Decision making

Trying to move into a cheaper place and I have been looking at rentals in the area. I'm printing out the ones that fit within our price range and will allow pets for about 2 months now and giving them to him to get his input to help make a decision and I've gotten no input at all from him. I find a place that I really like and I go look at it with a friend. Afterward I take Curtis and my parents to look at the outside. When my mom asks him what he thinks of it, he responds that he'll have to look at the inside and see what the wiring is like. We get home and I let him know that I'm frustrated that he's not giving or sharing what his opinion is on the house. So after some more discussion he says that because he doesn't have any income to help with the bills and what not, that he doesn't feel he should give his input. I tell him that's not a very good marriage and if that's the way he feels then I don't know why we are still married. I don't want to have a marriage with someone that doesn't help make decisions in our marriage and life. Then I put it to him that if I was the stay at home mom and didn't have an income, would he expect me to not have an input or help make decisions. His response was, that he was sharing what he was feeling.

While Henry is taking a bath I ask him if he has anything to share after I said what I did. His response was, "What do you want me to Say". My response, "It's not what you say, it's what you do". I go on to say that if he's not going to help make decisions in our life then I don't know why we are still married. If I'm the only one making decisions, what kind of a marriage is that? He went and started looking at the rental printout shortly after that.

Do I have to do this every time I need something from him?

Moving Out of The Storm

Once Curtis was released from the hospital in Washington, his sister agreed to allow him to stay with them under certain conditions. I wasn’t ready to be back together with him at the time of his release. I had more recovery and learning of my own to do before I could deal with him in person. During this time I took a 12 week Family to Family course through NAMI. This class changed my life and the way I see mental illness. If I hadn’t taken the class, Curtis and I wouldn’t be back together today. I learned about mental illness and how it affects those with the illness. I went from being angry and hurt, to having compassion for what Curtis was going through and understanding that his actions during his mania were not done intentionally to hurt me or anyone else. I started seeing a therapist to deal with the “Perfect Storm” and try to move beyond the pain and anger. I am still trying to find a place for my anger. Bipolar is not who Curtis is, it’s an illness that he has. Sometimes I want to blame him for all the things he did to me during his mania. Frequently I have to remind myself that it was the Bipolar causing him to do those actions. He wasn’t in his well mind and therefore I can’t realistically blame him. Curtis moved down to Grand Juction with Henry and I in September 2012. Often times I feel like I no longer have a partner in life, rather someone else who needs taking care of. And perhaps that is what drew me to him, me being a co-dependent person and needing to be needed.

I spend every day watching for the signs of mania. Wondering if that off remark was his personality or his Bipolar. Is his total lack of a short term memory a side effect of meds or the Bipolar. His inability to answer any question I ask, is that his amazing ability to avoid the uncomfortable. If these things are the Bipolar, can I live with them? If they are simply his personality, can I live with that? Is the Bipolar preventing him for have a successful job interview? And if it is, how do we/I deal with him not having a job.

Though he seems to be stable right now, when will be the next manic episode? And am I okay with being the care taker in this marriage? If I choose to no longer accept that role, will our marriage survive?

The Perfect Storm II

After returning back home to Washington, something changed with Curtis.  The house was a disaster. He was spending more and more time on twitter and Facebook. We had started going to marriage counseling and after each session he would send an email to my mom or call her and make it appear that all our problems were my fault. I do admit that I made my fair share of mistakes but not the ones he was claiming. Curtis finally got a job in Seattle in December. The job was difficult for him and he decided to move on. In January he started another job, which looked promising. The hours were tough, but we were doing our best to make it work. Curtis spent more and more time while at work on twitter pretending to be someone else. Curtis was sleeping less and less, he was getting increasingly absent from the family and from our marriage. He refused to stop smoking pot even though I made it very clear to him that I would not interact with him when he did. Granted, I handled that poorly and became very angry with him due to his behavior. Our relationship continued in a downward spiral. In January I went to my first obstetrician appointment for the pregnancy. I thought something might be wrong as the morning sickness had passed and I had some spotting the day prior. After the exam, the doctor informed me that I was in the process of a miscarriage. I chose to go through this process naturally instead of having a D&C. The 'natural' process was not going as I had expected it to and my hormones were not dropping back to normal. In February, the doctor decided it was time to do the D&C.  While I was going through the miscarriage, Curtis was blaming the stress of my grandma's passing and me taking care of her as the cause of the miscarriage.

