Monkey infinitum

(to the support group)

re: Intro post, some history, and many thanks (long)

As my wife does not take medication we rely on behavior modification to handle the mood swings. This works so far and over the years she’s been more aware of how to see and modify thoughts that lead to a wild swing.

The only thing that makes this possible is her desire to change a process that doesn’t work. I pray your husband will get this desire in his heart and deep in his spirit.

I’ve found in my wife’s case that indulging the high part of the “upswing” and pandering to the bottom of the “downswing” amplifies the bad behavior pattern while acting as a brake during those times is helping to guide her. But it’s soo hard and many times I don’t have the patience so it’s a concious effort on my part here too.

I think the most frustrating thing is being called either “boring” or “too lighthearted” depending on her perception of me when I’m simply maintaining a neutral state. I think sometimes she simply can’t remember how she felt about me on a prior mood swing from one time to the next. Maybe it’s like looking at those red/blue 3D glasses with one eye or the other and trying to sort things out, I can only guess.

I don’t know if any of my rambling helps, I try not to give advice but I do share what works and what doesn’t for us. Please know though that my heart goes out to you and your family.

I notice my wife struggles with control issues. Well, on the surface it appears to be more of a struggle between us rather than her struggling for control.

For instance, we’ll be out at dinner and I may select something whereupon she may comment, “I’d NEVER have guessed you’d choose that in a million years.”, using that tone of voice that barely masks her distain. Or while I’m driving, she may feel very much offended when I don’t select the route she’s already mapped out in her head or switch lanes “too soon” or “not at the right time”.

I can understand getting testy with someone who acts dangerously on the road or who acts against one’s recommendations or advice. That can trigger a mood swing in anyone, whether they are suffering from bipolar disorder or not.

But why such behavior over seemingly trivial things?

It took us a long time to figure this one out. Mainly this was my fault for not putting my “male ego” shield aside and really analyzing the conditions when this happened.

And, for anyone suffering from bipolar disorder, this is a “duh” realization, and may well remark, “Of course this is why I act this way”. But for those of us who love and encourage them, this is one of those things that we have to consciously think about until it almost comes second nature.

Basically it is this in one sentence:

From time to time she feels a strong loss of control in her emotional world, and must influence things outside of herself to maintain emotional control.

The key part, the most important part I must remember, is “from time to time”. This is the part that confused me the most about the control issue until fully I understood this part (and reverberating impact) of the statement.

You see, if she ALWAYS needed to help pick out my menu items or ALWAYS needed my toothbrush in a certain spot in the bathroom then I could easily deal with this in my head. Everyone has preferences. I have my own quirky things to deal with and I could work around her fixed preferences like I do with myself and everyone else.

However, in her case (and for many others I suspect), the preference doesn’t always manifest itself, nor in the same way, for a given day or a given situation. It all depends upon the timing of the mood swing and the intensity of it.

Aha.

Now it starts to make sense even if it doesn’t follow a predictable pattern. Neither she nor I can predict when a abnormal control issue will appear between us, but knowing that it is a symptom of her feeling a loss of emotional control can help me walk around it, and can guide her through it.

And it’s a two way street. See, she is not an emotional or intellectual invalid. Her input is honestly (if sometimes frustratingly) given and completely valid. Her sense of style, grooming, décor, diet, are all amazingly appropriate and as a result I am a much more fashionable (and, erhm, healthier) man for it. Same goes for driving directions – I get hopelessly lost (also a mood swing trigger on her part) and she really does help in these situations, even if not always in the most tactful manner.

And we compromise. I’ll try to ask if she has a preference over who should drive instead of always jumping in the driver or passenger’s seat. When we upgraded our car she chose one with a GPS system (if she knows I can’t get lost she doesn’t feel the need to help me choose directions).

It’s definitely workable. Tough for us counterparts because we sometimes have to give up the seat where we are used to sitting in the living room, sometimes take adhoc lessons on which clothing to purchase, or simply have to change what we’re doing in mid-stream.

