Hello, To try and cut a long story short I have been caring for my wife to some degree or other for many years. She has been housebound for just over three years mainly due to her disability which relates to chronic spinal issues.
In January this year she became seriously ill with a number of other physical and neurological conditions that mimicked a stroke and spent 2 months in hospital.
The legacy of that period was to leave her with much reduced mobility, severe anxiety, depression and some paranoia (variable in degree). She is at home in a hospital bed, commode walker etc. I am her main carer. We have professional carers coming in twice a day for 30 mins - just to do the personal care. I do everything else.
We have had good support from our daughter, the GP, Psychiatrist and Physio although my wife has not been prepared to agree to some of the recommended medications and therapies.
Whilst I am comfortable and used to dealing with all the âphysicalâ requirements of her care, I need advice on handling the additional stresses associated with caring for someone with mental illness.
Whilst, if she takes all her meds, she sleeps at night (which helps a lot), the days are without much respite and very unpredictable - she can be calm one minute and very agitated the next. Even in the last week we have had the MH crisis team out and paramedics.
I try to do all the basics, eating properly, exercising when I can, getting short periods out with help from my daughter. However, I think I would benefit from specific advice/techniques to deal with the Mental Health challenges (like her anxiety and paranoia) as calmly as might be possible. Currently I feel like I have an over exaggerated stress reaction to every new issue that arises and I donât think it helps either of us.
The GP has sent me a whole lot of links to look at and Iâm working my way though them but a lot of it is quite generic. As I am time poor I thought I would start here in the hope that someone might point me quite quickly in the right direction.
Many thanks in advance for any help.