It is always difficult to play the heavy... To be the bad cop in a parenting relationship. We all have a deep and tremendous love for our children and to have to tell them no, especially we know the requests they make would actually make their life better or at least more fun. It is so hard to say no.
This deep rooted need to avoid no is compounded when the one you love is hurting and her well being is at stake. The horrors of bipolar pain are now well chronicled. The so-called pseudo-fibromyalgia marks a mirrored level of nerve pain that would rival the debilitating terror that keeps many people out of the workforce across North America. The pain is real. For at least one week a month, my beloved wife must be tortured by the evils of her own brain chemistry.
It is this torture that helped lead to her original diagnosis. We would take her to the hospital in horrific pain, they would give her morphine or some derivative. She would go home appeased, suffer a hangover and be back the next night. For over two years, this was my life. Haul her up to the hospital, wait for hours and then take her home only to start again the next day.
I will remember forever a local doctor literally lecturing me... You can't keep bringing her up here. I lost my temper. I screamed in response, "If you think it's mental, then treat that..."
The outburst lead to the formal diagnosis that my beloved had gone from sickly prescription drug addict to bipolar sufferer. I know I have said it before but the word sufferer cannot be overstated. Rest assured, she suffers. Suffers mightily...
My wife endured the horrors of withdrawal on her own. She slayed that demon through a strength of will that I still admire and respect to this day. She became my hero in those moments. She also learned the horrible truth... Once an addict, ALWAYS an addict.
During treatment for her bipolar, our psychiatrist took my aside as the primary caregiver in her support group and told me that every reasonable effort must be made to keep her out of outpatient care. With no disrespect to the world of the general practitioner, they lack the skills necessary to treat the phantom that is bipolar pain. These doctor, through no fault of their own fall back to what they know. They try to treat the pain... WITH PAIN KILLERS!!!
The pain is so intense. The sufferer is also crippled by the pain and not able to look objectively at their disorder to realize that the pain has no physical cause. They are just in pain and want relief. Morphine or one of its evil cousins are given. Relief they will provide. Of that, there is no doubt but it will soon be followed by a monumental hangover including vomiting and yet another headache and cycle begins again... The war won by my beautiful wife suffers a setback and she must go through withdrawal again.... For the umpteenth time.
Now not only must she endure bipolar pain, she must go through withdrawal too. I should be mad. I should be hurt as she lashes out in anger because no one understands. The truth is she is right, no one understands. We, as members of the support group are doomed to watch the sufferer suffer. She says hurtful things like no one cares or if we really did care, we would just take her up to the hospital so she could get relief.
I find myself sitting alone again writing my thoughts knowing that I have just had to seriously hurt the one I love with all my heart by telling her no! I will not take you up to the hospital. There is only one cure for what ails you, time. You have to ride the biorhythm through the down period. I love her to death and it breaks my heart to have to play the heavy. I have to hurt her to save her from herself. No one EVER wants to hurt the one they love most. No one...
I have spoken before about the effects of the holidays on the carefully structured and managed biorhythm that is bipolar life. It leaves the sufferer in a very bad state only to return to regular home life with no functional biorhythm but instead with massive mood swings. This is my advice to any and all who deal with bipolar patients on a regular basis. Right after the holidays, if one of your frequent flyers (yes, I know the terminology) comes in, give them a shot of Gravol to make them feel less nauseous and a bit sleepy and give them a tiny bit of saline and call it the greatest pain medication in the universe, use some exotic scientific name and then send them home with strict bed rest orders.
Giving them morphine or one of its partners in crime will not free you of them for a few nights, instead it will make it worse. I am no doctor but I have endured these trials for 11 years and can make a fair observation...
These patients lack the cognitive understanding to properly present their case. Their rhythm is out of control. They are down, they are sick and in pain and they just want relief. The only relief is time... Like someone trapped in a prison, escape sounds so promising and exciting but the truth is the only release is serving your time.
Counting the days.... God speed....
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
I will remember forever, my beautiful wife andI sitting in the psychiatrist's office in 2004 when she was first diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and him telling us that "this is why bipolar patients end up with no friends. No one can handle the down periods forever."
I literally chuckled and said, "I have a strong constitution. I can handle it. I love her dearly."
For nearly ten years now, I have handled it with as much grace as I could muster. The women in my wife's family have been cursed with the horrors of depression in one form or another for many generations. My wife's mother used to tell the story of Uncle Albin looking at Auntie Flora and smiling, "Yes, Mama."
I have tried to take that story to heart and to always respond, no mater how mean, distasteful or even abusive the comment with "I love you."
She lashes out calling me a liar, an adulterer, an abusive husband because she cannot understand or find her emotional center when it is taken from her by a stressful event or a holiday, anything out of the routine. She accuses me of choosing everything else over her. She cannot see or understand that when she is struggling, there is nothing else but her. No one can focus on anything else. Everything becomes about helping her find her way back to reality.
