bipolar holidays

When the holiday season started I was a little leery.  While my husband loves Christmas, it seems to be an opportune season for stress and uncomfortable episodes.

Strings of Christmas lights?  They seem an all too sure way to cause a manic episode.  Spending lots of money, extra dates on the calendar, all that the holidays involve.......

Then there are the Christmas memories.  The old Ghost of Christmases past thing.  Times when things were good.  Times when things were not so good. 

Extended family members have expectations.  They want a phone call from him.  He doesn't call.  They attempt to call him.  He ignores their calls......  It can become an endless cycle of yuck.

This year, a couple days before Christmas, my husband, daughter and I went to see a movie at the discount theater:  The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  Whoo!  There was a very real possibility, after seeing the movie, that my husband would go into full reflection and question mode.  Heck, I'm not bipolar, and I just about did.

I won't recap the entire story, but the main character, a high school freshman, went through a lot and discovered a lot....about himself, his family, his past, his future.   Personally, I thought back and through much of my high school years.  I thought about friends, about my family, about how I handled situations, about how naive I was to the suffering of people around me, about my rather safe and protected life.

And I reflected about my husband's life that wasn't as safe and wasn't as protected.  Towards the end of the movie, the main character's parents embrace him.  They offer support.  They offer love.  It's obvious they want him to be alright.  They are sorry for whatever grief and difficulty has come upon his short life and they want to help.  And you get the feeling that he makes it.  And that his family is not going to leave him out there.  Alone. 

Unfortunately, that's the quencher, the main difference between Charlie (the character) and my husband's situation.  His family didn't embrace or support or really "be there for him".  And though I can do all those things today, as his spouse, I can't go back and repair that breech.  I'm not sure his family could either, at this point.  What's done is done.  Forever.  And there are too many miles, too much water under the bridge, yada yada to change anything now in a real way.

So, while it's been a lovely holiday season so far.... no manic episodes, no anger, no immense sadness, I think there will always be a void.  There will always be questions.

From our kids, "Why don't dad's parents really know us?"
From me, "Why couldn't they have just loved, naturally?"
From him, "Where was that embrace on that bleak day I'll never forget?"

I wish you a happy new year, and if your spouse is bipolar, I wish you a little extra "happiness".

a little help

It's hard to know when to intervene.  When to ask if he needs help.

I am not pushy and I don't like pushy people.  Yet I'm his wife.  Yet I don't understand the role.  The role of the wife of a bipolar husband. 

He's smart and intuitive enough to know if I'm asking for the sake of asking.  I so want him to know I care.  That I love him and want him to be at peace.  Yet I feel I come across as if I want him to be at peace so I'll be at peace.  Like I'm selfish.

Do I think too much?  Do I ignore too much?  Do I have a clue?