On(wards) and Upwards

So Jerry called on Thursday to tell me his doctor had given him the go-ahead to stop his Valproex that day, and to start with a small dose of Lithium on Friday, with the dose being increased over the weekend, until he is back on a full dose on Monday. We kept to our plan to have him just come on Friday evening for a few hours. Much to my surprise, since I was expecting and prepared for some kind of withdrawal symptoms, I could see a difference in him immediately. His eyes were brighter and more alert, his face was not pulled tight with frustration and irritation - in fact, there was almost a relaxed, content look about it. He was much more engaged with the kids, despite still having his nasty cough (which I suspect is bronchitis), and did not seem as exhausted and run down. It's funny, because it was hard to put words to what I noticed from the moment he came in, but there was a definite, palpable difference - reminds me of what some people say about people having an energy field, and how it can be sensed if you're attuned to it. I don't notice it often with other people, but I seem quite attuned to Jerry's, perhaps out of years of learning to predict what kind of space he was in, so that I could be prepared? Who knows.

The one thing I was frustrated to hear was that his doctor was reluctant and concerned about putting him back on Lithium. Drives me a bit mad (excuse the pun) that he doesn't get what bad shape Jerry has been in, and how crappy things have been since the medication switch. I suppose I shouldn't jump to conclusions, since I have no idea what Jerry has told him about anything, but it makes me feel like I really want to meet with him, so that I can tell him what I experienced/saw since the change, ask him some questions (like what's up with all this nervousness about toxicity when Lithium is still considered the first-line choice for bipolar meds and has a reputation for being safe for many years, etc.), and address my concern about his take on my concerns (as reported by Jerry); according to Jerry, his doctor has been assuming that my concerns have been more a product of an "over-sensitive spouse" and not so much about the degree to which a spouse has become attuned to their bipolar spouse's moods. If someone had taken my observations regarding his shorter fuse and higher level of agitation seriously in the first place, perhaps even requesting to speak to me in person to get a better sense of the situation, this whole situation (including the damage done to the kids from the arguing, lost tempers, and ultimately, being scratched in the face by someone who really did lose control of their behaviour).

Oh well, for now, things are looking much more hopeful. In fact, yesterday was so good that Jerry and I decided it would be appropriate for him to come by this afternoon, and possibly tomorrow at some point. Hopefully it will be as nice as yesterday, and the kids will "get their fill" of their dad this weekend, which I don't think they have since school started.

Not an Easy Morning...or is it mourning?

So, therapy started off badly (with Jerry providing an account of the weekend that couldn't have been much further from the truth if he tried...although it's probably how he experienced it), but ended on a better note, with him agreeing to try to get an earlier appointment with his doctor to switch back to Lithium. Of course, I haven't heard from him since, so I don't know if he's going to follow through or not. In the meantime, he agreed to spend less time around the kids, and will only be coming for a couple of hours on Friday evening, instead of his usual weekend. I haven't told Dylan this yet, as I don't want him to have to process this and cope with school at the same time.

Which brings us to this morning. I had managed to get Dylan and Emily out the door for school, with a reminder about how if he doesn't come nicely he can't watch TV after school. Then, as he walked down the street looking at Halloween decorations happily, his sister started to cry, saying she missed her Dad. Well, that was that - next thing I know Dylan is having one of his meltdowns that only tend to show up when he's very upset about something and is having trouble expressing those feelings (or even understanding them, for that matter). So he started grabbing the stroller, pushing it, trying to climb in it, etc. So I had to take Emily out and brace myself to wait this out. Then Dylan started running back and forth across the street, tipping over the stroller and trying to wreck it. I finally had to grab him, because I was worried about him getting hurt running in front of a car or something. Then he started trying to hit, kick and bite me, so we had to go into "hold mode" where I hold him in a way that he can't easily hurt me. In the meantime, Emily is crying, and obviously freaked out by her brother's behavior, and I have to keep telling them that it's okay, and telling Dylan "hey, I can handle this; we're going to wait until you show me that you're ready to walk to school nicely."

After what seemed like forever, and several embarrassing moments of neighbors passing by later, he settled down. I acknowledged what I believed he was experiencing and why, and he lay in my arms for a while. He didn't want to go to school, but I did finally manage to convince him to go nicely, and he pushed his sister in her stroller most of the way. I let the teacher know what happened, and left, exhausted, scared and anxious (about whether he'd be okay at school), and sad. I got home, took Emily in to our lovely caregiver/adopted family member, went outside and cried. Hard.