I consider myself a learned person. I am a voracious reader and have spent my adult life trying to understand this all better. I never believed the rhetoric about a dissociative personality disorder. She has to know how she behaves. She just has to. In the coming days, maybe hours, she will awaken from this monster and my lovely wife will return. She will not remember being overtly aggressive. She will not remember screaming at me in amplified rage. She will not remember stumbling around because she is so susceptible to the medication in this weakened state. She will want to move on. She will want us to move on and we will.
The words in that office echo in my mind, "This is why they have no friends."
Dr.Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde shall never meet...
I literally chuckled and said, "I have a strong constitution. I can handle it. I love her dearly."
For nearly ten years now, I have handled it with as much grace as I could muster. The women in my wife's family have been cursed with the horrors of depression in one form or another for many generations. My wife's mother used to tell the story of Uncle Albin looking at Auntie Flora and smiling, "Yes, Mama."
I have tried to take that story to heart and to always respond, no mater how mean, distasteful or even abusive the comment with "I love you."
She lashes out calling me a liar, an adulterer, an abusive husband because she cannot understand or find her emotional center when it is taken from her by a stressful event or a holiday, anything out of the routine. She accuses me of choosing everything else over her. She cannot see or understand that when she is struggling, there is nothing else but her. No one can focus on anything else. Everything becomes about helping her find her way back to reality.
I consider myself a learned person. I am a voracious reader and have spent my adult life trying to understand this all better. I never believed the rhetoric about a dissociative personality disorder. She has to know how she behaves. She just has to. In the coming days, maybe hours, she will awaken from this monster and my lovely wife will return. She will not remember being overtly aggressive. She will not remember screaming at me in amplified rage. She will not remember stumbling around because she is so susceptible to the medication in this weakened state. She will want to move on. She will want us to move on and we will.
The words in that office echo in my mind, "This is why they have no friends."
Dr.Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde shall never meet...
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Holiday Bliss
Routine!! Routine!! Routine!!
Through nearly 10 years of Bi-polar management, we have learned that if emotional control is going to be maintained, things must remain constant. There can be no out of the ordinary happenings or the emotional swings are drastically amplified. As long as each month is kept filled with routine, the down periods can be measured in minimal days and can be limited to a couple sessions of tears and a couple of fits of rage. This can be managed the removing the bipolar sufferer from the public eye.
Make no mistake about, the patient is the sufferer...
This makes the major holidays VERY tough to manage. Holidays are NOT routine. They involve travel, irregular meals and meal times. They involve tough social situations with people you rarely see. They often invoke unrealistic expectations about the magic of the holiday seasons as portrayed in movies and other media. Inevitably, they involve financial stresses and emotional disappointment.
This is incredibly difficult for a person of normal emotional rhythm, let alone someone whose rhythm is irrational and irregular. The bipolar sufferer loses their emotional safety bar that is "routine" and is left to ride horrid squalls of tsunami like emotional waves like tremendous joy in seeing their family, tremendous sorrow when it never measures up to the expectations, rage when the money seems shorter, pure fury when the plans constantly change and te difficulty of trying to put on a happy face for the public when all these emotions form a tornado in your soul.
Holidays will never be routine so it is about struggling through. It is about the support group bracing for the rage, even outright hatred and learning that the only option, even when they are hurt - and hurt badly is to respond with love. It is our lot in life for choosing to care for these people. They rage! We cannot rage! They react with hatred and we must react with love, no matter it hurts us. It is the only way for the patient to find that safety bar and grasp with all their might to try to pull themselves back to the emotional center.
Hold on and Happy Holidays!!
Through nearly 10 years of Bi-polar management, we have learned that if emotional control is going to be maintained, things must remain constant. There can be no out of the ordinary happenings or the emotional swings are drastically amplified. As long as each month is kept filled with routine, the down periods can be measured in minimal days and can be limited to a couple sessions of tears and a couple of fits of rage. This can be managed the removing the bipolar sufferer from the public eye.
Make no mistake about, the patient is the sufferer...
This makes the major holidays VERY tough to manage. Holidays are NOT routine. They involve travel, irregular meals and meal times. They involve tough social situations with people you rarely see. They often invoke unrealistic expectations about the magic of the holiday seasons as portrayed in movies and other media. Inevitably, they involve financial stresses and emotional disappointment.
This is incredibly difficult for a person of normal emotional rhythm, let alone someone whose rhythm is irrational and irregular. The bipolar sufferer loses their emotional safety bar that is "routine" and is left to ride horrid squalls of tsunami like emotional waves like tremendous joy in seeing their family, tremendous sorrow when it never measures up to the expectations, rage when the money seems shorter, pure fury when the plans constantly change and te difficulty of trying to put on a happy face for the public when all these emotions form a tornado in your soul.
Holidays will never be routine so it is about struggling through. It is about the support group bracing for the rage, even outright hatred and learning that the only option, even when they are hurt - and hurt badly is to respond with love. It is our lot in life for choosing to care for these people. They rage! We cannot rage! They react with hatred and we must react with love, no matter it hurts us. It is the only way for the patient to find that safety bar and grasp with all their might to try to pull themselves back to the emotional center.
Hold on and Happy Holidays!!
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