crazyforge assemble! Mental health info sought

okay, anyone on WF is crazy to a degree, but I need some feedback on actual crazy (other than "don't stick your dick in it"). My wife had a sudden, out of the blue, mental meltdown ending in acute psychosis over about a 10 or 12 day period. She just got involuntarily admitted and is in an in-patient facility for evaluation period of 72 hours.

She has no history of mental illness other than depression which she is on medication for already. But suffice it to say she has no in-patient mental health record.
Back story is we went on vacation and immediately she had delusions on the plane flight. Then her mood started to yo-yo from extremely happy to angry and hostile. This yo-yoing would occur in about two or three hour cycles.

Yada yada yada over the course of the vacation her mood swings got more intense (and the duration increased) and her ramblings got more and more incoherent. Her behavior changed - she "just wasn't herself" and my daughter (who we were visiting) noticed this immediately. My wife knew something wasn't right and that she needed help. By the time we were ready to return, she was in full-blown meltdown mode.
We barely got on the plane during our last leg of the trip (I explained to the crew that she was having mental problems but I could still control her) and she acted manically happy/delusional throughout the flight.

We arrive in Atlanta for our drive to Augusta and she is in full-blown delusion mode, interpreting everything and everyone as a "sign from god" and was manically rambling despite my attempts at explaining. For example I turn on my high-beams and she interprets the extra visibility as angels guiding our way home.

So we get home and I think maybe being back in her safe home environment might clear her head. I was mistaken - her delusions and manic mood swings intensified. Her interest in the real world waned, and her nonsensical ramblings intensified.

Yada yada yada I take her to the hospital and she goes into full-blown psychosis after they are done with testing her for causes - blood work, CAT scan, etc. Now she is hallucinating and saying she is jesus, god, the devil, etc. all with a fifteen minute period! She thinks the hospital staff are members of her family (some who have passed away years ago) and sees my step-father walking around but he is disguised as John Goodman. She has conversations with people nobody can see.

So she is not in her right mind to voluntarily admit herself - thus the hospital has to start calling mental health facilities that have beds for non-voluntary patients.

Finally they got one to accept her (two hours away) and they transferred her there. I am trying to make contact with this facility but they haven't returned my calls so far (surprise surprise). She will be there for a minimum of 72 hours so after a couple of days I might have to start getting my hospital to put some pressure on them to make contact with me.

Bottom line what would cause a healthy middle-aged woman to descend into full-blown psychosis over a 12 day period? As I said, she never had this happen before. Can her sanity ever return? What could have caused this? No, she's not faking it, her crazy ramblings and thought patterns could only be faked by an Oscar winning actress. WTF?

Wow! Hoping for the best for you and your wife.
I would guess that a blockage of some kind is limiting the supply of blood to the brain.

I'm sorry to hear about this.

This could be a lot of things, some of them very bad, others not as bad. This does sometimes happen with people who experience depression, especially if they have been sleep deprived. It isn't necessarily indicative of a new problem.

She might be fine in a few days, or it may be permanent. You'll have to wait and see what the hospital says.

My mom had similar episodes a few times when I was a teenager. In her case a depressive episode would start, her mind would start racing so much that she couldn't sleep, and the lack of sleep made things worse. Then, the mental hospital would make her get some sleep, and she'd be fine in a few days.

Given that this happened over a 12-day period, it seems like this could be similar. If it was a more serious problem, it probably would have happened faster.

Hopefully she'll be fine in a few days, but, wait and see what the hospital says.

I'm thinking bad reaction to meds, or a brain disease thing.
They've since found out Robin Williams had an Alzheimer's-like dementia that no one knew about while he was alive.
I hope it's meds, cuz those can be changed.

I am not a doctor, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. BUT, some things to check for that occur to me are any swelling of the brain itself or the membrane around it, cerebrospinal fluid pressure, and a screen for fungal infections. To me the described sudden onset of this speaks to some kind of infection.

Well my mother had a final break with reality just months before she died and it was because of a stroke. She apparently had been having a number of small ones for a couple of years and it manifested itself in dizziness, odd timed losses of concentration and memory, and various other forms of distress.

Of course she was 75 and had a family history of strokes and carotid blood flow blockages.

exactly - but this is typical of being old. My wife is just north of 50. Regardless, just getting a phone call from the facility where they took her would be appreciated. Man, even military basic training lets you know your family member is alive and well.

I was gonna say stroke.
The lack of oxygen to the brain sounds familiar too. My wife's mother suffered something similar while in the hospital, when she had oxygen deprivation overnight (can't recall the cause). The next day she was manic, accusing her husband of stealing from her, saying horrible things to my wife, etc.
Good luck, man. Keep us posted.

There are crazy-ass privacy laws now. When my wife's father was diagnosed withe alzheimers at the end, the hospital wasn't allowed to tell anyone but him! Not my wife, not her sister (who had power of attorney), just him. And what the hell good was it to tell and Alzheimer's sufferer that he had Alzheimer's? He didn't remember to tell his daughters until it somehow came up days later and he happened to remember.

what amazed me is that regardless of your insurance (mine is unlimited government insurance) they just don't have enough "involuntary" beds in these facilities. Thus they have to search all the facilities to find availability. I'm not going to go all "they can put a man on the moon but they can't get enough mental health facilities" but it's true.

