Strange behaviour

[aajalima]

Hi

Not even sure why I am posting this but I suppose I need some feedback as to what this sounds like.... so here goes..

First - a bit of background info. My partner and I have been together for around 6 years. We have 2 children together (2 year old and a 14 month old). Before I was pregnant with our first child - my partner used to smoke a lot of weed and normal cigarettes. During my pregnancy - he gave up cigarettes but smoked weed still occassionally and then he gave it up altogether as well.

A few months ago, there was an incident in which my oldest daughter was misbehaving, and not wanting to get out of the car. My partner, who was in a perfect mood before, suddenly got extremely angry and slammed the car door - shutting her in the car, and then stomped into the house shouting and throwing things. When I confronted him about this (my daughter was absolutely terrified - as you would be) he came at me and basically said, 'what are you going to do about it' and then grabbed me with both hands and started pressing on my throat. It was for a very short time (although it felt a lot longer), and he stormed off and stayed away from us for a litte while, after which he came back and apologised for his behaviour.

A couple of evenings ago, he came home from work in a good mood. We sat down to eat dinner, we were talking, everything was good. Once again, my oldest daughter was misbehaving at the table and I went mad at her. A few seconds later, my daughter spilt her cup of milk (accidentally)which went all over her, the chair and the floor. My partner jumped up, started shouting, yanked her out of the chair and threw the chair against the table. He went to get something to clean it up with, still shouting. Although i was a little shocked at this reaction, I confronted him again, telling him that it was an accident and it was ok, it was all cleanable...basically 'settle down'.
He was still feeding our youngest daughter, and I went to start a bath with our oldest who was very upset. Soon after, I saw our youngest daughter walking down towards us so I bathed them and put them both to bed. There was no sign of my partner when I had finished doing this so I walked around the house, checked outside where the garage was, but all lights were off so I left it and walked outside past our neighbours place to see if he had gone there. As there was no sign of him, I wandered outside to the garage again and discovered that the garage door was locked from the inside which meant he was inside with the lights off. I thought this to be a little odd. I called out to him but everything was completely silent. Around 3 or 5 minutes went by and there was no movement or sound coming from the garage so I started getting worried thinking that he might of done something to harm himself. Normally I wouldn't even think this, but he was acting out of character so I didn't know what to think. After calling out more and getting extremely worked up, as I wasn't quite sure why he would lock himself in the garage in the first place (seemed a bit extreme) he eventually said that he was fine, he was just sitting there.
So I left him and went back inside. Around 45 minutes went by and I got worried again as he was still out there so I went back out there and asked to be let in. Eventually he came out, looked like he had been crying. He went back inside the house and sat down to watch tv but completely ignored me. As I was still trying to work out what was going on, I sat down and started speaking to him about it all, trying to get some answers as to his behaviour.
He told me to stop pushing it and I got a bit angry with him then as I felt like I was just supposed to accept everything that had happened. So I kept at it - my fault prob, should of stopped but it was all very confusing to me...he was acting like I had done something wrong.
Anyway, he got up and started shouting at me again, telling me to leave him alone and he had gone out to the shed to get some peace and quiet, he went to do something to me - he had his hands stretched out but stopped himself (I also had both my arms up blocking him), and instead started yelling about how he would smash the tv or smash me etc etc. Ending with F__k off,just f__k off, just f__k off ! at the top of his lungs up the hallway.
Then he went and had a shower, came back to the lounge room and sat down to watch tv, completely ignoring me.
The next day I had so much resentment towards him that I could barely contain it; he was still ignoring me it seemed and there was no mention or apology from the night before. All he said was that he had a head ache and he had one also the previous night.
When I eventually went to speak to him when the kids were down for a nap, he said that he didn't know what happened , he'd just snapped and it had happened so fast he didn't know what was happening. And that was the reason why he had gone into the garage so he didn't do anything he would regret. He also said that the reason why he hadn't mentioned it or apologised was because he didn't feel like an apology was enough.

