Well, tonight I am just sitting here with my puppy, Oscar, in my lap. I’m reflecting on all of the incredible moments and thresholds that I’ve crossed, and trying to decide which we should discuss next. I suppose the most obvious would be exactly what gave me the clue that my husband of six years had a severe case of bipolar disorder.
The answer would be that I was absolutely in shock at the diagnosis that our family doctor made. We had had our fair share of marital problems, but I thought that was the whole purpose of taking marriage vows. I thought that the worse had come, and the better was on the way. I never saw that the mood disorder – until after a professional pointed it out – was in control of our good times and bad times.
Boy, did I beat myself up over this manic depression news! I had the nerve to think that it was all my fault! Can you believe that? But I was just catching certain keywords here and there, and creating a very specialized guilt-trip just for myself. I heard words thrown around like ‘stress’ and ‘triggers.’ I thought that I was certainly the cause of all of the stress in my husband’s life, and had to be the biggest episode trigger that he could possibly have.
After all, wasn’t it plainly obvious that the man really just didn’t like me anymore? Who could blame him…I didn’t even notice he had bipolar disorder! I was the one who really wanted a family, and wasn’t the greatest trigger in the world (and the most stress in the universe) caused by little additions to a family?
Add to that the fact that we had tried for over three years to get pregnant with our daughter. Add to that the fact that I was the one who had the fertility issues. Add to that that I found out I was two months pregnant (SURPRISE!) just two weeks after Lee’s diagnosis. Keep adding, and there is a great little picture of my own, personal, bipolar spouse blame game.
And guess what? Lee was more than happy (at that time) to let me take the blame. Lee was more than jubilant to have an excuse for all of the mistakes that he had made, and absolutely ecstatic that I felt I was the trigger for it all. It was like he was saying silently, “I can’t do anything because I am bipolar, dear…from here on out you are responsible for everything! After all, you are to blame for everything anyway!”
Now, he and I both know that all of that is a bunch of ‘hog wash,’ as my grandma would have said! But at the time, it was tearing me apart. It was also enabling him to stay right where he was; in the middle of no man’s land with no intention of moving forward at all.
How did we move forward? Only one answer to that…
No comments:
Post a Comment