Well, I'm new to this support group, and my story is fairly long...but I will try to keep it concise.
My name is Lottie, I am 25 years old, married to Nate for a little over 3 years, and we have a 17 month old daughter, Kaya.

Just about 2 years ago, when I was 12 weeks pregnant, Nate was diagnosed with acute leukemia. At the time, we were very excited to be expecting, he had lobbied me to get pregnant for quite some time, and the doagnosis was shocking and devastating. He got into remission and got something called a bone marrow transplant in March 2011. I had Kaya in July 2011.
Nate was ready to return to work in September 2011, Sept. 12, to be exact. He was going back part time and was really excited about it. Then on the 20th of that month, his father died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 45. Nate had never been close to his father, but his death sent him into a downward spiral that he's been on for 14 months now.
After his dad died, Nate started abusing his medications. He was prescribed oxycontin for legitimate cancer related pain, and started popping them like candy. I tried hiding them around the house, keeping them with me, etc. He always found them.
Suddenly, Nate also decided he hated his job. He was missing a lot of work. He was sad all the time. He ended up being hospitalized in December 2011 because of suicidal thoughts, and he lost his job because he didnt have any leave left. Anyways, while he was in (btw, his psychiatrist is at mass general in boston, which is where he was inpatient), they switched him from celexa to paxil.
Fastforward to January 1st, and Nate has his first of many psychotic breaks. He just snapped. He flew into a rage, he said he hated me and never loved me, he said he didnt care about our daughter and didnt love her. He said he wished he and I had never met and that I was the cause of all his problems. He left the house, went out and started smoking cigarettes (big no-no because of his cancer). He went to his brothers to get drunk (another no-no because of his meds). He called around midnight to say he was sorry and was coming home.
Over the next 4 months, he had weekly outbursts like that. Always anger directed towards me, always packing his bags to leave, always smoking cigarettes or marijuana, and then always coming home. He was put back on Celexa and they added zyprexa, an anti-psychotic.
Needless to say, my patience was wearing thin. I was trying to be a good mother to my beautiful little girl, and trying to be a caregiver to my very mentally ill husband, while withstanding the verbal and emotional lashings that his moodswings produced. He was eventually switched to ability from the zyprexa because he gained 50 pounds, but that didnt really make a difference.

His doctors knew I was at a breaking point. Finally in May, Nate started electro convulsive therapy, or ECT. It's where they knock him out and electrocute his brain to induce a seizure. He had it 3 times a week for a month, then once a week, then 1 every other week, and so on until September. It did wonders for his depression. He was also switched to effexor because it was obvious the celexa was doing nothing.

When he stopped, he started a job selling cars. He isnt a salesman type, but it was all he could find. He quit 4 weeks after starting, in mid november this year, saying he could "feel it coming back", as in his depression. Within hours, he was freaking out again, yelling, saying he wants a divorce, packing up and leaving, only to come home again. We are financially in dire straights because he quit, so my anxiety levels are high, and I look for jobs for him every day. He refuses to look for himself, wont make any phone calls, and skips various interviews. We had made the decision for me to be a stay at home mom, so I also have no job. My conundrum, though, is that Nate is incapable of being trusted to watch Kaya all day, so if I get a job, she needs to go to daycare.

So now, for the past week, he just stays in bed like 20 hours a day. He's in there now.

So another part of all this is my frustration with him as a father. He has told me straight up that he doesnt like being a father. Nate will not feed her, dress her, bathe her, read to her, play with her, put her to sleep, or "babysit" for short periods if I need to run an errand. Nothing. He will not get up with her in the mornings ever. It's like he hates her. He will be sitting on the couch, and she will walk up to him and smile and try to engage him, and he wont even look at her. This is nothing new, though. Even the ECT didnt help with that.

So, that's where I'm at. I dont know what to do. I dont want Kaya to grow up thinking it's okay for a man to treat her the way I am being treated, but at the same time I dont want to abandon a man who is so obviouslly mentally ill. At what point should I put myself before him? Is there anything I can do to try to get him back to the man I knew? Is it time to move on? I am just so tired...