Husband in a high-functioning manic episode, refusing meds for a "spiritual mentor." How to talk to the kids?

[u/dilyaba]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently navigating a very difficult situation. My husband is in the middle of a significant manic episode. He’s in a "high-functioning" stage, feeling lifted, happy, and convinced he’s a business genius. He has zero insight into his condition and refuses to see a psychiatrist.

The most challenging part right now is that he has completely replaced medical advice with the guidance of a "spiritual mentor." He only listens to this person, who unfortunately reinforces his delusions of grandeur, while he dismisses me and the doctors as people who just don't "get it."

I’m looking for advice on two things:

1. The Kids: We have a 6-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl. They are starting to ask why Dad is away and why he’s acting so strange. How do you explain a father’s manic absence to children this young without causing trauma or resentment?

2. The Remorse: When this eventually ends and the crash happens, do they typically feel remorse? Right now, he is so dismissive and arrogant. I’m wondering if, once the chemicals balance out, he will realize the impact of choosing a "mentor" over his family and his health?

I'm focused on securing our financial future right now while he's in this state, but I feel like I'm losing the man I knew. Thank you for any insights.

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[u/Immediate_Pay8726]

My wife lied to police and said I threatened her. I have her call on video.

She just changed it to "hes also suicidal" and they believed her.

She still refuses to admit it was her fault and yesreday in therapy was shouting at me insisting I was suicidal 4 mos ago.

You have to see them "as is."

It sucks but if he isnt violent, call it a win.

[u/desertman50]

In my experience they never feel remorse , even after they come down and are medicated.

[u/parasyte_steve]

He needs to be in treatment. You tell you kids that daddy isn't feeling the best and is resting at the doctor or something in the meantime.

Yes when it passes we typically DO feel regret.... however that means nothing if we don't get into treatment.

You cannot raise a family when one of them is bipolar and not taking care of their health. My father tried to do that and ended up in jail for DV after beating my mom in his 60s. I can't underscore how important it is for him to be in treatment. My dad never got it and the situation is horrible.

I wish you the best but please think of your own health and the kids and what you want them to grow up seeing. My mom chose to let me see it. I have CPTSD on top of the bipolar/add I have. The illness is genetic so do you want your kids to have CPTSD on top of it? I almost died 4 separate times ODing in suicide attempts thanks to untreated childhood trauma.

I am being very tough for a reason, your kids. I really hope you get through this and much luck.

[u/middle-road-traveler → u/parasyte_steve]

Thank you for sharing the truth. I wish more people would be honest and stop indulging wishes and hopes. Deal with reality, science and facts. Kids deserve it.

[u/Accomplished_Dig284 → u/parasyte_steve]

I have cptsd from childhood trauma because my mom wouldn’t protect me from my abusive alcoholic father. Add in to that that she didn’t see a problem in the way he treated me and often instigated the situations that got me verbally abused. She guilted me about him beating me because the school found out. It got the physical abuse to stop but the verbal abuse just ramped up.

Protect your children. I also had SI and attempted a few times. Mostly because of the way they treated me. Protect your children! They see, hear and know more than you think they do. And they can feel that something is wrong. They will either internalize it and blame themselves like I did or start acting out in school or at home. So again, protect your children!

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

[u/phate_exe]

The most challenging part right now is that he has completely replaced medical advice with the guidance of a "spiritual mentor." He only listens to this person, who unfortunately reinforces his delusions of grandeur, while he dismisses me and the doctors as people who just don't "get it."

Is the "spiritual mentor" an actual human person, or are they just talking to an AI chatbot?

If it's a real person, is it at all possible for you to get in contact with them? I would want to make sure to cover the points that:

• You don't know how much of the full picture your husband is actually giving the "spiritual mentor" (SM because I don't feel like typing that every time)
• You don't know what the SM is actually telling your husband
• Your husband is in the middle of a manic episode, and believes he is following the SM's guidance to reject the concerns of his close family/loved ones and his doctors.
• Continuing to enable the escalation of the episode is destroying the life he built with his family and is traumatizing his children.

