I am only a few hours away from finishing Ship of Destiny. I have enjoyed this trilogy SO much. Honestly more than the first trilogy. And now I’m scared I won’t like the next one as much 😂 Please reassure me that the Tawny Man Trilogy will also be enjoyable 🤞🏻
Hey all. I'm not really sure what I'm hoping to get out of this post. Hoping to maybe hear similar experiences.
My father has always struggled with mental health. Diagnosed with Bipolar 2. But its always been very well managed with medication. He is a very very smart man. Masters degree, owned a used bookstore for most of his life, extremely well read. Big history buff, especially local history. He's also always been a pretty logical and rational person. Even around his mental health. Knowing that even though he doesn't want to go outside or take a walk, its good for him so he will make himself.
In 2020, he closed his book store and retired due to Covid. He then got Covid. And after both of these things his mental health deteriorated slowly, and then rapidly. He has been on every single class of medication except MAOI's. None have worked, some made things worse, etc. He tried TMS treatment with no success. He tried ketamine therapy, no success. It is so bad he struggles to leave the house and truly I can't explain it any other way then a complete personality change. His memory is very much still in tact. His reasoning is not.
Fast forward to this month and my mother woke up in the night and he wasn't in bed, she went and found him in the other room on the floor, and he had cut the shit out of himself. His feet and his hands and his stomach (very odd locations but serious injuries). He had to be life flighted to a hospital and given blood transfusions. And was stitched up. Now he is in the mental health unit and they are going to be doing ECT which his father also had when he was alive and it did help.
I'm still not convinced this isn't neuro. He had an MRI and it did show changes but the MRI said they were "normal" for his age. Also the MRI was without contrast.
I visited him Tuesday and its just over and over "How am I going to do this, how am I going to get through this. I don't know how I'm going to do this" and there is zero talking through it with him and rationalizing. Does not work, ship has sailed. He says "I can't brush my teeth" and "How am I going to go to the bathroom?" "How am I going to brush my teeth". Its just...so unlike him.
Unfortunately my mother is a problematic narrator and not the best advocate so the situation has been difficult plus dont' get me started about the mental health and physical health care systems who seem wildly uninterested in helping.
Has anyone had a parent with a mental illness and dementia where it presented like this?