I am so tired, and so sad that they are having such a hard time. I'm kicking myself for spending the whole summer with Jerry, because it seems to have recreated the entire loss for Dylan, and given Emily a sense of loss for the first time. It's so heartbreaking to see my kids so upset about the situation, and knowing that all I can do is try my best to give them all of the love and security I can, to help them through the pain. I do wish that they could just get used to it being this way, and fall back into the routine that they have had in recent years, where they don't see him all of the time. But this year is even less than last year, which is way less, obviously, than this summer, so it's just not that easy, unfortunately. Wow, I really, really hope this passes and that they adjust, because it is really hard to cope with seeing them having such a hard time.

Here's to hoping Jerry gets back on his Lithium - and very soon!!!

Ouch

There's nothing like finding out that your child spent an entire afternoon at school repeatedly declaring that they were sad, refusing to eat their snack or play, and hiding behind the curtains. It's so hard to know that Dylan is having all of these feelings, but may or may not even realize where they are coming from. I have tried to casually let him know that it's okay to feel sad that his dad left suddenly (not to mention that he never came back, missed the family halloween party and wasn't there to celebrate his birthday at his grandparents), and let him know that his dad was very busy, but also really wasn't feeling well. However, Dylan astutely pointed out that his dad was not throwing up, and by his estimation having a bad cough isn't really an adequate explanation for his not being able to be here with him. True enough, but when/how do I explain that there's another type of "not feeling well" that is making it so that his Dad can't be here? I know I gave him this explanation (successfully, given his reaction to it) when he was 3, but then it was blatant and, unfortunately since I didn't protect him well enough at that time, in his face. Now that Jerry has his own apartment, Dylan doesn't have to see it all up close, and it is harder to help him understand that his Dad isn't well right now. Plus, now that he's older I have more anxiety around the impact of Dylan developing an understanding of his Dad's mental illness. There's so much stigma, kids tend to personalize everything, and the last thing I want is for my kids to grown up wondering if they will be like this when they grow up (and they probably won't, since they don't have all of the environmental triggers their Dad had), feeling the sting of the stigma attached to mental illness in the family, etc.

In the meantime, I keep going over all of the negative signs I saw, but couldn't piece together at the time. For instance, this morning I realized that Jerry was starting to become more irritable and more short-tempered before he came off the Lithium, but after they started him on Divalproex. So now, I will reread those side effects and see if that is one of the potential ones in the "normal" people they test this stuff on. Also, his resentment about still being separated really intensified after coming off the Lithium - before it was there, but not nearly as strongly, and more in a regretful vs. a resentful way.

And so it goes. This afternoon we have our appointment with our new therapist. I am terrified about it - if he shows (and if he's feeling more himself, he might because he wants to work on things; if he's still not himself, then he might because he'll probably be paranoid about me being there without him), I am so scared about how he'll be acting towards me, how he'll react towards the suggestion that he shouldn't be around the kids right now, etc. I am scared that he will still be putting off or resisting getting into his doctor to get his meds changed back. I am scared about the reprecussions of saying anything that he takes particularly badly, for whatever reason. I am also nervous about the fact that I'm still not sure that our therapist understands how different his thoughts and feelings are when he's unwell, vs. when he is okay - if she takes what he says too seriously, she's going to get a very wrong idea about our "dynamics" and I worry that that could impact on the success of therapy in the future.

Universe, thank you for helping us along the way, and helping me respond in the most helpful way possible today. Thank you for always helping Jerry end up okay, and may things get resolved for the good of everybody, quickly this time!

