chaos (again)

I can't believe that it's been nearly a month since I've posted, but on the other hand, time tends to morph interestingly when in the midst of chaos. As is incredibly par for the course of life with a bi-polar loved one - things took a turn last month. Here I am, teaching a Family to Family course for people in my very situation. Didn't expect to be Exhibit A in the course, but I suppose everything happens for a reason.

My son has gotten very, very good at hiding his disease. Sometimes I think he even fools himself. But with 20-20 hindsight, it all stands out in stark relief. In the back of my mind I think I knew that something was brewing... but I always hope that I'm just being overprotective or paranoid. To make a long story short - the stressful job that he had been doing so well at (!) took it's toll and he quit impulsively. Then - in a perfectly natural (if unfortunate) fit of terror, he lied to his wife about it and told her he was fired. When she found out she naturally booted him out (for lying) and he ended up on my couch.

The stresses of everyday living that even I take so for granted, are often far too much for someone with a mood disorder to deal with. He put on a brave, if utterly false, face - afraid to disappoint his beloved, wanting her to be proud of what he could do and letting himself wear thinner and thinner until he felt there would be nothing left if he stayed. Quitting was a maladjusted protection... giving him short term relief and causing long term consequences. Their finances are tentative and now he is unemployed and fragile. Had he come clean with the pain he was in earlier, maybe this could have been avoided. Now we all face damage control.

We all struggle to keep mental illness from being the center of our lives. Often it usurps center stage despite all our efforts. Recovery is a long and arduous road. I watch my son in his pain and I mourn again. I watch his love in hers. I watch them struggle to find answers, to find comfort. She found a blog of a married couple living with this honesty issue and read about their attempts to build a working relationship. They have a 48 hour 'safe zone' - if he comes clean to her after an initial reflexive lie within 48 hours she is only allowed to thank him for his courage. No repercussions. This is something to try.

The poet Roethke, who suffered from mental illness gives words to the concept of recovery in his poem Cuttings
"...one nub of growth
Nudges a sand-crumb loose,
Pokes through a musty sheath
Its pale tendrilous horn.
Cuttings (later)
This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?

What saint indeed.