Shortly after I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder in 2001, my life changed and I crashed. My husband at the time had been complaining quite a bit about the behavior of my son, who had also been recently diagnosed. My husband was also looking at me differently. He became quite controlling as though I were a child and everything I wanted to do became something he doubted I could do. Life went on this way for a year and a few months and then, life changed.
The above is an excerpt from my last post here where I mentioned, it was July of 2003 that my husband and I bought a house. He had started his own business and our life was quiet. What you don’t know is that my husband had three sons from a previous marriage. He had signed open adoption papers before I met him and we visited with them every six months. The two oldest, twins, came into our lives on a more constant basis in 2004 after they had turned 18 that summer. I couldn’t have been happier to have them there.
One evening a few months later, my husband and I sat at the kitchen table. He cried that evening as he told me how sorry he was. He said the way that I treated his sons as though they were my own made him feel terrible for the way he had acted with my son. He promised to talk to my son and to make a change. He did. His relationship with my son became something I never thought I would see. Still though, I found him being partial to his own sons in ways. Christmas shopping for example. I had to fight with him to put each present in the cart for my son. I believe my husband continued to work on that and did make progress. His relationship with my son grew. Ours did not.
In March of 2005 my mother sold her house and moved in with us. Another big adjustment. At that time I experienced a relationship with my mother that I had never had before. I am grateful for that.
In July of 2005 I suddenly became sick. I had foot drop in my right foot, I couldn’t stand on my right leg at all due to weakness. There was pain in my legs and feet that I couldn’t explain and I started to fall a lot. There was a feeling of nausea that ran through my entire body. It was debilitating and I was scared. It took months of going to doctors and finally a Neurologist to find out that I had peripheral neuropathy with no known cause.
For myself I look to see a cause. Was it years of stress. Was it the large amounts of Ritalin I was prescribed for ADHD. Was it the long period of time when I became so defiant that I refused anything for myself that I could. The period of time when I refused to eat. I will never know. What I do know is that my body was failing me. I was scared and my husband was scared, he shut me out again.
In December of 2005 my mother was diagnosed with bone cancer. She stayed at home with us until she passed away March 24, 2006. Cancer is a disease that you can see. You can see it in the faces of terminal patients, I know this. My husband could see and he helped me to take care of her. I was amazed at how good he was with her.
Seeing my husband handle himself so well with my mother leads me to believe that maybe if he had more understanding of my illness, my invisible illness, he would have reacted differently to me.
To be continued…
Guest Writer: Trae from (TripleClicka.com). I’m honored to have Trae participate and help spread mental health awareness and blur out stigma by sharing her story, here on Mental Health Friday. She’d be back in two weeks. Here are here previous entries: part 1, part 2, part 3
P.S, her blog link is above, let’s spread some love :). IMAGE CREDIT: HealthyPlace.com
If you’d love to contribute on Mental health Friday, I’ld love to have you. My email address is: mykahani@yahoo.com . For more information, visit this post.
Randoms by a Random 