Family Support
My Family and Me
In sharing the story of my illness, it is important to include the most important people in my life.
My Family
The most precious part of my life is my family. I've had an incredibly supportive husband and three great kids. It is not easy for them to share my role as primary caregiver, but we have all been pulling together. I hate the burdens my being ill places on them, but I love them for their unconditional love and support of me.
My Husband
My husband can be phenomenal. When I was manic, I was convinced he was planning to divorce me. Then I did everything possible to warrant it and was hateful to him. He learned about my illness and was loving to me.
During my depression, my husband held our family together and bore the brunt of the family burdens. He was the glue to my shattered mind. I would have been lost without him.
Our Children
Hypomania has never phased them much. Mom seemed mostly like a pretty fun gal to them at those times. However, when I was in my manic episode, I could be grouchy to the point of being scary to them, and sometimes they were walking on eggshells.
Probably the most difficult thing is when Mom looks well, but Dad says she isn't, and I am too depressed to function fully. It's difficult for them to understand when Mom is in the house but unable to care for them. I knew that I was getting more "normal" when I could maintain enough household cleanliness that the children stopped asking who was coming to visit whenever I did any cleaning.
One day in passing I mentioned, "my psychiatrist says..." and my son, dumbfounded, exclaimed, "You have a psychiatrist?!?" My oldest child, however, realizes how things have changed and how things are still not as good for me as they used to be in terms of functionality. Children go through phases, and as luck would have it, they seem to take "being helpful" in turns.