A Very Quick Catch - Up to the Present

Okay, so a lot has happened since 2009. First, my husband damn near killed himself in his attempt to get help from people who apparently kept sending him home, saying that he seemed "okay enough" (that's what you get at CAMH sometimes, because if you're not psychotic or acutely suicidal, you're better off than most of who they've seen that day). So, long story short, he was in the ICU section of the ER for the better part of a day, and sometime after that he ended up back at CAMH just long enough for me to "inform" the psychiatrist that I thought he was Bipolar, and why. Lucky for me, this particular doctor wasn't at all put off by my providing him with a diagnosis for my husband, and they started him on Lithium. Well, talk about transformations! It was like I got my "old husband" back in a matter of...wow - I can't remember now, but it seemed like no time at all, and couldn't have been more than a few weeks or so. All the anger, rage, and hatred he had felt towards me while sick, pretty much vanished. Okay, well it was lessened to the point that he felt love for me, didn't misread everything I said, and didn't want to hurt me (emotionally) anymore. Not that he suddenly thought I was all sunshine and roses, but my status of a decent, loving wife was returned to me, which was in itself, a miracle.

There was no doubt that my husband was bipolar, that he was the "atypical" type (i.e. angry, irritable and mean, vs. euphoric when in a manic phase), and that he responded very, very well to medication. He also had Post Traumatic Stess Disorder resulting from the abuse he had experienced during his childhood. So, we knew these things by May of 2009, if I remember correctly (which I may or may not). By September 2009 we were friends again, he was spending a lot of time (and pretty good, quality time) with the kids, and over the next two years it was so, so much better. Did we reconcile? Well, no. First, I needed a good year or so to know that he was really better. And he was - he stayed off drugs, went back to school, and managed to remain pretty stable, albeit with some issues associated with PTSD still in the picture (i.e. it was still not easy for him to cope with kids acting up, but at least he did a fairly good job at it).

Which brings us to the second thing I needed to see - I needed him to "up his parenting." This took a lot longer, probably because it is affected so much by his PTSD (he was very, very badly physically and psychologically abused by his step-father, not to mention almost not parented at all by his mother, and abandoned by his father). Slowly but surely, this got a lot better, though. To the point where I could certainly trust him alone with the kids, and know that at worst he might get too frustrated and no longer be as patient as I would like (I really do have very high parenting standards, the poor guy). In fact, last year he watched the kids two nights a week when I was in practicum, and only once did it go "badly" - even then "badly" just meant that he lost his cool, raised his voice, and wasn't too nice when my son acted up once night. Nothing major, and nothing like when he was unwell.

Third, we had to learn how to be a couple - a couple who can work as a team and not have little arguments all the time (and by "little" I mean an ongoing and noticeable level of tension that is uncomfortable for the kids). This is where we were at in May, 2011. So, that is why I'm still pretty damn mad that his doctor chose to try changing his medication in June. Yes, Lithium has the potential to become toxic - I get that. However, it can happen in the very distant future or potentially not at all, so why change what's working when there are still young kids involved? Seems like a pretty damn big risk from me & the kids' side of the equation. Despite my misgivings, my husband agreed to the change, and slowly over the next couple of months things have deteriorated.

August was the first signs of something being wrong. Jerry was more irritable, much more short-tempered, especially with Dylan and I, and I started feeling like I was walking on egg shells again. At first, it seemed to stem from a bad weekend we had at a family reunion - the first couple of days were okay, but on the third day the tension between us went way up. I knew why I was on edge - too much family (not that I don't love them, but I always feel my "black sheep issues" come up when I'm around them all), and I thought I knew why he was on edge (feeling like he's being watched and evaluated), but when I suggested we let it go afterwards, he just couldn't do it. Where I could say 'hey, that was a crappy weekend, and we weren't our best, but that was a lot of pressure - I am totally willing to let this go,' he just couldn't.

A couple more bad camping trips later, and it was back to school for all of us. This year, though, unlike last year, Jerry was really struggling to keep up. He seemed depressed and anxious. He was really disconnecting from me, and to an extent from the kids as well. He was trying to work at the same time, and so was not getting nearly enough sleep - a potential trigger for Bipolar, too. But overall, I was definitely getting this sick, nagging feeling - call it "been there, done this" intuition, very finely tuned for survival, that told me this was his medication. Not that he was fully manic or depressive to this point, but things were going downhill, and I didn't like what I was seeing.

We started therapy recently, and it really sucked to have her not knowing him from before (i.e. on lithium) and coming into it at this point. She doesn't seem to be able to see what I see, and unfortunately that has always been the case (honestly, the number of doctors I tried to warn about what was coming...I was never wrong, and it was never good when they wouldn't listen). Since he is fully convinced in the accuracy of his perceptions, he is very, very convincing. I, on the other hand, come off as the "over sensitive" wife, who reads too much into everything because she's so scared that he'll get sick again.

