Every night, around 10pm, it's the same old, same old:
Me: Did you take your pills yet?
DH: Uh....
Me: Go take your pills. You know you are going to sleep for 12 hours, so if you take your pills now, you'll get up at a decent time.
DH: But I can't take them yet, I wanted to do some laundry!
Me: You can do it tomorrow when you wake up.
DH: No I can't, I won't be in the mood then.
Me: Take your pills.
DH: You're mean!
Me: I know.
DH: Ok, I'll take the stupid pills.
Every night we have some kind of variation on that conversation. Tonite he wanted to "get a lot of stuff done." But if we get up tomorrow and I suggest he work on "all those things you wanted to get done", he either isn't in the mood, or can't remember what they are.
And another thing, almost every night, his mood gets worse as the sun goes down. He wakes up in a healthy state of mind, and then when the day starts to wind down, he gets depressed. Tonite he got depressed and could not explain to me anything that might have set that off. I don't know what the evening depression has to do with the evening ambition or the unwillingness to take the pills at night, or the inability to see that if he wants to get up before 3pm, he will need to go to bed before 3am.
I have read in several places that bipolar affects the circadian rhythms in a person's body. That bipolar people seem to prefer staying up all night and sleeping all day. But I'm not sure I understand it at all. I'm hoping that DH can get up early enough tomorrow to make some appointments, so that maybe we can figure out if there is a way to help with this. It's one of those things that I can see, but apparently the bipolar glasses keep him from seeing.
If any of you have any ideas, please feel free to comment--I've learned so much from everyone in the blogosphere, I'm happy to learn more.
Monday, August 18, 2008
What is it about the nighttime?
Posted by Carol at 12:33 AM
Labels: bipolar, depression, husband, medications, memory
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1 comments:
I noticed the same thing with my husband. At first I thought it was because he had worked nights for so long he had to adjust. As time went by though I saw he was still sleeping during the day, two or three naps. Then he began staying up later and later and sleeping in. When the mania came he was up early again 5am, or 4am. He would still take one long nap during the day time at first until he was up most of the time. I didn't see what was going on at the time. You are good to be able to see what's going on.I don't have any real advice since my husband is still up nights and has taken to drinking wine at night to try to sleep. Just wanted to say your not alone,what you are going through and are seeing is something I saw too. Sometimes it's good to hear from someone else your not reading something between the lines. It's kind of like the back pain thing isn't it? He sees the back pain connection now right? I guess it will take time for this to be seen and understood too.
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