The midwife wasn't able to give the notes at my appointment (the 'yellow book', if you're familiar in the UK) because she didn't have them at the time. My wife works at the same clinic so she picked them up today while she was there. I had no idea that my private notes were inside it - in fact, I had no idea about what the yellow book would contain because I've never seen one before.

Well. About 6 weeks ago I had my first appointment with an ante-natal psychiatrist. I was a mess. My quetiapine wasn't working. The hormones had made me suicidal. At the time everything was so bleak I wanted to end the pregnancy and my life. I expressed this to the psychiatrist, and said that yes - my wife does find it hard to deal with my illness. Who's partner wouldn't. At the time I was seriously considering leaving her because I felt she didn't understand at all. I felt (obviously a key component of having bipolar) that nobody understood me, least of all her, and that she was judging my character rather than fully recognising that I was sick. Every minute of my life was sheer torture and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I was sent the notes from that appointment (obviously addressed to me) and when I read them they made me upset. There it was, in black and white - my family history, my struggles, all my darkness spelled out by a professional. I folded up the notes and buried them in my wardrobe.

Well. A copy of those fucking notes were in that yellow book. My wife obviously had a flick through because she sent me a picture of them with the part about me saying I'd had "thoughts about ending the relationship" and that "she has difficulty dealing with my mental health problems". Both of which are true statements. Both of which I have expressed and admitted to my wife in my darkest hours. 

About three weeks ago I switched from quetiapine to aripriprazole and feel like a different person. The depression has essentially lifted (albeit having left me feeling like I've been beaten up) and I am returning to a functional version of myself, excited about creative projects I feel well enough to work on, and - thankfully - things have been improving with my wife. 

But now she is upset. She's upset to have read these notes, and quite frankly, I'm upset she read them. I don't regret saying it because it was true at the time and a part of why I was struggling. I feel a bit like she's done the equivalent of read my diary, except it's worse than that - it's someone else's diary talking about me talking about her. She is upset.

How should I best move forward here? Was she wrong to read my notes? She said "I didn't think there was anything in there I shouldn't read". But It's still my file.

Now I feel like I'm going to be punished and this will take us back three steps. I don't know if I have the right to be upset with her for reading my private notes, or if I should have gone through the notes with her the first time when they were sent to me. 

My gut reaction is that I actually feel violated here. I feel like my private space to share my thoughts and feelings about my debilitating illness has been exposed. The one place where it can be about me, that I can be unrestrained and completely honest, has been looked at with a magnifying glass by my wife. I'm also upset that that's the part she chooses to focus on. Yes, it's about her. But there's some tragic fucking shit in that letter. It's not, "I'm so sorry you \*felt\* that way," or "it was hard to read how much pain you've been in". It's: "you said this about me."

Yes. I did. And I said it to you, too, because that's how I bloody felt.

Ugh. I'm in trouble, aren't I.