Except that I'm not. Two things he kept repeating as reasons why it wasn't his medication were 1. I'm not calling you names, throwing things or punching things like I used to, and 2. I may be more short-tempered with the kids, but I'm still a lot better than I was. Well, last weekend he got angry with Dylan, who was acting out, and scratched his *&%$ing face, saying "how do you like it?" He left a pretty nasty scratch, and one very minor scratch, and his son was pretty upset about it all. Dylan felt better when he did finally come back and apologize, but still - this was absolutely over the line, and Jerry knew it. Ironically, just the day before he had finally opened up and become willing to approach his doctor about his medication, because he'd started having panic attacks again, which was new and freaking him out. Then this happened, and he said, again, that he would call his doctor this week. Of course, he didn't - not until Thursday (this had happened on a Sunday), so of course he didn't hear back by the weekend - and our son's birthday!

During Dylan's party, Jerry got mad at me a few times for "not listening" to him - didn't seem to notice that I had a bunch of 6-year-olds talking to me at the exact same time, or that I was trying to finish counting a handful of tiny, glow-in-the-dark spiders at the time, etc. Having moments of marital tension in the middle of a birthday party is not cool with me! I managed to move it along alright, but it made me very uncomfortable. Then, this morning (the next day), he woke up stuck in his anger, and determined to make it about me (because what else could it possibly be, right?). No matter what I said or did, there was no use - he got madder and madder. He called me callous in front of the kids, and when I went outside he followed me out and kept going. Then he lost it, hit the door (half-heartedly, but only with the greatest effort to control himself), told the kids he needed to "do some stuff" and left. To put this in context, he's spent Friday through Sunday at our house for the last year and a half or more. So now he was just gone, on a Saturday morning, with no explanation.

So, off I went to swimming, then to the family halloween party for my daughter's school, by myself. Luckily the kids haven't asked why their Dad isn't here...yet. I'm not sure what to say when they do, either. In the meantime, I feel I have no choice but to cut down on the amount of time he's spending with us, and hoping that this will get resolved before it gets totally out-of-control (as in him using drugs again, becoming suicidal again, etc. as opposed to him hurting my kid, which is out-of-control enough, but not life or death).

So, here's to hope. And, in the meantime, a bird's-eye-view of my experience co-parenting with someone with not-quite-treated-enough Bipolar.

More From the Past

Alright, so that's where I was as of April 8, 2009. There's a lot to catch up on, but not a lot of time to catch it up. But before I get to that, I will share the rest of my old blogs. So, let's see - okay, chronologically, maybe? So, here's what I had to say in the one and only post on my "Shocked n Confused" blog. Given the intro (assuming anyone reading this has read that), you won't likely be shocked or confused that I didn't blog again for another year and a half.

November, 2007 (post-first separation/pre-pregnancy with second child)

One month ago my husband announced he was going to move out. To say that I was shocked and confused would actually be a mild understatement. Not that it was completely out of the blue in the sense that things had seemed perfectly great throughout our marriage, but it was certainly out of the blue in the sense that we had just started therapy with a bang (an intensive weekend workshop), and that the three weeks following this had been three of the best weeks of our relationship. As much as he may deny it, he was happy...and that left me wondering whether that was the problem at this point - maybe he didn't want things to go well because he wanted an out, or maybe things had been going so well that he was feeling way too vulnerable (I don't think he's ever been in a safe, caring, respectful relationship with someone very close to him in his entire life). All I know is that I saw a look of peace and contentment on my husband's face (and in his entire body, for that matter - the way he held himself, the way he walked, etc.) for a few weeks, and then suddenly it was gone, replaced by this cold, distant, angry glare that scared me.

I've started this blog as a way of sorting through the last month, and the last few years of my life. Hopefully life as a single mom of a very active two-year-old will still somehow permit me the time I need to complete this processing. And whether my husband ever decides to be true to his vows or not, I certainly hope that I will gain enough insight to not make the same mistakes I've made this time around, again.

