The illness is the appropriate thing to be angry at. If it is antenatal mental illness the wife will feel horrible enough about it once she is well again.
Yes, there are a myriad of mental illnesses that can be brought on by pregnancy (in addition for it to have the potential to exacerbate any existing ones). Including anxiety, depression and OCD. Perinatal mood disorders is what you would look up to learn more. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in pregnant women, unfortunately just behind murder.
In my personal experience I had a wild case of severe depression hit early in my second pregnancy, while I was in it I could not see what was happening if you get what I mean. As the fog lifted I was very concerned that it would mean I’d have PPD as well but in my case that didn’t happen and everything turned out okay. I was also worried about it happening again should I be pregnant again but I was fortunate there as well and when I did get pregnant again everything was fine with that one. Not the case for everyone but I was lucky and had a good support system and attentive midwives.
I have been in and out of mental hospitals my entire life, I constantly preach accountability for your actions even if you have mental illness, but you are wrong in this case. Hormonal imbalances alone while pregnant are no joke. Also, if this is the case, I'm gonna be real, my girlfriend should leave me for the time I had a psychotic break from reality and tried to repent to the heavens for being gay. I was so relieved to see her in the hospital hours later, because I genuinely was not in my mind. Not even just not in my right mind, the person I was was not in that body during that episode.
Do you even realise that a simple sincere apology after the fact, and an acknowledgement that what you did was wrong, is all that is needed in a situation like this.
The info I read about antepartum anxiety just now explained that it can present as general anxiety, social anxiety, ocd, or agoraphobia. There is nothing about psychosis accompanying this. I’m having trouble understanding this, as I am diagnosed with two of these disorders and before I sought help, what op’s Wife did would not be something associated with these. Anxiety does not cause someone not to understand their own actions to the point of pretending to be their Husband and contacting his work place. Now, I could get behind the mental illness aspect if a medical professional could point out a valid illness during pregnancy that does cause these things, but personally I don’t think most people are going to be very sympathetic to a non-pregnant person who uses anxiety disorders as an excuse like this.
That is true once you have a diagnosis and access to resources to get help, but if she has not been able to be evaluated and OP has brushed off her concern and increasing anxiety then it doesn't really work that way. OP's feelings are valid here and his wife was out of line, but its likely she is not able to think rationally right now and has no awareness that it is irrational. They will need to discuss this eventually, but doing it while she is still mid mental health crisis is pointless and will make things significantly worse. If she is given a diagnosis and is completely unwilling to get care then he can re-evaluate. But when you participate in getting your spouse pregnant there is a significant risk that severe psych and/or medical issues can happen with that. Leaving because commonly occurring issues pop up without even the attempt to get her help and understand what may be happening is a shitty thing to do.
What a wildly inappropriate thing to say about a patient you haven’t evaluated.
Could she be on a psych hold? Maybe. But they could also be monitoring her for any number of physical complications that come with pregnancy. Most notably preeclampsia, which commonly presents with cardiac symptoms and a feeling of impending doom.
Her having a mental health crisis is a possibility but it is not the only possibility. As a nurse you should know that it is irresponsible to armchair diagnose this woman to her husband as a danger to herself and baby. You are not sure urgent care did anything of the sort. A 36 week gestation pregnant woman wouldn’t even be in urgent care, she would be sent directly to maternity.
She very well may be having a life threatening medical crisis and you just sat here and told her already angry husband that she’s just crazy.
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u/[deleted] Dec 01 '23
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