Anyway, he's 99.9% a good person and a caring father, I just am a little scared at these...episodes.....I don't know what to call them. It's the second one now and I am not sure why they are happening? I suppose the point of writing this post was to ask if anybody else has had similar experience or can tell me what this sounds like?! And for the record, he is not smoking anything these days, and he is not an alcoholic.

Thanks.

[chrisy]

Headaches. Violent mood swings. Please see a health professional.

[artimtb]

What i can tell you, he has acute problem with his emotion recently. He seems depressed.
Do you ever ask him about his job, if there is some problem with his jobs?
I think something bother him and he can't told anybody about it.
Both of you need serious talk about his misbehaving.
but don't judge or force him, since in my experience it will cause him to shut his door tightly.

If needed you can ask him to meet psychologist.

[chump4u]

Yes, I have had several similar experiences-- with myself.

And I cannot tell you what it "sounds like," because I'm not exactly sure what it feels like in your partner's head.

But I can tell you that fits of frantic anger like that always indicate a serious medical/psychological problem that will not get better by itself. I can also guarantee you that you're not going to get any helpful tips from home-remedy psychologists on this or any other web site.

Your partner needs to see a psychiatrist. That is the only possible help. It seems that his anger is enough to scare even him, so perhaps he will be willing to accepting medical help. I hope so.

Notice that I specified "psychiatrist"-- not "psychologist," or "councelor," or "spiritual healer," but a licensed medical doctor who specializes in psychiatry. In a case like your partner's, quack medicine and do-it-yourself New-Age treatment are the sure path to disaster, possibly bloody disaster.

[Jay T]

Don't jump to any conclusions but I have been diagnosed with Intermittent Explosive Disorder and what you have described as your husband's behavior almost identically matches my "episodes"

He may need to go see BOTH a psychiatrist and psychologist as I.E.D. is diagnosed by process of elimination, one can examine the mental aspects and the other the physical/neurological aspects. Either way, I recommend professional help.

Feel free to send me a message if you need any advice regarding how to deal with the episodes.

[aajalima]

Thank you all for your responses.

To answer the couple of questions asked - my partner has had problems within work but not to the extreme, although I believe he 'might' of had one of these 'episodes' at work one time as I found out about a month after it happened that he had thrown a 'tantrum' at work (this is coming from his work mates) and had thrown timber etc around the work area. He eventually told me about it himself but it was like pulling teeth from a saber tooth. So yes, work has been difficult for him to deal with because of certain people and poor management skills -(he doesn't suffer fools much) happy to say is getting better now as he is being recognised for his skills more and is moving up.

I don't think he is depressed. There are no signs of it anyway. Most of the time he is fine - he just changes in an instant - there doesn't even seem to be a trigger, as the things he has gotten upset about are quite unimportant.

Thanks for the advice about seeing psychiatrist and psychologist - I did look up the information about I.E.D and I have to say it does seem to fit.....but like you said; it might be- might not be.
I had a bit of a talk to him last night about it after reading your posts and to be honest I think it might be harder than what I thought. He doesn't seem to really want to talk about what happened, he was trying to make it into a joke last night. I did mention that perhaps he should get some tests done just to eliminate any problems; I did also mention this the morning after the last 'episode' happened and he kind of laughed and said,' You think I have problems in my head now !'
I didn't really push anything last night, just mentioned it and tried to 'gently' make him aware that I was worried about him, and that if it was something that he couldn't control, then how would he feel if one time he accidentally hurt one of the kids.
I had a bit of a hunch about his dad as well - I have heard alot about how his dad was very controlling over his mum ; so I asked about that as well, if his dad acted in a similar manner around him, and had explosive moments when he was growing up (I have already heard a few stories from his mum). He got a bit evasive and only ended up saying, 'maybe' ,so I take that as a yes.
Anyway, we'll see what happens.
Thank you all again !