Hello, here's a long introductory ramble!

Well here I am farting around on line, tired beyond being able to sleep (work nonsense rather than anything else) And I found this site...I read a bit about it and found lots of useful articles. Some made me cry - feeling a bit out of sorts, over tired, over worked etc etc; some made me laugh - especially the 'worst things to say to a depressive' I couldn't believe some of them were real!!! So I thought I'd join up... just a bit in need of an outlet, some help & support and a place to ramble on as is my wont (the OH is the creative literary type, I burble! lol) Any way. I'm the wife of a not quite manic depressive - that is to say, he has all the symptoms of bipolar but just above true bipolar. His 'manic' phases are only a bit manic, his depressive phases - though awful, generally only last a few days and the cycles are short and very rapid. He started seeing a therapist in Feb this year.... and was made redundant 4 weeks ago... so all the good stuff that was happening has come crashing down. You might tell from my avatar we own horses - unfortunately yards can be horribly bitchy, vile places - hard enough when you are 'normal' but a total disaster if you are mentally vulnerable in any way. So anyway, I've been away from the yard for 3 days and all hell has broken loose. My Husband shares looking after the horses as they are both ours & we both ride. The bitches started (all yards have at least a couple of them)as they are wont to do - especially if they sniff a whiff of vulnerability - and well... The long & the short of it is he's ten times further back down the ladder and lashing out at everyone. We're still very much in the early stages of this whole mental illness thing ( as in 6 months diagnosed) & still very much learning to cope. As the partner, I've been feeling increasingly helpless & unable to cope and alone - taking the backlash of others against his outbursts (some outbursts totally justified I might add, the trouble is the 'extent' to which he takes them)and feeling increasingly alone and unable to help not just the man I love, but the man who is my best friend in all the world, who has supported me through some pretty rough stuff, and yet seems to be beyond my help. We have been together 18 years, we don't have many secrets from each other now! lol He is one of the most creative, funny and engaging people I know (Yes I do tell him that, repeatedly!) I know he loves me and is tearing himself apart for what he thinks 'he is doing to me' (his words). I love him more than life and it tears me apart seeing him torture himself over the imagined wrongs he is doing to me. I KNOW it's an illness, my mother had a mental breakdown when I was 13, but I am not the most patient person in the world, neither do I easily accept what I see a failure in myself. I don't react calmly all the time, and I take offense when the illness is talking (I'm quite feisty!lol)and lack of 'listening' and 'rationality' frustrates the hell out of me. Especially when he is one of the most brilliant communicators I know. The stupid thing is we talk, we communicate, we support each other, we understand the 'theory' and realties of mental illness. We are both intellegent & interested in psycholgy and sociology and together with the intellectual understanding of what is going on. Then our emotions get involved and it can all as they say... go a bit Pete Tong! and distinctly runny at the edges. What starts out as an episode from him, I start dealing with fairly reasonably... then he says something that triggers me off, I give a slightly sharp / grumpy response and BANG we're off into a massive row. OK we can pull it back sometimes, but it doesn't stop the emotions running and it's getting more frequent with the current pressures involved in his building a new business. What we both need more than anything in the world is a break... a couple of weeks away alone together with no stresses or strains.... then he needs a bit of time away for himself, as do I. However, work for me, monetary constraints & the fact that 1 of our horses is a rescue and can be dangerous to those he doesn't know, to the point only we deal with him... Means that we can't take time away or remove ourselves from the sources of stress for a while. In fact just the practicalities of real life seem designed to aggravate his symptoms and we have no way of getting away from them. So I suppose I'm looking for answers... I have already decided I need help - I need to talk to his therapist & I need a counsellor myself. I think we are both heading towards the reluctant realisation he may need drugs... a MAJOR hurdle, a lot of his problems stem from the fact he was a sickly child with a mother who was overbearing, repressive & hyperchondriac... drugs hold a LOT of problems for him. They've been used to control him in the past in a REALLY bad way. And that in itself is causing issues. This site has really helped though, just from the couple of hours I've spent browsing & rambling. It's given me a bit of focus, we do need to approach this as any challenge - together - we normally make a pretty formidable team. We need to start talking to those in our lives (not close relatives - they already know - but people at the yard which is so much a part of our lives and is essential that the atmosphere is OK)and explain depression and what happens - and that if he kicks off it should be treated like diabetes or an asthma attack...ie NOT personal. I think I feel a bit of a plan coming on.... :-) So... long winded ramble but it's helped me at least as this is a secure place & no one knows who or where I am much beyond what I'm willing to give ... and that is a very precious thing.