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!