My father-in-law has Alzheimer’s paired with bi-polar disorder.

The family found out that he had bi-polar disorder just last week, but he has had his diagnosis since he left Vietnam and spent three years in an institution until his doctors regulated him on medication. At that time, the standard prescription was lithium. He switched so depakote a few years later and has been on that for almost 40 years. Finding this information shocking at first, a few days of recalling past experiences started to make so much more sense. He had small manic episodes through the years that, at the time, made no sense, but not make total sense. I don’t agree with my in-laws keeping this from the family, but my mother-in-law promised her husband never to say anything to the family. I’m not picking on an entire generation, however this “keep private things private” at the expense of family gives hardcore boomer energy. I just never figured out why keeping things like this “secret” has ever done anyone any damn good.

I’ve been open and honest with my own depression and anxiety with most of my family and some of my friends despite my gut urge to keep things as private as possible. I realized quickly that in order to have the help and support we all need requires a certain level of vulnerability with those around you. It’s the vulnerability part of the process that, although unavoidable, is how we work through the problems and come out the other side with the support we need. Unfortunately for my father-in-law, the bi-polar medication has a crappy side effect of accelerating the Alzheimer’s progression. There is a theory the doctor’s are attempting to figure out around the two medications interacting with each other and essentially cancelling out all therapeutic benefits. That is a nightmare scenario that has resulted in him having an extended manic episode, not sleeping, paired with him not recalling where he is most of the day and just keeps moving despite pure exhaustion. The anger is uncontrollable at times causing family fire drills, police to be called, and him being taken to the hospital. He’s being discharged today.

My wife and I went to visit him the other day and he stared at us asking “Who are you two?” with this blank look on his face. I thought he may have been joking around with us, but after several attempts to tell him who we were, he just asked us to leave because we had the wrong room. Later that night, my wife was with her Mom and sister and her sister was saying how much he was talking and joking around with the staff, which was the exact opposite of what we were told by the same staff only a few hours before. My wife called her sister out on BS saying to stop blowing smoke up my mother-in-laws ass trying to keep her hopes up. I agree with my wife, sugar-coating things and lying about reality rarely helps anyone in the end.

Adding to all of this, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer two weeks ago and had her first chemo treatment last week. Her life has literally fallen apart over the last year and now is severely depressed. She refuses to go talk to a therapist, refuses to admit the reality and gravity of a bi-polar Alzheimer’s husband, and refuses to make any decisions without my father-in-laws input. His input has lately been illogical and just weird, to the point where it literally makes no sense. We are all trying to help them, but get told things like “you don’t live here” and “it’s not your choice to make” about things like getting new rugs because the old ones are 25 years old. Again, boomer energy reigns supreme and it is honestly the most frustrating thing to have to deal with and work around.

So, he’s coming home today, to a house that has been pulled apart for weeks because multiple things got started but never finished. The garage is a pure mess because they needed to install a ramp for the door, but nothing got put back because someone wanted to have the walls painted, even though crap will just cover it back up again. The living room is pulled apart for new carpets, that have yet to be picked out because my father-in-law can’t decide between five different shades of tan. The office is pulled apart because my father-in-law was searching for “something” that he couldn’t remember, but swore up and down it was in there. He couldn’t even describe it, just knew “it” was in there, somewhere…. an entire night of searching yielded nothing. We all know the house needs to be put back together because chaos causes the bi-polar and Alzheimer’s to trigger, usually at the same time. Chaos is not healthy.

My wife is lost, and I can’t do anything to help other than do what she asks when she asks. It isn’t my place to intervene in my in-laws affairs, but I can support her as much as I can. There are times where I’m just left speechless and frozen in what to do because I’ve never really experienced this first hand, only through other’s descriptions which was limited to what they wanted to share. I’m now seeing this in it’s raw and uncensored form and it’s so sad, frustrating, and horrible. This weekend is not going to be good.