I’ve decided to leave the past in the past for now and write about something that’s important and close to home for me and our family. We had, and will have, more than one Christmas gift this year. Our daughter already came and our son will be here soon. Unfortunately we had to, and will have to, visit my husband in the hospital. Hopefully we can bring him home soon. He has, as I’ve previously written, bi-polar disorder and refuses to acknowledge it and take the necessary medication. This will not be the first time he’s been hospitalized for it.
At his best he’s a caring, family-loving person who provided for his own mother, a widow, and took my mother, also a widow, into our home when she wasn’t well and couldn’t live by herself. He treated her with love and respect. This was the man I married not realizing he had another side. At his worst, he shouts and verbally abuses, is delusional, brings strangers into our home and takes any cash that he can find in the house to spend on goodness knows what. I have to hide most of it. His common sense has seriously eroded. He was a brilliant person and is still very intelligent and resourceful.
More and more people are stepping forward, some of them well-known, and declaring that they have bi-polar disorder and are on medication. This enables them to work if they need to and lead a normal life without becoming severely depressed or severely manic which causes suffering for themselves and their loved ones. It’s not something to be ashamed of; it’s something to treat and live with.
If you have a loved one you suspect has bi-polar disorder, or if you yourself are suffering periodic deep depression and/or mood swings, just go to the computer and type in bi-polar disorder and websites giving information will be listed. Get a diagnosis and medical help if necessary. People with this disorder suffer a great deal, and cause others to suffer, needlessly if they’re not on the correct medication. The bad news is it can be fatal if the person becomes so depressed they’re suicidal. The good news is it’s treatable.
I’m wishing all of you and your families a very Merry Christmas!!
Musings on Life & Experience 