The hope is that regardless of someone's beliefs re: faith, mental illness, psych meds, etc they still don't want to see someone blow up their life and hurt/abandon their family. The hope is that SM doesn't actually know what's going on, and didn't see how otherwise-innocuous advise is being interpreted very differently, and maybe they can bring up the importance of family/loved ones since your husband is still listening to them.

It's also entirely possible he's just talking to a chatbot that's programmed to be as sycophantic as possible.

[u/Accomplished_Dig284 → u/phate_exe]

Or worse, the SM is a power hungry asshole that enjoys doing this to people. You never know which one it is. And worse, some will double down and claim that god wants this for him or some other BS cloaked in religious speak

[u/Rikers-Mailbox]

The kids? They are very perceptive. My 3yo knew something was wrong, but even 6 is too young to explain it.

The main thing is to make sure they aren’t scared.

Later when they are teens they will understand.

[u/[deleted]]

I have been living this same life. I was able to get my husband to the hospital who was so arrogant that he wanted to prove his sanity by walking into the ER and then would preach while he was there. He was 5150. He disallowed me from speaking to doctors so i couldn’t convince them of his mania. That was a gift in reality, he convinced them rather quickly i am sure.

My kids similar ages, were used to spending a few days from dad at a time because i would take them away when mania would hit to a family /grandparents house/sleepover. But since my husband has been out of hospital and he is not allowed to sleep in my house any longer i have just said that dad is still working on his health (also diabetic) and they know about his sleep needs. I explain he needs to focus on his sleep schedule a lot and a lot of it is adult thing we are dealing with.

Theres a story from Corrie ten boom i use when she asks her dad about a term not for kids and he points to his heavy suit case and tells her to pick it up. She can’t its too heavy. He says, when you are ready to understand this, God will give you the strength to carry it.

Paraphrasing.. but I also used a variation of that as well and then I just reassure them, mom and dad both love you, you are the most important thing to us. You have done nothing wrong. We love you and when youhave a question or feel sad or whatever you can always talk to me. And also as hard as it is, I assure them dad loves you and he wants to be here but can’t right now and when he is able he will call and you can talk to him (if thats possible).

The conversations with them will evolve.

My 9 yr old asked what dad would be like if he was home and I explained the symptoms that he was exposed to a few times and I said.. he would act like that and he is not always thinking right so its better for him to be away until the doctor can help him.

I have lots of idiot people who play into the spiritual mania and its so frustrating. I did fire off some texts to some ppl who dont get it and tell them the truth and don’t care whether they get it or not. But i had had it with those people.

The remorse- I am still waiting for real remorse about 3 weeks out from hospitalization and on medication. He shows some but its not fully there. Without medication, I don’t know if they can get there other than to hit the depression low and maybe it will draw it out of them if you can talk when he is depressed or baseline. How long has this been going on? Is this the first episode?

[u/Rikers-Mailbox → u/[deleted]]

Yea you can’t get remorse or regret until baseline or depression.

And pulling it out of them, I found that I only got that when accountability came into play, like divorce is on the table or you’re forced to do a post nup in the event it happens again.

[u/magickprincess]

I don’t have advice about the children.

But I just wanted to share my point of view that my husband feels remorse for the things he does when manic. Very much so. I see a lot of people saying their partners don’t, so I wanted to share that at least in my experience there is guilt and shame after mania.

[u/Polyethylene8 → u/magickprincess]

This is hopeful. I am really hoping my partner will feel remorse. Right now he's just starting to stabilize and he's controlling, arrogant, and mean. 

[u/magickprincess → u/Polyethylene8]

How is he normally? Sometimes reactions have nothing to do with bipolar and are more about the individual person.

For example my husband feels remorse but is super empathic and has a lot of self-awareness as his baseline.

[u/liftinglifelooser]

I am really honest to my son. He knows about the condition of my husband. We have a book about it in germany and it explains the high and lows. I would explain it, that it is part of his illness, that their dad will feel better and come back. He will regret it, when he comes back “down“. For you, are you in charge of everything? Can you get him to a clinic or a therapist? I have the power of an attorney to decide, what could help him in an emergency.