Okay, so then there was the first post of the second blog, which I already posted. After that the posts are more random in terms of what topic I blogged about on any given day.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

"Random Thoughts From a McDonald's Playland"

It's amazing to me that with the first child it seems like such a big job to have an infant. So far, with baby number two, having an infant is like having time off from a full time job - the three year old. As I sat there at a McDonald's playground on a rainy afternoon I was struck by how easy a job it is to care for an infant...the only thing she asked for the entire hour or so we were there was a nurse. First time around it was somewhat awkward and uncomfortable, but now I barely notice the little cameras hanging on the ceiling keeping an eye on the chaos and the breasts that whip in and out of shirts over the course of the time we're there.

As I sit there I also remembered the terror I experienced when I first unleashed my teeny tiny 21/2 year old in one of these things. All of the big kids were tearing in and out of tunnels, knocking over the occasional, unsuspecting toddlers, while new moms like myself wondered why their parents weren't doing more to control them. Now my 31/2 year old is running around knocking over the occasional kid, and honestly, if I'm breastfeeding I'm not about to do more than yell 'hey, slow down, please', which has little if any impact on him.

As I watch my oldest trying to negotiate the world of unsupervised socialization I have to admit I still worry. The two primary questions are always: 1) will he play nice, and 2) will the other kids play nice. It used to be that my son was the one that other kids followed around, but now he has actually experienced some rejection, and it pains me when it happens, even when he barely notices (if at all). Unfortunately, once he smells a whiff of rejection he is prone to being less cooperative, increasing the odds of “more of the same.” His other pitfall - he often chooses slightly older girls to play with, and they aren't always interested in the busy kind of active play he likes.

And here's a question - is it wrong to teach him how to manipulate situations? For instance, I found myself telling him to try ignoring one girl at the playground when she's not wanting to play with him, because I noticed that for so long as he was pursuing her, she wanted nothing to do with him. As soon as he found another playmate, however, she wanted to hang out again. So I pointed that out to him, and suggested that when this particular girl is acting like she doesn't want to play with him, he might want to try finding something else to do, because then she's likely to come seek him out. Is that a bad idea? I honestly don't know - all I know is that I hated to see him having his feelings hurt by this girl, especially since they hung out together a lot last year.

Of course this is a 'single parent pitfall' for me, too. I hate seeing him rejected even more now that he has had such a major loss in his life. Since his Dad is unreliable at best, I fear that he will experience his Dad's instability as rejection, and this makes me feel very protective of his feelings when it comes to other people. Of course I also know that if I'm hypersensitive to rejection he's going to be all the more likely to end up that way himself, so I know I need to watch this, but I don't know exactly how to be helpful to him. So how do I help him to navigate this new social terrain? This question is even trickier since this is an area of awkwardness for me. Maybe I'm the last person who should be giving him advice, or maybe I listen to the suggestions I give him? Hm.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

“Life and Death”

It's funny, but I've always been on the self-destructive/impulsive end of the spectrum, having a wild adolescence, living with somewhat of a reckless abandon. As soon as I got pregnant with my first, however, I suddenly turned pretty conservative - even my husband was restricted under my new 'better safe than sorry' policy. Now that I'm a single Mom, though, I have a huge fear of my own death. I've always been death-phobic for those I love, but never worried about my own mortality. Now that the kids have only me as a stable (mostly, anyway) parent, I'm petrified that I might get sick and die. I can't even say the 'c' word, it scares me so much, although statistically it's my heart I should worry about.

When I had one of my ultrasounds with my daughter, about 9 months or so ago, the technician asked me a weird question that bothered me then, and is still haunting me...'did you have an ultrasound before you got pregnant? [yes] And everything was fine? [yes]'. And I keep wondering why he asked me that...did something look wrong with me? or was there something that made him wonder if everything had looked good to go for me to carry a baby to term? or what??? And now it's really, really bothering me - as in 'move my doctor's appointment up a few week because I'm too scared to wait any longer' bothering me; as in 'crying my eyes out and begging the universe to, if nothing else, just let me live a long, healthy life so I can be here to raise my kids and see them grow up and have their own families'...I'll go without another husband, I'll go without money, I'll willingly go through Alzheimer's like my grandmother if I have to, just PLEASE LET ME LIVE TO SEE MY KIDS INTO ADULTHOOD (preferably well into it, I might add).

Unfortunately, being a bit of a hypochondriac runs in my blood, so I am terrified that it's not just fear and paranoia, but some kind of intuition that is making me feel this way. Is that nuts? Is this one of my "complicated" dimensions? I hate this feeling, this fear. I wish there was some kind of full body scan that we could do annually to make sure we don't have anything growing anywhere that shouldn't be, you know?

