Are they as sick as they seem?

[straysox]

My relative has had a rocky marriage for a few years.  She's submissive, he's a dictator.  When she started to find her voice, he didn't want her input anymore.  She never stepped up to help him when he needed her.  He needed a business partner and she wanted to be a trophy wife.  Around August last year she started losing weight.  This is a very long drawn out story.  She finally left him to live with her parents, but she called him every day, multiple times a day, crying, crying, crying.  He thought she wanted to get back together.  She told me she just couldn't tell him she wanted a divorce.  Everybody was weighing in on her life and she's an extreme people pleaser.  She tells everyone what they want to hear.  Everyone was disappointed in her for not moving forward with her life.  What was the problem?  1) She depended on him, he was her rock 2) It was too taxing on her to do the work to get the divorce 3) She could possibly get him to cover her life and expenses.  I think she made herself sick.  I AM NOT SAYING that she's not sick now, but I think she contributed.  She started to shut down more and more.  She started taking prescribed Xanax and Zoloft.  Then she started saying the FBI was after her.  She lost 15-20 lbs and continues to lose weight.  She is down to 110 lb and is 5'7".  She voluntarily went to a mental health facility, she came out 3 weeks later a basketcase... drugged, restless legs, rubbing arms, crying in a ball.  They had her on Abilify and Lunesta.  Her husband took her back to his place, her parents handed her over.  They couldn't take it anymore.  Part of them feels like this isn't 100%.  She has moments of being totally clear, she can tell you things about her life, she straightens up in front of doctors and friends.  Then, with her family, she will say things that drive you batty, "You know we can't afford more tests, it will be $500K.  I can't mother my kids anymore.  Whose going to take care of the kids?"  Her husband has stepped up to get her all the help he can from neurologist, psychologist, psychiatrist, endochrinologist, bloodwork, catscan, MRI, EKG.  She ended up in the emergency room a week ago, but the strangest thing is she didn't want to be there and she acted 85-90% for 2 whole days, then when she got home she started driving everyone crazy with her looping thoughts, asking the same questions over and over again, crying jags, staring, numb looks, then starting the looping questions again... very timidly, "Whose going to take care of the kids?"  She was put on Zyprexa 5mg five days ago.  We had to do an involuntary yesterday and today they are saying she's ready to go to a voluntary.  They say it's Acute Stress Disorder?  I KNOW when we get her back she will start looping on us again because she's not showing the doctors her "other" side.  Any ideas?  Is this 100% for real?

[Paxiled]

Too many possibilities here.  It could be it was her time to get mental illness -- it tends to hit between the ages of 18 and 30 if you're going to get a bad chronic one.  It could be she's psychotic, not just suffering from what life is throwing at her.  Somewhere in all those hospitalizations and drug prescriptions should be a consensus diagnosis.  But it could also be from the drugs -- a lot of people react to taking these types of drugs in very extreme and harmful ways.  This is especially true if you're given them when you don't need them.  Ambien should never be taken on a regular basis -- sleep meds cause what's called rebound insomnia, meaning taking them for long periods of time makes the insomnia much much worse as your brain loses the ability to do it normally.  The same can happen with all kinds of conditions especially those that involve brain neurotransmitters.  It sounds like a lot more than anxiety or depression from your description, it sounds more like a psychosis.  If it is, and I can't know, I'm not there and I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, the only treatment known right now is medication.  If it's not that then who knows?  Do people really act out just for attention, which is what you seem to be saying?  It's hard to see someone ruining their life in order to do that.  But it does work for a lot of people who use it to con us -- we have a President who does it and has always done it, but he gets somewhere he wants to be and in this case the person just seems to be unhappy.  As for her relationship with her husband, no matter what's wrong with her, that's for her and him to decide.  She seems in crisis; I hope she gets help that works.

[straysox]

I forgot to say that she started having chronic insomnia issues.  She'd taken Ambien for years and then it didn't work anymore.  So when she broke and started thinking the FBI was after her she had gone through a lot of stress from losing weight, separating from her husband, people weighing in on her life, chronic insomnia, started new meds of Xanax/Zoloft.