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Not even close.
I am taking my husband to the doctor tomorrow at 8AM. This is going to be very difficult for me, for many reasons. First, I have been staying up until 3AM or so, getting up around 11:30 or noon. Actually, I have been staying up later and later and getting up later and later over the course of months. It's a really slow flip around, but it's happening. And so, getting somewhere by 8AM is going to be hard. It might be easier to just slam coffee and stay up, but that could also be a horrible mistake. To go into this exhausted and wired is a bad idea.
Second, the reason he is going to the doctor is beyond stressful. He is adamant that he is infected with some sort of bug. He has been for several months now. He says that every week or so, eggs are hatching on his skin, the adult bugs bite him and he has to scrub his skin raw to get rid of them. He says he can see the bugs jumping off him and getting washed down the drain.
Now, I have not seen this. I told him that. He made me examine his skin with a magnifying glass to see the bugs, the eggs, etc. I didn't see anything except dry skin. Of course, this was after one of his psycho showers, so there shouldn't be much for bugs left on him, right? That was his explanation on why I can't see anything.
The first time he did this, he took our cat's flea comb and raked it all over his skin while in the shower, making himself bleed, making really horrific noises. I had to ask him if I needed to call an ambulance. Then he got out of the shower and had a total panic attack. Crouching in the corner hyperventilating, not making any sense, the usual psychotic breakdown shit. I told him that if he wasn't able to calm himself down, I'd have to consider taking him to the mental hospital.
Consider it. Yeah...it was terrifying. I was so scared. I wanted to just run out of the house, but I was afraid he might hurt himself. Full blown psychotic meltdown.
He went to acute care over a month ago and the doctor said it didn't look like an infestation, that it was probably allergies, and made my husband an appointment with an allergist. So, my husband underwent the back patch test for allergies, where he had to go to the doctor 4 times in one week, and not be able to shower because there was a grid of chemicals, etc on his back. Of course, that test came back negative. No allergies to any of the things they tested for.
So, now he really angry he wasted his time and money on this test, and he is convinced more than ever that he is infested with something. Mites, or lice, or something. Something that I can not see. All I can see, are red marks on his skin. I have red marks on my skin too. It's eczema. He says they are bug bites. He says he can feel the bugs biting him. He says he can see the bugs. He says all kinds of things and now I am taking him to yet another doctor.
So, what happens when the doctor tells him there are no bugs on him? What then? He is going to flip out. Major call the police schizo shit. I know this. This is going to be horrible. What can I do?
I really don't know what to do. I don't think I have bugs. If he did, you'd think I would. The cat is fine. So...again, I don't know. I want to believe him. I want to be supportive and help. I know that when my brother was sick, for decades, no one knew what was wrong with him. And finally they came up with a name for it. Fibromyalgia. Of course now everyone knows what that is, but back then, he was tested for everything under the sun. He was told he was just stressed out. That he had allergies. That this and that and the other. That nothing was wrong with him. That he was a hypochondriac. It was hard to see him suffering, and also hard to not wonder...is it in his head? So, I know that sometimes things are not what they seem. New diseases show up all the time. There are things happening to people that don't have names, that don't have cures. But...this bug thing is just too much for me handle.
There are too many variables here. He sleeps maybe 5 night a month. He takes meth almost every day. He's gone through meth psychosis before. It's pretty much like this, only this variety has bugs thrown into the mix. He is also paranoid schizophrenic, and has (for all practical purposes) multiple personality disorder. Not to mention the environment is fucked. Who knows what's in the air or the water at any given time. And I'm also not ruling out an STD, like syphilis. I have not brought that up yet, because on top of everything else, I just can't handle the implications of that too, but I have considered going to get myself tested, and go from there.
On top of everything else, he is obsessed with the laundry. He says that our laundry is never clean. That it comes out dirtier than when it went in. He spent all day today boiling his socks, after washing them twice. He sits there, picking his clothes apart for hours after they are washed. Picking all the fibers off them, all the pills, the little imperfections. He has spent countless hours in the past few months doing this. He says they are never clean, and that's all he can do to help them feel better.
All this started when we got our drier fixed in October, and it was a total SNAFU. I don't think I ever mentioned it, because it was just a nightmare. Long story short, we ended up having to buy a new drier because this repair guy ruined our old one, but not before totally making my husbands' paranoid schizophrenia go into overtime about infections and bugs. Leaving the vent unhooked, which meant we were getting carbon monoxide in the home for weeks, leaving the hatches off, so it was sucking up all the grit and grime off the unfinished basement floor into the laundry. It was just horrific.
And now my husband thinks the washing machine isn't working. It all just keeps spiraling out of control. He will NOT accept the fact that he is just having drug psychosis. Or that he is hallucinating and needs to be on medication. He will NOT accept even the option that his version of reality is NOT real. I hope they do find bugs on him. It would be so much easier than the alternative.
So, when the doctor tells him there's nothing wrong with him, am I going to be sitting out in the waiting room and get to watch the armed security guard come running past me into the office to beat the shit out of my drug addicted psychotic mentally ill husband, not able to do anything to help.
Helpless. I am totally helpless. I don't know what to do, and I really need some help. But there is no help. I just have to watch this play out and try to not let it affect me.
How fucked up is all this? This...this is why every week I wonder why I am still here? Why am I not forcing my husband to take medication, to see a shrink, to go into rehab, to do SOMETHING to help his many conditions? He thinks he is fine. He's not fine.
6:47 PM - Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020
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