In the meantime, I'm eating more fruits and veggies, less saturated and trans fats, and more organic, and hoping for the best, because the thought of my son, especially, having to lose me when I'm the only one who has been there consistently, day in, day out, makes me want to gouge my eyes out, I really can't take it. Thank goodness I have therapy tomorrow! Maybe she can help me put this in perspective. And I am also grateful that at least that one disease, the 'c' word, doesn't run in my family so far...just heart disease, which I'd like to think I can do something about! God willing this will be one more phobia that I will be able to look back on as a waste of energy 30 years from now, and beyond.

Friday, August 28, 2009

“Grateful”

This is a quick one. I have always said that, if I had a choice, I would always take having been in my shoes - losing my husband the way I did, under the circumstances I did, over losing a child or having to endure the loss of a great spouse, with a fantastically happy marriage. I just saw an Oprah where there was a single dad whose wife died after giving birth, and as he described his experience, two things crossed my mind - 1. yes, I really would rather two healthy children and the loss (however difficult and painful it was) of a spouse after a rocky marriage, and 2. the experience of having a child really is profound, and right or wrong, it really can be the kick in the ass you need to get your shit together, grow up, and LIVE...and live WELL.

To every newly singled parent out there, I am sending you good vibes, positivethoughts and love. I hope each parent who finds themselves in this situation will connect to the power of the universe and get their needs met, so that they can give their children a great family and a great life.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

“Let Down” (sorry, this was not one of my finer moments - I was clearly stuck in a moment and not seeing the big picture, but still, here it is...)

Okay, so I'm going through my son's baby book, and among other things I realize how bad it would look to Emily if I had managed to find her the same one. For my son, lots of people showed up within the first few days to see him - all of his family, on both sides, and several friends, in fact. For Emily...no one outside of those who were there for the birth (my Mom, my sister and her whole family were here for her birth, which I am very grateful for!). Yup, that's right – since her birth, no one has come by. It took days before we saw even a single person at our house. No one called. Several people said congratulations on Facebook, but in my opinion that doesn’t quite cut it, especially given that I was doing it alone. Having no close family members or friends show up or call when a baby is born is disheartening enough, but given how terrified and alone I felt trying to figure out life with two kids without my husband around, while simultaneously trying to recover from the birth, etc., was too much; having so little support made it just that much harder.

Case in point, most terrifying memory from the “early days” was when I got strep when Emily was just a few weeks old. I came down with a high fever (almost 103 F at one point), and quickly became so out of it, that I couldn’t stay awake long enough to move. I feel asleep a few times, and kept meaning to get up to get Dylan some dinner and nurse Emily, but then I’d fall asleep again. I remember “coming to” at one point, with Emily lying on my chest crying because she needed a nurse. I had no idea how long she had been crying, and my son had curled up at the other end of the couch and was watching Treehouse on TV – thank goodness the shear panic was enough to jolt my feverish mind to a semi-conscious state, just long enough for me to grab Dylan whatever was handy in the fridge (luckily I didn’t have just junk on hand), and get Emily nursing. I passed out again, but luckily I wasn’t as needed anymore.

I never really got over how terrifying it was to me that I could get so sick, so fast, that I was completely unable to summon help. Nor did anyone check on me daily, so no one knew anything was wrong. To this day I have a bit of a phobia of the idea that something could happen to me when I am home alone with the kids, and no one would know, for goodness knows how long, and the kids would be alone, with no one to help them. I asked my Mom if she could check in on me daily, after that, but it lasted all of a couple of days. I’m so busy that most days I forget until it’s too late to call, so again, nothing would seem amiss if she didn’t hear from me for a few days.

Back to the issue at hand – my sense of being abandoned around the birth of my daughter...I don't seem to be doing a good job letting go of this, and indeed it's my aunt & uncle and one of my husband's cousins who I'm most upset about, because I love them and I really thought they would be there for me. Don't get me wrong - people were upset when I got pregnant just a few months after my husband came home the first time, but if things had turned out differently I doubt they would have been as...absent, I guess?...as they were. So, ironically it seems to me, I was essentially punished for the fact that my husband left. And for the record, the family members who saw my husband for the first two trimesters of the pregnancy have admitted that he had been doing so well that they would not have been angry had I gotten pregnant a few months later, and yet now that I know that the problem that sent him packing was Bipolar Disorder, I feel pretty confident in saying that had we waited, the end result would have been the same - he still would have left, only it would have been at the beginning of an “acceptable” pregnancy, instead of 2/3 the way through a “disapproved of” pregnancy.

