So yes it’s, my life every day, I don’t know what’s going to happen. It depends on how hes feeling, if hes going to come out, if I’m going to take him somewhere or he just wants to come home, because I never know from day to day. I’ve spoken to him this morning. He might come out this afternoon for a little while he says. But I won’t know until I get a call from him, Oh I’m going to stay here today I can’t come out. Or, Will you pick me up for a couple of hours. You know, so it has affected my life completely. I feel that hes still controlling my life really, which isn’t you know, I don’t know, if I should feel like that, but then I think well, as hes been told well you’re lucky that you’ve got the support that you have. And I said to him if I was going to leave him I’d have left him years ago [laughs]. Not, not now, you know, because I’m in it with him as well and I want him to get better, so that we can just enjoy a normal life even if we never go big holidays or anything. I’m not bothered about that. It’s just even taking him up the zoo or doing ordinary things that people do as families.

You described yourself now as a carer?

Hm.

Would you the first time when you were getting advice of your wifes parents, and your wifes first admission, have described yourself as a carer then?

No. And it’s only recently I’ve been, I’m calling myself a carer, because my wifes psychiatrist and the local MIND group have referred to me as a carer. I never really considered myself to be a carer. Shes my wife, my partner, and that’s just part of, that’s just the way life is, you know, and I know it’s a corny thing wedding vows, but sickness and health, I mean it could have been me. And you know, it’s just the way it is and shes the one now and again with the illness and when she has the illness then I try and you know, do what I can to not so much look after her, but just juggle the other things that have to be done when shes not here. So I don’t really see myself as a carer and it’s only recently that I’ve started using that term I suppose.

So yes the dynamic of the relationship has changed. In terms of managing it I think that we have contact with the doctors when hes not very well and obviously we manage the illness but in terms of day to day life that’s down to me. I’m, ensure, I think, and this is a way that I found, found that it works for us is that it’s a very regimented lifestyle, so regular bedtimes, regular activities and if we do have contact with people I try and kind of get [husband’s name] to withdraw before everything gets, he, he can get very excitable because hes quite a gregarious person anyway but it’s knowing where to draw the line I think, if I were to leave him to it the chances are, you know, hed kind of go over the top in terms of similar behaviour to that which, which happened, you know, during one of his hyper-manic kind of episodes.

As I said her parents were much more actively involved, we didn’t have children and now it’s kind of swinging back towards that because our children are now almost grown up. Ones at university, ones just left. And they’re both very helpful and they appreciate what shes going through and how to deal with it, because effectively they have grown up with their mother suffering from depression over the years, and for her going into hospital, for her having ECT. They’ve been aware of that and they’ve become used to it. They’re not, not panicked by it any more, it’s just the way that things are, you know, their mother has an illness and they’ve become used to it, so they’re physically not in the house as much as they used to be, and when they are they can be quite helpful, so that has been beneficial to me as a carer, that I’m not the main carer any more. In fact my eldest son is wanting to study clinical psychology so he has a sympathy and a bit of a knowledge about that area as well, so hes been quite a, well a great help to me over the last couple of years.