eldest son also has it and has been battling psychosis since April, our next eldest son is autistic and refuses to admit it. He has ADHD and OCD, left school last year having failed everything and has not looked for work. Our youngest son has Tourette's. My husband had to leave work last year - he was a wonderful primary school teacher. He is manic most of the time, gets up at 4:00am and energetically starts cleaning the house. The main problem is his spending sprees. He was borrowing from his mother's account then demanding "we" pay it back. At first it was $2000 a year but the last two years it was $42000. When he left work he withdrew his superannuation and spent the lot on things for the house such as rugs and ornaments. Our stove and oven are broken - I am trying to cook for a family of five on just two hotplates. When he crashes with depression he can spend months in bed, completely helpless. Pschosis comes on without any warning - you can think everything is going ok with him and then he will say something that makes you realise he is not in the land of reality. Our eldest son has a long psychiatric history, beginning as OCD in early childhood, then depression and anxiety, finally catatonia when he went full turkey off his meds, then he had a psychotic episode he was lucky to survive earlier this year. The most recent diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder. I have to work full time to support the family and I feel terrifed and gutted every day going off to work knowing mentally ill children are in the care of my mentally ill husband. Our next eldest son badly needs help but everyone is so needy, there are not enough hours in the day to cope with it all and not enough pairs of hands. He sits in the dark all day, cannot bear the sound of people eating, so he eats alone, distributing food all over the house. He urinates over everything. His bedroom reeks of ammonia. He will not sleep in his bed, he sleeps on the floor and has burned the carpets with urine. He finds it very, very hard to communicate. the demands of my job make it very hard for me to even do such a simple thing as make an appointment to see a psychiatrist. My husband cannot do any of these things. He will not use a plastic transaction card, he will not type anything online, he will not make phone calls. I just feel desperate trying to do everything when everyone is so ill and I have no help.

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In response to: I am desperate

persevererSenior Contributor09 Sept 2016, 5:29 am AEST

Re: I am desperate

Thank you, @Rosa. Your injection of positivity was extremely helpful! Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights. In particular, I didn't know that about light sensitivity and it helps me to understand my son's behaviour better.

We already use homeopathic melatonin. Thank you for mentioning it because I had forgotten what a positive difference it made. Day/night patterns are a major issue here. Come to think of it, son G has not needed melatonin for a while and I forgot to check if he has run out of it. Son J is actually sleeping through the night now and I had forgotten those long years when he was awake all night eating everything he could find.

Actually, after I wrote this post I did all of a sudden realise that things are going to be dramatically better. I could see, for example, that my husband leaving work was a marvellous advantage because he no longer has any control over any of the money. There is nothing left for him to spend except the allowance I give him. For the first time, I have complete financial control.

I bought a whiteboard and on it I write every expense and every bill. That way everyone can see what everything costs and where money goes. I have also established a savings and investment plan. It doesn't matter that we are now on only half the income we used to be and have enormous medical bills. I now have a plan for paying myself first and a ten year plan for creating a passive income that will be a standby should I also need to leave the workforce. (eg if something happens to my husband and I will need to be home to care for son J.)

I don't drink bottled water because of its high sodium content. We do however have a water filter and we only drink filtered water.

Another positive thing I realised after posting here and reading through other posts is that I have in fact acquired many techniques for managing the psyche ward that is my home. It made me feel valuable and empowered.

I am glad you are doing so much better and I hope in a year or two my newfound encouragement will lead me to a similar degree of confidence. Thank you very much for writing.

In response to: I am desperate

PrincessmollySenior Contributor09 Sept 2016, 10:28 am AEST

Re: I am desperate

Oh @persevere how i feel for you and your family. I wish there was something practical i could do to help you. I wonder if you could share what state you are in so that people may be able to point you towards fundung options etc. Do you have any long service leave you could take? Does your husband not see that hus refusal to accept gis mental health issues and get help both financially and physicallu is putting the entire load on your shoulders? If you were to start a gofundme to pay for private cover i would contribute!!!

In response to: I am desperate

persevererSenior Contributor09 Sept 2016, 8:50 pm AEST

Re: I am desperate

@Princessmolly, thank you so much for caring. I live in Victoria. Honestly, all suggestions for how I can improve my lot will be very much appreciated. My husband really does expect me to bear the whole burden and he is quite deluded. To give some idea, he once turned headlong the wrong way onto five lanes of oncoming traffic on a major highway. Before his mother died, he had guardianship of her account, and he took enormous sums from it and then would demand I repay them. It almost broke up our marriage. But now his mother has passed away, and he has spent all his inheritance as well as all his super in less than six months, there is nothing left and no more demands on me to pay his debts. I have a small amount of super I can access next year. I am giving him no access to or power over my income whatsoever. Gofundme? I didn't think you could fund raise if it was going to benefit you personally? I'll check it out and thanks for the suggestion.

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