Reality Bites

by Shannon Valerde

Stop by my house on a Tuesday night, and you probably wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. My husband, kids and I are probably eating dinner, or maybe we’re outside playing if the weather is nice. Possibly one of us would be on bath duty while the other picked up the bajillion toys that are scattered about the house.

Sometime around 8 p.m., though, you’d pick up on something. The kids would be giving dad hugs and telling him that they will see him soon. My husband and I might exchange a few words on either the upcoming weekend, or perhaps an appointment one of the kids has. Then he is gone – until it’s time for him to pick the kids up for his weekend visit. It hurts, it sucks, it makes me upset and causes me anxiety. I get angry, I get sad, I am left totally confused. I look at my children, and I wonder if they have any idea how I never thought this is how our lives would be. But this is our reality.

Let me back up though. Almost 17 months ago, life changed drastically for our family. One month after I gave birth to our second child, my husband was placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold. He was described as manic and in a psychotic state. This 72-hour hold turned into a month-long stay in the hospital and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. He was 31 years old and had never been diagnosed before, so to say this came as a shock would be an understatement.

I spent almost every day of the month he was in the hospital visiting him when I could. These visits were never easy. The person I saw during these visits yelled at me, flung accusations at me of an affair with his brother, called me names, and accused me of using our children and his ability to see them as a way to get him to take his medication. Yet I still showed up every day. I brought in food he liked, books he asked for, clean clothes, and pictures of the kids.

Even after he was compelled by a judge to begin a regimen of medications, he told me he was going to divorce me and said such hurtful things I didn’t know what to do but cry. The person who sat across from me looked like my husband, but nothing he said or did reminded me of him. I so desperately wanted to make things better, but I couldn’t. During one visit I sobbed so hard one of the nurses pulled me aside and told me that it would be okay if I didn’t come for a few days. That I needed to take care of myself, or I wasn’t going to be useful to anyone. That he needed time. So I listened. It wasn’t easy not seeing my husband every day, and it was hard to limit our phone conversations.

It helped me, though, and it allowed me to start seeing a counselor to cope with everything that was happening. I learned more about bipolar disorder. The more I learned, the more I was shocked to see that what I had thought were just some of my husband’s idiosyncrasies – grandiose ideas, rapid talking, sleeplessness, his inability to complete a project – were signs of mania and psychosis. I began to worry that maybe I could have prevented this, that I waited too long to say something to someone about his behaviors. I questioned how I could not have recognized some of these changes as causes for concern.

I pushed these thoughts to the side when I found out he was coming home. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was prepared for the transition. In one of our last conversations, my husband had said he didn’t believe he needed medication, nor did he plan on doing anything to keep up with his treatment after he came home. But I ignored these words. I believed that once he was home, everything would go back to how things were, that we were stronger than ever, that somehow we would work through everything. That once we talked about this at home he’d have no problem attending his partial day program or taking medication.

Things quickly disintegrated once home.

My husband was adamant about not going to therapy or his partial program. He didn’t believe there was anything wrong and couldn’t understand how I could believe something was not right.  We had a 2 ½-year-old and a 2-month-old at home, my husband had not yet been cleared to go back to work, was out on disability, and I had just returned to work after a two month maternity leave.To say stress was a factor would be an understatement. I was as empathetic as I could be, but I was falling apart. I was worried sick, and scared. On the third day I was so worried that I left work in tears after a phone conversation I had with my husband. Everything he was saying to me brought me back to our conversations while he was hospitalized. Nothing he said made sense, and I couldn’t understand how things could fall apart so quickly. As I left the house to go pick up our kids from daycare, my husband came running out after me. He shoved his head into the driver’s side window and started yelling at me about the bank account, and getting my name off it. While in the hospital he called the bank and cancelled our checks and ATM cards to limit my access to money, so I wasn’t surprised by this, but something about his tone and look elevated my anxiety. In that moment I made a choice. As I pulled into the parking lot at my son’s day care I called my mother, and said I was picking up the kids, and we’d to her house in about an hour. She didn’t need to ask why, she could hear it in my voice.

This choice changed everything. Some may look at it and believe it was an extreme one, but what occurred over the next couple of weeks only validated for me that I made the right choice for myself, my children, and my husband. Things got worse before they got better. I ended up putting in place a protection order that didn’t allow my husband near me or the kids. We had no contact for over three months. During that time I spent at least once a week with my therapist. I spent that time working through everything that had transpired, what my next steps were, dealing with financial pressures of now only having one income, looking for assurance that my kids were ok, and trying to come to terms with and understand the fact my husband truly believed there was nothing of concern with his behavior. I knew from conversations with my brother-in-law and mother-in-law that my husband was seeing a counselor as well. This gave me hope.

When we finally had the protection order lifted and established supervised visits for him with the kids, I was elated. The kids would be able to see their dad, and my daughter would get a chance to know her father (she was only one month when everything began). I knew we had a long road ahead of us. We had agreed to seek marriage counseling. I hoped we could get to some place where we could talk about what had occurred, how I could support my husband and look at what we needed to do to move forward as a unit.

The hour a week we spent with our therapist was the most difficult hour of my week. As we attempted to talk about various things it became apparent to me that we were in two very different places. I truly believe that we both thought we could get to a better place. I was carrying a lot of feelings that I honestly never felt like he understood or was willing to listen to, in part because he lacked the insight and ability. He was carrying a lot of anger and hurt, some towards me, to which he would never admit. There was not one time I didn’t leave in tears, including the times my husband didn’t show or thought the appointment was on another day.

For almost five months we talked in circles, until during what would be our last session, I got up and said I was done. My husband had spent the past twenty minutes talking about how I had done nothing to support or help him since his hospitalization. He proclaimed I, along with everyone else, was trying to label him as crazy. And there it was, the crux of our issue-the stigma of being labeled as someone with a mental health issue.

In many ways he was (and is) right. I was labeling him; however, I see no shame in stating I suffer from depression, anxiety and PTSD. I see no shame in discussing our story and saying my husband was hospitalized in a highly manic and extremely psychotic state. Sharing these experiences to me are like sharing the fact I had pink eye or that my husband broke his foot. They are a part of our stories, and talking about them can help other people feel like they are not the only ones experiencing these things.  In fact, I bonded with my hairdresser when I disclosed the happenings in my life. It turns out her story with mental illness closely paralleled mine. It gave me solace and assured me that I was not alone.

Flash forward to today. We never recovered after I walked out of our counseling session. We found that the month he was hospitalized and the three months we did not speak or see each other was off limits to conversation. If it was brought up it usually resulted in a very uncomfortable and unpleasant conversation. Our inability to be able to have a conversation about mental health worries me. Would he understand if I said I needed help, that I was losing control? Would he recognize if he started to slip into a episode? It has led us to a place that is made up of co-parenting, negotiating holidays and family occasions, weekend visits, and unfortunately, an impending divorce.

I love my husband, and I want the best for him; however, our opposite opinions with all the things that have transpired have put a divide between us. I have learned that the best way I can support my husband is from a distance. That I can offer support by holding him to certain responsibilities and calling him out when he does not meet them. It certainly wasn’t what I imagined life would bring, but it is our family’s reality. My hope is that our story can serve a purpose. My hope is that our story helps to stomp out the stigma associated with mental health.

Originally posted at the Student Affairs Collective on May 11, 2015.