Your Stories

When I started dating my now husband, I could not understand how he could go from being so fun and loving to so mean and hateful at the drop of a dime. I fell in love with the sweetest, loving, caring individual I ever met. One day, he was not so sweet; he turned hateful, degrading, and mean towards me. I wanted nothing to do with him. He continued calling me and I agreed to meet with him and talk. He said he was not himself and that he was having a bad day, so I agreed to date him again and the rest is history. We now are getting ready to celebrate our 10th anniversary and we have 2 children from this union. You may think that we had it easy to make it ten years and have 2 children. Let me tell you, it has been the biggest struggle of my life and his. Re read the first 6 sentences of this 100 times and then you will get the full picture of how it has been getting to this point.  It was about 5 years ago that I had to put him in the hospital because he wanted to commit suicide. He would say things like he wished he would die and could not wait to die because life was not worth living for some time before it but now he was ready to act on it. We went to the doctor because I told him that there had to be something wrong for him to feel this way. I am so glad that the doctor committed him to a 72 hour suicide watch in the hospital. There he was diagnosed as being bipolar. So now we knew why he was acting this way, but what was bipolar? I began reading about it and went to family support meetings to learn how to deal with it. It has been a long, long, road. About every 6 months I have to remind him that he has to take his medicine every day not every other or every third day. It makes such a difference when he takes it every day. We can function and be a loving family when he does. He knows and can see and feel the difference but he has excuses as to why he does not take it. I will not let him slip because I know what that is like and we are not going to live that way anymore. We have been through counseling and that helped him to see what his issues were with childhood and helped him to deal with them and let it go so he could move on and live his life with his family.

Our son is bipolar, he is 8. We knew for years that he was bipolar; he has been since he was born. I refused to put him on medication because I had read all of the side effects and read stories of the brain damage. I could talk him down from his rages so I said that when I could no longer do that I would entertain the idea of putting him on medication. Last year I lost the battle and gave in because all he would do is talk about killing himself and dying, he was 7. What happy healthy 7 year old thinks about killing himself and hates life? A bipolar child. I had to face the fact that my perfect little angel was bipolar and that if I did not get him help he would dead before he was a teenager. Also, our daughter, 6, was picking up on what he was saying and doing. My aunt has her Ph.D. in pharmacy and she consulted with doctors on the medicine to treat bipolar so I knew what medicine I needed for him, I just needed him diagnosed. We went to the same office my husband goes to. He was diagnosed and we got the medicine needed to help him be a happy 7 year old. He also does counseling there. He no longer talks about killing himself or dying but he does act out when he does not know how to cope with someone or something. That is part of bipolar; you cannot change their routine or what they are use to because it is too much of a shock to their system which makes them lash out. He is so loving and caring and has so much to give. It is hard work every day but it is worth it to see him happy. I also talk with him about how he should and should not act in different situations so that he can use reasoning in his decisions before he just blows. At least, I can think he is using reasoning first.

That is the beginning of my bipolar story. It will never end, but at least I can hope for a brighter tomorrow knowing we made it through today.