Am I rambling? I don't know. All I know is that every time I think about those first few months, and the sense that her arrival onto this planet was not celebrated, I cry...hard. I don't seem to be getting over it at all, which is all the more strange because I've actually really come to terms with the fact that my husband up and left when I was 6 months pregnant, which objectively seems to me like it should be harder to get over. But no - it's things like the fact that some of my most loved family members and friends never came to see her, and never even met her until she was months old that niggles at me. When she sees her brother's baby book, she will see where it says the names of all of the people who came to see him. So, if she asks, what do I say about who came to see her? Seems to me it was bad enough to have been in the situation where I may one day have to explain to her why we separated (if you can call it that) while I was pregnant with her, but for her to know that the only people who came to see her were her grandparents and her cousins’ family???

It's rare moments like this where I wish someone actually read this blog, because maybe someone could offer me some useful advice. I know that holding on to these feelings is not helpful, and I have some tools for generic letting go, but it's not working here. And I'd like to be able to think about her birth without these feelings obscuring the most important thing - that Dylan and I got to welcome Emily into our little family, making it a much more happy, complete, and exciting family for us; that Emily was healthy; that the birth itself was quite beautiful.

An Intro From the Past

Okay, so the quickest way to get the background established seems to be to post my past blogs. There was my "Shocked n Confused" blog, which had all of one post (for reasons that should become clear rather quickly), then the "Am I Complicated, Really?" blog, which had 7 entries - better, but again, the time is not always there. So, why try again? Well, as the *%&# seems to be hitting the fan again, I need to keep track of what's going on anyway, so I figured I may as well do it here. At the least, it will be a window, however brief or not, into life being married to, well actually separated from, someone with Bipolar Disorder. What else it might be beyond that, I don't know - I do know that there are many things I have many thoughts on, and that I do have a desire to share those thoughts, the only question is - will I have/find/make the time to do it, beyond what stems from necessity? Again, I don't know.

So, here is my intro from my second blog, which will give some background...

April 8, 2009

...so I am 33 years old, mother to two kids, my son, age 3, and my daughter, 6 months (tomorrow, actually). I am separated from my, um, never-boring ex-husband, who is probably 85% of the reason I feel like blogging in the first place. Despite belonging to a group for separated parents, I still feel starved for the comradery of other single parents. There's just something about single parenthood which, so far, is lonely, what with all of the happy "intact" families (I really hate that term, which let's face it, is full of connotations that are not in my favor) in my neighborhood.

Of course, if I'm honest, I don't really fall nicely into the 'typical' arena of separationhood, either, largely because of the way it unfolded and continues to unfold. Let me give the reader's digest version of the event(s). Okay, I guess I have to start with the pre-separation separation, in which my husband, following the best three weeks of our entire marriage, abruptly decided to throw our considerable financial investment in intensive couples therapy, which had been working wonders, out the window and flee. Basically he picked a fight, refused to let it be resolved (even rejecting my offer to give him exactly what he claimed he wanted), and then left. Within two weeks he was residing a half hour away from my son and I, claiming that all was well with the world, except that he had me in his life. I was, he said, pretty much evil and quite certainly wrecking his life.

Shortly thereafter he crashed and came to his senses. He checked into a hospital, having become somewhat hopeless about his situation and what he had done, and started asking about coming home. He was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder while he was in the hospital, which put a lot of the difficulties he'd been having in at least some perspective (e.g. his outburst and his difficulties dealing with his son were related to the severe physical and psychological abuse he'd experienced as a child). Still, I was somewhat ambivalent, until I got a severe case of the flu that left me unable to even get up the stairs. Well, he took this opportunity to swoop in and 'save the day' (aka check out of the hospital 'against medical advice' and take up residence with us once again, without actually checking with me first).

