There is Purpose in the Grief

I am an ostrich. There is comfort in my innocence and ability to shut the world out. I have said a thousand times my taste in entertainment is closer to my grandchildren's than to that of another adult. Not to say I like cartoons, but I do like the feel-good stories with the morals and values.

My ability to navigate the world in a state of rose-colored glasses has been tarnished, especially since 2018, but it is still a goal of mine every day. I like to see the good in life, in people, and I will give far too many chances before realizing that I should have trusted what they first showed me. This being said, it does not mean that I don't get upset, sad, angry or anxious. I try to be what those around me need me to be and feel judged for it every day.

Despite my goals, sadness is a part of who I am now. I am sad that judgement comes my way so frequently. I am sad that my children have had to feel so much pain. I am sad that the creative side of me is stifled and that whole parts of my life are altered in an attempt to exist without confrontation or constant questioning. This being said, I do not have a bad life. My children and I are closer than most, I have a very small circle of friends that understand my need to withdraw sometimes and that plans with me are often last minute to guarantee that I will have less chance of having to cancel due to an episode or mood. I have a beautiful home and a business that provides me with all that I need and most of what I want. I have a husband who loves me with all of his heart and when healthy, is fun loving and attentive. The painted picture is truly a beautiful scene.

The grief is that the life that my husband was destined to live is very different than the life that I envisioned when we first fell in love. The wonderful healthy times that I now know will circle into mania or depression sometimes due to time of year and sometimes due to triggers, are what remind me that there is a man inside of this disease. That he is the most unfortunate of us all because if we really needed or wanted to, we could escape. An option he does not have. Even the times he has tried to run, he has no choice but to go with himself. Some days I look at him and I see the uncertainty. I see the confusion that people are responding to him in a way that makes him angry. Anxiety that can render him to need to be within an arms length of me even when life creates me to not be able to sit still. In certain times he will crave to be the center of attention to get a laugh. His eyes go bright, voice is loud and talk is fast, but let others create a ruckus and his flight or fight will kick in aggressively. and quickly someone will become a target or a victim.

Illness creates the intensity of his moods to be all that he can handle. For him, stability and quiet obedience are all he can tolerate in those around and close to him. A bad day for someone else is met with an over the top response from him in an attempt to quell the atmosphere. Yet when he is well, a moment of distraught for one of our children or myself is met with arms around us physically or virtually and for the moment, we know it will be okay.

Since the day I met him, he has been a big personality. He was accomplished in his career and an obvious family man. I never worried that I would be bored as he had to have something fun to do way more frequently than I was used to. I never wondered if it was only me that he had eyes for, he was very physical and loving in both words and touch. I never doubted that he would take a bullet for me. I did not worry that I would have to go through life events alone as he would take every opportunity to be by my side for me and my children. Something that none of us were used to. By the time I realized that life issues that were becoming obvious as we attempted to blend our family, were not just personality clashes but an illness, it was too late. I was in love with him as a person. I wanted to be the stability for his children that so obviously was missing, and my kids, who dealt with severe abandonment issues from their biological father, were already attached. Yes, it took that long.

Or did it. I was a master at making excuses for the pink flags that were becoming more and more evident. The impatience with my children was occurring almost daily and the explosions toward his children terrified me, but were a regular occurance when they visited. While not blaming them, I made the excuse that they, too, were strong personalities and the poisoning that their mother did created them to act out, be sneaky and showy. I was beginning to see that their father had the need to be the center of attention and thought it fitting that his children did as well. Together they would create elaborate stories and tell them to whatever audience that would sit still. He was calling out of work constantly and I was naive enough to believe him when he would tell me that he just wanted to be near me. Until one day he tried to tell me about the debillitating headache he was experiencing as I questioned why he was not going to work again. It was a story and I knew as I called him on it, that this was much more of an issue than I had realized. I knew then that I had to start to unravel the untruths that were coming faster and faster. But the good man...

It was September and our house needed re-siding. The company wanted to charge us to haul away the old siding, something I would have paid them to do without thought. My husband to be stated no way. He would take it to the scrap metal yard and make the money himself. It felt so good to be taken care of. But wait, then he stated that with that money he was going to take my children to the county fair and let them have the time of their lives. My children. He was that generous and cared that much. THIS is the true heart of the man I call my husband. Thus far I had raised them to think that raisins were candy and structured fun was all you needed. That trip to the fair, he introduced them to junk food and unlimited yes' to reasonable requests. They glowed and I fell deeper and deeper in love.

As the symptoms of the illness reared its ugly head, I couldn't shake the confusion of both sides of the man. After time and many episodes (back then we called them cycles), I knew he needed me to stand by him. The trauma caused by the illness inside of him was no different than a cancer. He could treat it but there was no guarantee that the treatment would be successful. As long as he continued to be compliant to his treatment I had to learn to seperate the man from the illness. Our lives would not be the fair all the time nor the explosions all the time, but the quiet stable life I had created for me and my children was gone forever. I needed to both accept and grieve.

There is purpose in the grief. The grief is sometimes for myself and our children for the confusion and anxiousness that we live in. But more often my grief is for my husband. He loves his family and he loves life, but he is robbed everyday of knowing what contentment and real joy are. The grief keeps us anchored as we remember that there is a traumatic illness inside of a man who loves us with every part of his huge heart, who tries every day of his life to be stable. And for that, we stay.