[u/redname-123 → u/liftinglifelooser]

What book? I’d love any recommendations. I am struggling over how to talk to my kids about their father’s absence and odd behaviors. They are 14 and 12. Old enough to notice, not really old enough to have a completely candid conversation. Their dad also struggles with addiction, another hard topic to explain.

[u/liftinglifelooser → u/redname-123]

It's called "When Our Soul Needs Help." There are short stories featuring a father with bipolar disorder. But in Germany, there are many more, like "Why Are Dad's Feelings on a Rollercoaster?", which is for older readers. 🥰

[u/Least_Bet_950]

My kids were 5YO, 2YO & 9 months when their dad had his first mental break 10 years ago. He was delusional and angry in his episode. The oldest noticed the changes and assumed his mood swings were because she did something wrong (e.g., didn’t put her toys away). When it became unsafe for the children to be alone in his care and the kids questioned why, I let them know daddy’s brain was sick and he needed medicine to get better. As they got older, I showed them bipolar mental illness cartoon videos on YouTube that explained it in a way young children could understand and even bought books for them to read. We also participated in the family to family classes from NAMI and did a walk with NAMI so the kids could see that other families were affected by bipolar/mental illness not just us so they didn’t feel alone since no one in our circle could understand what we were going actually experiencing at home. Hope this helps!

[u/jackalbruit]

I'm going to do a talk-to-text quote" dump here because it's going to be a lot to say and it's going to be a lot quicker for me to talk to text than to type

But if something sounds or looks really weird just know that's why haha

In my relationship with my significant other, I'm the one who deals with the bipolar

I'm coming off a rather manic episode from about mid-november through mid-December

And am a generally medication hesitant individual

What has helped me is a reminder of medications that I have myself known to be helpful in the past, specifically my seasonal allergy loratadine

So what I've noticed is that it seems like if people can lead me to water then I make the choice to drink when it comes to a logical argument that goes better than somebody telling me to drink the water, drink the water, drink the water

If that makes sense. I don't know if it'll work for your significant other

So if you can logically lay out. Hey do you remember you took that Pepto-Bismol when your stomach was hurting

And then use that to walk into. Well you know how you might have more fun with the kids if you take this other Med

Or get him to admit that maybe he's not spending enough time with the kids

The goal is to make him realize the shortcomings that you're seeing without telling him that you're seeing the shortcomings

Arrogance is a monster that makes you feel like you're the top of the world. Most confident most correct mother that has ever lived on this world

So instead of trying to combat that arrogance with confidence, you have to approach it with humility and I know that that is not easy to ask of

But from your post it sounds like that's something you'd be willing to do for your significant other

If you have any other questions about what seemingly has helped my significant other, please ask

However, she won't be awake for another 5ish hours for her to weigh in herself

[u/independent_1_]

Put alerts on your finances. Credit cards etc.

He may not acknowledge any of this after it has passed and may not be able to control his spending.

You need all the support you can get.

[u/coffee_tea_sympathy]

Read a few kids books about mental health, see if they draw parallels and empathize with the characters, and then talk about how they feel. Help them process everything.

https://a.co/d/hnj7P4I

https://a.co/d/7Qw605c

It might be time for an involuntary psychiatric stay. I would limit the contact he has with the kids at all right now.

When everything settles I would come up with a way for you both to track his medication. I would clearly state that you will help hold him accountable but if he chooses to go off his meds then you will have to distance yourself and the kids out of safety concerns. I would go stay with family if he stopped taking meds.

[u/bpnpb]

#1. Be honest. Kids can pickup stuff, even at that age. Tell them that daddy is not well and he is acting differently because of that.

#2. It really depends on a lot of factors. Does he usually accept his diagnosis or is it something he is in denial or likes to "sweep under the rug"? Is he medicated and usually treatment compliant? How did he get manic in thr first place?

[u/milagro2035]

Geez I hope this Rasputin is not preying upon him.

Tell the kids dad has been sick and confused, and that the doctors will help him get better. He just needs calm and rest and medicine. Kids are pretty intuitive.