I honestly have nothing medical wise to help explain these events but I do know people can go through episodes and then get better. Best wishes for you and your family during this time of difficulty.

Did she get tested for a stroke or show any other signs of stroke?

I am very sorry you have to go through this. I wish both of you all the best.

Having said that. You have described some of her behaviour before. From those descriptions, it is clear that she does have a history of mental health problems far beyond depression. I think you have to face that fact, most of all because the doctors will have to know in order to make an accurate diagnosis. Which means it is up to you to tell them.

they did all kinds of testing, but I never got a full report of what they checked for - it took many hours, so I assume that they checked for everything there is. By the time they shipped her out everything came up negative - no known reason for the psychosis in other words.

First of all, I am so sorry that you are having to go through this.

To me it sounds like she might of had a stroke. It might even go to when you thought she was going to leave you. Maybe a series of small strokes? You might want to check through the house to see if she might have taken any new medications or mixed some medications up with others.

A minor stroke can sometimes result in profound personality changes. Please make sure they test for enzymes related to stroke damage healing as if it was a stroke she may suffer a second worse one if the underlying issue is not resolved.

I have no idea what tests they did other than a lot of them. I never got a full wrap-up of what testing was done. All I was told was "everything is negative". Bear in mind different divisions of the hospital do different tests, and I never got the full report of what was done. But I did talk to her very briefly at the facility where she was taken, and she said she needed her purse to get change for the vending machine, which would indicate at least a temporary link to reality. That said I really want to talk to her nurse/case manager but that might not happen until tomorrow when they call me.
It's very frustrating trying to get information, much like trying to get information with an inmate in a correctional facility.

You need to get answers. Tell the nursing staff you want to be put in touch with a social worker who can explain what tests were done, what the results were, and what should happen next - in plain language, not DoctorSpeak.

Substance induced psychosis. Dementia. Ahlzeheimers. Bad medication.

Schizophrenia doesn't usually start late in life but who knows.

yes it seems to be leaning toward not keeping track of medication dosages due to the chaos of vacation traveling. Some of her medications take a long time to get out of her system. And the catch-22 is your memory degrades as your dosage gets increased/decreased and this increases the chance for making mistakes. Regardless she is safe and sound and I can visit her soon and get a "boots on the ground" assessment of how she she really is. Also her case-worker is supposed to call me tomorrow to give me the detailed report of her diagnosis/behavior.

Yeah, if she is taking SSRIs for her depression or other issues it sounds like that could be a part of the problem. One of the common themes of antidepressants and drugs like them are that you see and talk to higher powers or aliens. The aliens often being a higher power. You mess up the doses and you are on your way to tripping. On the outside it will look like manic moods and crazy ideas. The longer you remain in that state the more radical it gets and it is harder to widen iffy reality until you touch down. It also seems that some of these tripping effects mimic real mental disorders. Perhaps it is because some mental disorders are a matter r of a chemical imbalance that makes people perpetually high.

Good luck and talk to her doctors if you can. In the future you can probably help keep the medication schedule straight. Having a sober person there would eliminate the problem of whether on not you look your meds already.

Let's hope it's just bad medicine. I'm taking back my rating now.

thanks everyone! This is all new to me, never being around anyone who had a true "break from reality" before. Despite the tragedy (which is still ongoing at this point) there are some admittedly humorous things that occurred:

during an episode of heavy religious delusions in an airport restaurant, our waitress came by and quietly placed a second soda next to me, seeing that I was almost finished with my first soda.
About a minute later my wife says "that soda wasn't there when we first sat down. That is a sign from god that everything will be okay!" I gently told her that the waitress just brought me a refill.

during the first part of the journey (before she started her breakdown) I saw this Frontier airlines jet with a rabbit on the tail and told her about it, but she had to babysit our carry on bags and couldn't
come down to the gate where it was parked. Later on in the day on the last leg of the trip from Portland to Seattle we were discussing the very detailed rabbit on the tail with one of our fellow plane passengers, and my wife of course remembered this subject of conversation. About an hour later we are driving down the freeway and we see a truck with a small stuffed animal rabbit hanging from the trailer hitch. My wife says "see that rabbit? We were talking about rabbits with that guy on the plane! Now I see what's going on - this is a sign from god that we are destined to see our daughter!"

during our flight from Denver to Atlanta she was delusional and said as we walked down the boarding ramp and onto the plane that the pilot was crying tears of joy because of how all the nice people on the plane were helping to calm her down. Now I don't know about you, but I'm not getting on any plane where the pilot is crying just before takeoff - just saying.

at the hospital during my aborted attempt to take her home, she was seeing family members all over the place. At one point she saw my step-father but I couldn't see him because he was disguised as John Goodman! I don't know about you, but if I want to walk around incognito, I probably wouldn't walk around in a John Goodman costume - just saying.

Say what you like, but despite some questionable ideas in general, your wife's casting choices are impeccable.

as for casting choices, my actual son (5 feet 5 inches tall) was played by a male nurse just north of 6 feet tall and weighing in excess of 350 pounds. Yes, she thought this gentle giant was my son.

Growth spurt.

I can't believe the doctors missed this! Sometimes the simplest solution is right in front of you.

Best wishes, mate. Hope this works out.

they let her call me today - she was coherent and asked me to bring her specific items on visiting day, so that's a good sign. I can't wait to see her in person.

A hopeful sign.