As uncomfortable as I was with the situation, I did feel a loyal sense of obligation to my vows. Since he was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress stemming from physical abuse during childhood, I felt that this would fall into the category of 'in sickness' and 'for worse', and I decided that I would try to work things out. My husband, previously very labile and prone to outbursts, seemed to really get it together over the next several months. Although he still went into the occasional tantrum, he was much more calm and helpful that before. The biggest issue - he still could not tolerate parenthood for more than a few hours at a time, at least solo. Okay, there were other pretty significant issues, like the tantrums and various addictions, but he was in therapy, and was being much more civil. Besides, my son was so relieved his Dad wasn't “working a lot” anymore...Yes, that's right - for three weeks I lied to my son and said 'Daddy is just working' or 'Daddy is working so much that he has to sleep near work right now;' I just couldn't figure out how to tell him about separation - he was barely two, after all - how on earth could I explain it to him in a way that made sense. And besides that - my son offered the excuse in the first place, so at first I was just choosing not to contradict his assumptions...that's reasonable, isn't it?

Long story short, things went much better and we decided to try for another baby (if you're thinking 'what was she thinking?' rest assured I had thought the same thing when I heard that my friend's friend was separated before their second child was born - I feel the sting to this day, because honestly, there was some definite judgement going on). It was a calculated risk on my part, but honestly after trying unsuccessfully for several months a while back I didn't really think we'd get pregnant for a while, anyway. Of course, this time we nailed it on the first try. Regardless, all seemed well - my husband seemed happier and more grounded than me or my family had ever seen him...until June. Then, suddenly, he was 'off'. I knew the situation was going to end badly, and there was no getting through to him. To this day I don't know what happened, but he wasn't his normal self: he was misinterpreting everything, he was having mood swings all over the place - even my son was acting up, because his Dad was so unpredictable. And then it happened...I came home from the park with my son and saw that his stuff was gone. My son simultaneously came down with a fever and had been shivering for the last hour, and a quick phone call to Telehealth sent us directly to the ER. My son cried for his Dad, but his Dad, despite numerous phone messages and texts, never came. In fact, once he found out where we were he took the opportunity to pack up more stuff while we were there...who does that? Honestly, I felt that the world had moved to a new galaxy where nothing made sense.

So, that was that - I was six months pregnant and a single mom to a 3 year old, literally overnight. I still can't quite believe that this is actually MY life...not some crazy lady down the street. Don't get me wrong, I was never exactly a poster child for how to live a typical life, but this? This was a little dramatic even for me, especially given that I'd pretty much become a nice, normal mommy-type when my son was born. The moment I became a Mom, I had let go of my need for drama. It seemed that my husband had not.

Sadly, even at the time I had a strange sense that this situation was going to be worst for my husband, second worst for our son, and probably best for me. Even at his “best” my husband spent so much time escaping his life and responsibilities that, honestly, I felt very much alone a good deal of the time. Now that my husband was gone (again), the worst thing of all was the emotional hell my son had to experience. It was unlike any I'd witnessed before. He would lie in my arms screaming and crying for his Dad until he would finally fall asleep exhausted, sweaty and sad. And all I could do was hold him and rock him and tell him I was sorry he hurt and that I loved him. He slept with me for the next two and a half months. There were weeks when he'd wake up in the middle of naps or at night, screaming and crying hysterically. After a while, as long as he felt my body when he reached out his arm he would drift back into slumber with maybe a whimper about his Dad. Eventually, a couple of weeks before the baby was due, I moved him back to his room with little commotion. I think he had had just enough time to adjust before the baby came.  In fact, interestingly, while he seemed happier by that time, he almost seemed “back to normal” once she actually arrived. So, we became a family of three, and we found our new normal pretty nicely overall.

My husband is still pretty much AWOL, dealing with addictions, suicidality and the like. That's the biggest stress in my life - never knowing what will happen next with him, and having to buffer my son from his ups and downs. He doesn't see his Dad often, because he is so unwell, but he knows that this is why - I've told him that his Dad isn't well, that it's not his Dad's fault, and so forth. For the most part, though, he doesn't really ask questions anyway. When he's disappointed, I help him through it as best I can, and overall he actually seems like a pretty happy kid at this point. His sister is awesome, too - she pretty much sleeps most of the time (which, let's face it, is pretty convenient, given the situation we're in), and she's a lot of fun when she's awake. She and her brother LOVE each other, and their joy is certainly my joy.