How To Help Your Spouse Through Withdrawal

Elissa is a fellow withdrawal survivor and a coach here at Life After Meds. She recently sat down with her husband Andy on her own channel to talk about what these years of misdiagnosis, medication changes, tapering, and withdrawal have looked like from his side. I wanted to share it here because so many of you ask about your marriages, your partners, your families, and what they're going through while you're in the thick of it.

❤️‍🩹 Joanna

A Little Background

Elissa: We've been married 32 years. We have a 24-year-old son. I was put on psychiatric medication when I was 24, two years into our marriage, and I stayed on meds from 1996 to 2023. I went through 47 different medications over those 28 years, sometimes three or four or six at a time. And as Andy and I now understand, a lot of what we both lived through was actually ongoing withdrawal, cycling from one medication to the next, for nearly three decades.

I sat down with Andy and asked him to be honest. He was.

"I Couldn't Fix It"

Elissa: What was your overall perception of all those years, with all the hospitalizations, the treatments, raising a son, working through all of it?

Andy: I didn't like it. At first it was confusing, because I was completely alien to any of it. Depression, whatever you were diagnosed with at the time. We went from anxiety to depression to bipolar... I don't even remember all of them now. That was completely foreign to me, and you had to educate me on what it even meant.

Then came what I call the medication roulette, all those years of changes. And now we understand that a lot of the ups and downs you were going through were a result of being in constant withdrawal, from one med to the next, or under the influence of a different cocktail.

It was difficult for me at first because I'm a fixer, and I couldn't do anything. You got onto me more than once that you didn't need me to fix it, you just wanted me to listen. That was an opportunity for me to learn patience.

But then the frustrations grew. There were periods where you were functional, you were a good mom and a good wife, and we were a family. And then there were times where you were in bed and you were completely absent. You were there physically, but not mentally. The daily duties fell on me, and Riley got caught in the mix of all of it.

Probably the most clarifying thing in all our years together was when you were diagnosed with breast cancer. We both realized we weren't in control. Whatever semblance of control we thought we had was gone. That helped me reframe things: we're just on a rollercoaster ride, and we're going to hang on and trust God. Because we think we can help, but usually that just makes it worse.

It was a tough road, all those years. Hoping this pill or this treatment would be the thing. And then it was always something else. You were never done.

When I Said I Was Done with Meds

Elissa: When I told you at the end of 2022 that I wanted to come off everything, what did you think?

Andy: I think the last straw was that final round of ketamine. It did nothing, like eating M&Ms. I think that's when you realized you were treatment-resistant, and something didn't line up. That's when you started digging into psychiatric medications and their history, and that became your aha moment.

I was at the end of my rope too. We'd done everything we knew to do. The only thing you hadn't tried was not taking anything.

I can't remember exactly what put you on that path, but you started digging and realized you had been misdiagnosed at the onset of all this. I was cautiously optimistic. Not scared, exactly. I remember when we sat down with Christie, the holistic practitioner, and she said it would take about 18 months to get everything out of your system. And here we are, over three years later.

It's been a good test of patience. But having been through a difficult pregnancy, and then cancer, this was just one more thing at that point.

The Early Days: Two Hurricanes at Once

Elissa: What was it like during tapering and early withdrawal, those first six to eight months?

Andy: Honestly, that period of my life was absolute chaos too. Between work, getting promoted, learning a new job, my dad getting sick, him dying, my mom dying three months later, your dad dying three months later. I think I was just on autopilot.

I remember us sitting at the table with your pills on a micro balance, trying to put them in capsules. And I knew when you were not having a good day when you stayed in the bedroom and kept to yourself, or you'd come in and say all you wanted to do was kill people. I learned to give you space.

But then there were good days, and I was grateful for those.

The hardest part was the anticipation. When is this going to get better? It's been six months. It's been a year. It's been a year and a half. And the real turning point, the windows, those didn't start happening until fall of 2025, as best I can remember. Two years of just nightmare, but I was having my own nightmare at the same time. We were each in our own hurricane, just holding on and praying.

There were times where you wanted to go back on the medication. You'd say you were going back to the doctor. And then an hour or two later, you'd say no, you weren't. You counseled yourself through it, because I didn't know what to do.

I know enough about biology to know your body has to heal, and that takes a long time. You just have to trust time.

How He Coped

Elissa: How did you hold up, with all the grief and not having a wife who was available to you?

Andy: I had an advantage you didn't. I had work friends I could talk to. A broader audience, so I didn't have to carry it all alone. You were almost completely isolated, just a handful of people you could confide in. I could get some of it out.

Then when I retired, I lost that. And that was right after all three parents died. Losing that community was hard.

One of your counselors told me years ago that my job was to protect you and not share with you how your diagnosis was affecting me. So I held it in. I was told to let the meds do their work, not to pile on. I never told you that until now.

Signs of Life

Elissa: As you started seeing signs of healing, what did you notice?

Andy: You'd come out of the bedroom and we'd have actual conversations. I'd say something in ten words, and you'd say it back in three thousand. That's how I knew you were doing better.

And then you'd start a painting. Or you'd say, "I read three pages and I can remember what I read." When you step back and look at it over time, you can see those steps. But when you're doing it day by day, or hour by hour, sometimes you can't see any improvement at all.

You were celebrating the little things, the baby steps. And then there were days where you wouldn't come out except to get something to drink or eat. But you were moving, watering the plants, going outside, saying you needed to get out of the house. And those things were happening more and more. That's how I knew.

Advice for Spouses and Partners

Elissa: What would you say to husbands and wives who are supporting someone through withdrawal?

Andy: Just be as supportive as you can. It's not forever. Even though three years sounds like a long time, three years out of thirty is not. It will pass.

It's individual, though. Some people stop and are fine quickly. But I think that's the exception. Most people are dealing with a process that takes time, and it depends on so many things, what you were on, how long, how healthy you are. We are such dynamic creatures.

You have to be patient and loving. And I mean that honestly, knowing there were times I'd had my fill. I'd have to get out for a while, or I'd veg and listen to music, which is my escape. Find a way to release that pressure without taking it out on your spouse. It's not their fault. Being angry doesn't make it any better.

The Christmas Play: "Was That Joy?"

Elissa: Any encouragement your spouse or family member can offer, take it. The whole process creates such a distorted view of reality, and you're just trying to get grounded. You want someone to say, "You're right here. It's going to be okay." The cognitive symptoms, the intrusive thoughts, the looping, you need someone to bring you back to earth. Take whatever small piece of steadiness they can give you.

Andy: Celebrate the small things. You don't have to wait for some huge accomplishment.

What comes to mind for me is when we went to see A Christmas Carol. We were both sitting there crying at something joyful. After the play, you said, "Was that joy?" You had been numb for so long you had to be reminded what joy was. That was a beautiful thing.

Elissa: And my first thought was, "This is just my bipolar." Then, "This is just withdrawal." And then, "Maybe that was an actual feeling from my body, and I don't recognize it."

You become like a child again. An emotion comes up and you don't know what it is, because you haven't felt it in so long. But now I'm learning. And I can say from here, on this side of things, it's a refining process. It's been hard on our marriage, but we've kept our spirituality, even when that wasn't easy. And now, with regular windows, my spiritual connection is back. I was disconnected from it for a long time, and I've heard that's common in this process.

We're getting that connection back, slowly and for real.