In January I suspected he was making inappropriate conversations with other women on twitter. Around the first part of January I found the proof even though he denied it. The 2nd week of March 2012, Curtis bought plane tickets for myself and Henry to fly the next day to my parents in Colorado to spend a couple weeks. By this point, Curtis was referring to himself in 3rd person and as 'King'and was smoking pot all the time he was awake.
On 3/20/2012 Curtis flew to NC to see the woman he was having an affair with on twitter, while Henry and I were in Colorado. The week prior to this he had an old girlfriend of his spend the week in our house with him. I later found out that he was cheating on me with her as well. I tried to find out from Curtis' sister what was going on while I was away, however Curtis had convinced his family that I was the one having all the mental issues and I was making everything up and smothering him. When I returned back to Washington, Curtis became increasingly violent and unpredictable. He would go from being funny and playful one minute to trying to choke me the next. I remember one time when I was trying to get him to find a psychiatrist and I gave him a list of in-network doctors and he gave me this wide eyed stare and I honestly thought he was going to kill me.

On Wednesday April 3rd, 2012 I attempted suicide. This is the email I wrote to my mom, though I never sent it.

"Goodbye
I love you so much mom. I can't take this anymore. I hurt so much. I've disappointed you and everyone I love. I can't do it anymore. I'm trying to follow my heart and do what's right and all it does it hurt people. I love Henry so much but I'm not doing anything right for him either."

Curtis had gone out to "run some errands"and while he was out I sent him a text message telling him goodbye as well. Curtis came home quickly and stopped me from taking the pills. He also called 911. The police came and I agreed to go to a crisis center. I spent 24 hours in a locked down crisis center, which gave me the opportunity to clear my head a little. I chose to go back home the next morning and attempt to move forward. The following day, Curtis had his girlfriend come get him and he left. 2 days later my mom and my grandma drove up from Colorado to help move Henry and myself with them to Colorado. The move was completed on April 23rd, 2012. From this time until the end of May 2012, Curtis became increasingly unstable. His family was attemtping to get him into a mental hospital however he had the ability to appear well put together for short periods of time proving the task very difficult.

My biological father, whom I had distanced my self from for years passed away on May 23, 2012. Henry and I drove to Casper, Wyoming the following day to attend his funeral and visit family. We drove back to Colorado on the 27th of May. During my drive Curtis' family got him into a mental hospital and they put him on a 72 hour involuntary hold. The following day I flew up to Seattle to deal with the fallout. The house was a disaster. He had written messages that he was planning on sending to people through FedEx all over the house. The messages he had written didn't make any sense. There was a picture on his phone of "911" written on the TV. He defecated on the stairs, which I later found out was his way of "sticking it" to his mom and sister. There was to be a hearing in Seattle on June 1st,m 2012 to determine if he would be held involuntarily in the mental hospital. Once we got to the hearing, the case worker stated it would be hard for us to prove that he was bad enough to be held against his will. So I had to convince him that it was in his best interest to stay in the hospital. His family couldn't really help, as he thought they were out to get him and he still trusted me. At the end of the hearing, Curtis chose to stay in the hospital for another 7 days. During this time, I had to get the house cleaned up and all his stuff moved into a storage unit.  He spent almost a month in the mental hospital, which was the best thing that could have happened for him and our family.

The Perfect Storm I

I'd gotten the call many times over the years stating that Grandma StJohn didn't have long to live. Only this time, I somehow knew she was going downhill quickly. I had decided prior to this, that I wouldn't be there when the time came. Yet somehow I felt I needed to help take care of her. Curtis and I had agreed that we would drive from Washington state to Casper, Wyoming with Henry and we would stay with my cousin until we found out the full story. Curtis would take care of Henry while I helped take care of my Grandma. The day that we arrived she was still in the hospital and they were arranging for in home hospice care. It would mean that we would take care of her and a nurse would come once a week to check on her. During our second week there, Curtis decided he couldn't take being there anymore and he decided to fly back to Washington. I wanted Henry to be with my Mom in Colorado while I was going through this with my Grandma. The following week was the hardest, watching someone who had been so strong and gone through so much deteriorate in front of me. She was in a great deal of pain from the lung cancer that had spread to her ribs. Her lucidity came and went depending on who she was trying to be strong for. Her last 3 days she was out of it for the majority of the day. When she was awake, she would refuse to take the morphine as it would knock her out pretty quickly. It got to a point where we were having to crush the morphine pills up and give them to her under her tongue just to keep her comfortable. Her last morning, we had been taking shifts so that someone was always up with her to keep her on morphine and comfortable. It was the weekend and it would take too long to get the liquid morphine and the machine ordered through hospice. It was my turn to be on morphine duty. I was logging in to work prior to giving Grandma her morning morphine. My Aunt Norma said she would do it while I logged in. Less than 5 minutes and she was gone.

The prior morning, I thought I might be pregnant so I took a test and it was positive. I'm in a town with people that really don't know me, trying to deal with the death of the woman that raised me. My husband is at our house, doing who knows what and not answering any of my calls or texts. And I'm
pregnant. I spend the rest of the week in Casper to help with whatever I can. The Sunday after the services, I drive to Colorado to pick up Henry from my mom and spend a week with them before
returning home. These all happened in October and November 2011.

This is all I can write about tonight. More to come tomorrow...