2008 was the worst year of my life. i was hoping 2009 would be better, but as i am here in this house instead of being happy somewhere else... seems like it's going to be a long road to happiness for me... now i don't normally whine in such a manner, but have you ever been in a situation where you feel trapped? railroaded? surrounded by the palarva of idiotic men?
today i went on a walk with my daughters and it was great...they really are such a joy to me. i wish everyone could see them the way i do. unfortunately, it isn't that way.
i had my two oldest before i met my husband. they are from two different fathers and i must admit, that those guys should have clued me in to the luck i was going to have with men. neither of them was in the lives of the girls, really. in and out and causing too many problems... so when i met him, on a school field trip where he was the student teacher in my oldest daughter's (we'll call her kat) first grade class, i thought he was different. he gave me the eye, sure... he was sweet, kind, soft spoken, and above all: GOOD WITH KIDS! we had a whirl wind romance after becoming best friends. we had a lot of passionate moments. we used to kiss a lot. he was the answer to all of my dreams let alone my problems... so when he asked me to marry him after 2 months of tom foolery, i was more than happy to say "hell, yes!!!" my middle one (we'll call her ash) was two and enamored with him, and he her... he just loved that little girl!
the first year we were married, i got pregnant with the baby (we'll call her boo) and soon realized what i was in for. he is all of the things i thought he was, except when it came to kids... my kids that is. after boo was born, he had eyes for no other girl... including me. little ash was cast aside like so much dirty laundry, and kat was never his favorite as she wasn't a lover of school. i just couldn't bare the thought of going backward, which is what i thought divorcing him would be. i was married, finally, with my own house, finally, i had everything i wanted, finally, didn't i?
so, the gap grew... we moved out of state, away from my family and his. a fresh start. he promised to do better, that we would become closer as a family, as a couple. he wrote emotional checks he couldn't cash. and i became more and more depressed, but i was not the only one... my then 15-year-old, kat, became more and more withdrawn, moody, dark and self destructive.
ash wasn't much better. she always waited for him to love her, like a dog waiting under the table for the left-over scraps her owner throws to her once in a while. i know because i felt the same...
i knew he was bipolar when i married him. what i didn't know was exactly what that meant. he had been stable for 24yrs and so i had no clue... no clue that he decided one day, after being under therapeutic levels for 4yrs, that he didn't need his medication. that if he could be under therapeutic levels for so long, he probably didn't need to take the lithium at all. yeah, he really didn't need it. he read somewhere that people into their 40s could spontaneously "grow out of it." i had no notion whatsoever that he stopped his medication way back in october of 2007 and it was now april of 2008 and he has me curled up in a ball on the floor of our bedroom because he is telling me what a horrible wife i've been all these years. he is using expletives i didn't think he even knew anymore. he is telling me my children are evil because they were born out of wedlock. i keep asking him why. why is he talking to me this way? why didn't he ever tell me these things before? what could i possibly do to fix things? he was unusually cruel, demeaning and monstrous. it wasn't, however, until the next evening when i realized that he was having a massive manic episode. i parceled out my children (it was spring break) and tried to make a plan. he was mostly lucid during the day, so i spent the day with him on a wed, and talked him into getting back on the lithium. he agreed and we filled and picked up the prescription that afternoon. that evening he went to the church to play basketball. he didn't come home until 3am. he was raving. he was telling me that i needed to take the kids and go.
go back to my mom. he wouldn't listen to me. he accused me of wanting to control him through the meds and he had taken his wedding band off and thrown it away somewhere. he gave me until 3pm the next day to get out or he would put the girls and me out on the street.
what do you do when your spouse is not your spouse anymore? when he looks like himself but the presence you feel within him is pure darkness, directionless and hollow? who do you turn to when you are in a city far from your family?
i called the only person that i could think to call on. i called my bishop and begged him to help me. i was asking for an intervention. my husband respected this man and i felt he was the only one who could get through to him in this state. he seemed better during the day, more reasonable. he was confronted by the bishop and agreed to go to the emergency room and was eventually committed of his own free will. on a thursday. he didn't want to see me and when i walked into his emergency room he began the accusations again and said that one of us was going to leave the room. it was me. i went home and tried to explain things to the girls. it was hard for boo to understand being only 6, but ash and kat got it. and they were scared.
he was released on that sunday, we had talked on the phone by then and i picked him up. he said he wanted to "reset" things. i was still waiting for things to change, never mind that they hadn't in 8+ years of marriage. he was not the same anyway and couldn't even stay in the same room with me... i eventually left and went back to my hometown. but, i kept thinking about him and how he was doing. we never divorced because of the debt we were in after all of the medical bills hit us and my hours were cut at work, which meant that i had to give up the little house i was renting and move back in with mom... i just couldn't do it. he said i could come back and he'd help me get through school, pay for it. it was too good of an offer, i thought.
we arrived in november, just before thanksgiving with just our clothes strapped to the roof of our truck. the rest of our stuff was in storage back in hometown because of lack of funds to rent a truck. almost immediately i knew i had made a mistake. i was instantly depressed and very nearly turned and ran with the girls out the door!!! we talked and he said that he wanted to try counseling. i agreed. we went out to eat and talk about things. it was then that he casually mentioned that he hadn't taken his medication regularly since the summer. i couldn't believe my ears... i must have blanched because he tried to explain by telling me how great he felt and how he really didn't need it. i wanted to reach across the table and throttle him. he was always so close-mouthed about his illness and i let him be. but this time i lost it. i gave him an ultimatum. sure, he felt good now, but eventually he wouldn't and the children and i would pay the price. so, this time i made him an appointment with our family doctor and he got back on his meds. he is stable so far.
i am different, however. i've been realizing for the first time that when i was back in hometown i was strong again. i was capable. there were aspects of me that i had given up to be his wife that i regained back there. now i was here and completely dependent on this man for everything: food, shelter, companionship. i couldn't even go back to school because we were so broke! i got a job in an elementary school to help make ends meet.
my girls are my light. my support. they would walk through hell with me if they thought it would make me happy. if i can't take my life into my own hands again for myself, then i must do it for them. i have to. have to. have to.
going back to mom's will not be forever. not even close. just long enough to finish school. three years. that's nothin'. nothin' at all. going back to mom's is not a death sentence anymore, but a new start... not a failure.
i'm not a failure.
maybe i'm not feeling like shit anymore.
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Rock on! It feels good, doesn't it?
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