Where to start?

Here I suppose.

So, Dexter and I are in our third year of marriage. We started going out about 4 1/2 years ago, neither of us are really sure. It was unexpected and amazing. We knew the same people and lived in the same area and knew of each other but never really spoke. I had been in a long term relationship, I ended it, had a few flings, got another boyfriend and decided to meet up with a girl I hadn't seen for a couple of years. Whilst we were arranging to meet up she got a call from Dexter who decided he'd come and join us too. That day I split up with my then boyfriend (it was never going to work) and went to meet my friend at the bus stop. There was Dexter, he'd just split up with his then girlfriend that day too. And that as they say is history.

We got engaged in the February of 2006 on pancake day and married in June 2006. Nearly giving our parents heart attacks. But we were good and the wedding cost about £500 all in. It was the hottest day we'd seen in a long time, 28 degrees! A lot of our friends helped, my best friends did the food, my brothers friend had a Subaru Impreza (wedding car), a friend did the photos (which were very professional) my Mum and I made the cake. We didn't have time to send invitations (word of mouth). Amazing day!

We then put the wheels in motion to move to New Zealand, a place Dexter had visited before and we both wanted to try out for size. We went in March 2007, I got a job as a nurse in quite a prestigious private hospital on a surgical ward. Dexter got a job in a wine shop, he also taught himself how to edit films whilst we were there and did some freelance editing. After about 2 weeks Dexter started hallucinating, visual and auditory. This got worse as time went on, his behaviour became erratic, he wasn't sleeping, he couldn't concentrate, his thoughts became jumbled, he had to give up work.

We plodded on, hoping it would subside and tried to live a normal life on the other side of the world with no support. September 2007, 6 months in, I phoned my parents and told them what had happened, we had no money, Dexter was a mess, I was still working full time, I had run out of options. They told me to speak to my boss, I did, she was amazing and had no idea what had been going on. She told me to quit work that day and go back to the UK and get some help, she said I'd always have a job there too. So I went home, Dexter couldn't help me work out how we were going to get back to the UK, so again, I phoned parents, they used their credit card and we had a flight booked for the next day (it wasn't easy to sort, as the credit card was in the UK, and we were booking in NZ).

We only had 2 rucksacks of belongings, nowhere to live, no jobs, no money! We finally arrived home 40hrs later, exhausted. I booked a Dr's appt for the next day and we stayed at our parents. Dexter saw the Dr and he referred him to a psychiatrist and the crisis team immediately. I was relieved to have people I love around me but scared for Dexter.

The crisis team psychiatrist after 2 hours of questioning Dexter and I came to a conclusion of not knowing what was wrong with him but gave him some Risperidone. We then saw Dexters Consultant Psychiatrist who diagnosed Schizophrenia. There was debate between the Psychiatrist and the Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPN) about Bi-polar or manic depression too.

So that's the back story, I will post again shortly, after cleaning and general duties.