Counting Nickels

So, we just found out my husband is bipolar on Christmas Eve ‘08. Really, it was the best Christmas present ever…it confirmed my suspicions for years now and the drugs did wonders. They brought back that guy that I married. I hadn’t seen him for 2 1/2 years, and especially the last 1 1/2 years have taken their toll on me. I didn’t even know how much.

I was so happy after the drugs started working and was that way for about two weeks, and then something inside me broke and I cried and cried. At about the same time, I had finished reading His Bright Light, Danielle Steel’s memoir of her bipolar son - perhaps not the best introduction to bipolar since her son killed himself in the end. But it really made the illness real…there was so much more I could traceback to the illness, and it was really so terrifying. I cried on the shoulder of my now-stable husband that I he had to stay on treatment, that I couldn’t bear for it to end in suicide.

I don’t think that was entirely the issue, though. I think it’s the collective emotional toll the illness took on my life these many years, especially the last couple. My husband, as I knew him and loved, slowly dissolved into the bipolar…until this past year when all he was, was either violent or suicidal. My husband was gone. I devoted my time to keeping myself sane, keeping my children away from the turmoil, and trying to keep everyone else from knowing what was going on in our house. In his depressive moods, my husband was hardly functional; in his manic moods, he was angry and irrational.

At the end, everything was falling through my fingers…my husband’s illness had progressed to the point where people outside our home began to notice that he was acting “off” and I could feel my sense of balance slipping fast. I could literally see the walls of my world crumbling around me.

And then he came back. The drugs brought him back. It was weird to me; I hadn’t seen sane for such a long time. Would it stay around? It’s been 2 weeks and so far, so good. But it’s still scary.

I can’t talk to anybody because of the stigma of this illness, so I’m joining a support group. I don’t like the idea of having to go to a support group, but I’ll try it anyway.

Thank you God! He seems to be on-board and seems to recognize that he’s been gone for a while. I don’t think it’s sank in how bad it got…how much damage unchecked bipolar did to his life and his family. I kinda wish it would, but kinda not. I don’t want that realization to set up a depression. The medicine does a whole lot but certain things can still trigger a mood swing. So far, the mood swings have been mild, but I’m still nervous that the bipolar will take over. I’m hoping this isn’t just a break; that it’s the real thing, but I know better than to let my guard down.

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