We who don’t suffer from bipolar disorder don’t always have to give in, because there are times when we simply want to do it our way instead. Or, the decisions they make may not always be healthy or wise. I frequently make my firm but (usually) gentle stand and to her credit, sometimes she accepts it. When she doesn’t it’s up in the air as to how and when we get the differences in opinion resolved.

It’s not a magic bullet, but knowing why the requests from our loved ones come so insistently at the most odd moments does help tremendously.

You’ll note that my postings have and will contain a sprinkling of references to my faith. I do not intend this as an attempt to prostelyze nor do I do this out of religious stubbornness.

If this encourages you, good. If this angers or disappoints you, please don’t take my statements as a judgment or an assumption that I am narrow-minded. I am old enough and experienced enough to know that my understanding of faith is not the same, nor should it be the same, for everyone.

God is as much a part of my family’s lives as words are a part of speaking or as taste is a part of eating. We can’t go a day without seeing, or looking for, His hand in our journeys. We know He won’t shield us from pain any more than He will shield us from joy or indifference – with this in mind we keep an eye out to ‘see’ Him in all circumstances for comfort in times of pain or to thank Him for the good times.

With that being said, I’ll explain why I think God put us together.

By nature, I’m fairly static. I’ll gladly eat the same food every day, take the same bus to work, wear the same style of clothing on a daily basis (if I could get away with it), and talk with the same people. That’s ok with me. My mind has enough going on inside to keep external needs out of the picture. As a matter of fact, too much external stimuli – a crowded convention center, for example, or a noisy restaurant – will make me extremely jittery.

My wife, who, by the way, suffers from bipolar disorder symptoms, seems to be the opposite. Routine is her anathema, the one thing in her life that creates more havoc than anything else.

By now it’s probably obvious to you what I will say next. And you are right. We were put together to compliment each other, to build on each others’ strengths and to work through the weaknesses. This is the same for any relationship of this type, be it man and woman in marriage, friends, lovers, or blood relatives.

Without the canvas, there is no painting. A scattering of bricks and wood is just that until it is crafted into a shelter. A stone without energy put into it can never become a statue. And heeding a guiding hand to put these types of objects together can yield not just a creation, but a masterpiece.

However, it’s not all beauty and wonder. Acids and bases mixed together, like vinegar and baking soda, can yield some shattering results. Yes, it’s fun to watch but it tastes like hell and hurts the stomach long afterwards.

I know that God works through people – the highly visible ones like world and religious leaders, business owners, sports figures, as well as those of us ‘in the trenches’, eking out a living. (Actually, I believe He works through us ordinary folk more often cuz there’s more of us- it’s a sheer numbers game then.)

This is how I find strength to move forward, to keep going. Like during times when I find it hard to get out of bed after a particularly tough night. Or when a phone conversation has warned me that life at home is not all right on a particular day and coming home may or may not be pleasant.

It’s also how I see the fantastic beauty of my wife when she shines, sometimes so brightly I can’t bear to look upon her. When I see her cuddling with the kids and know they are getting the attention they need from her. And when I come home and appreciate the elegant and intricate arrangement of the furnishings when she decides it’s time to rearrange things.

Would I do it again, given a divinely-granted fresh start?

Yes and yes again.

As a matter of fact, I would beg for it, to have her share her life with me again. I am more complete now than I would ever have known, or ever would have known to ask for.

Thank you all for sharing and being part of this support group. This means more to me than I could have imagined.

I’ll try to share my experiences without sounding to “whiney”, but in my current state of mind I don’t know if I can accomplish this. I’ve had about 5 hours’ sleep in the last 48 hours. But I must share now while the thoughts are fresh.

Maybe others can relate and won’t feel alone; maybe not.

Maybe reading this will help someone who thinks they may have this disorder but is not convinced enough to look for help. As this group can attest to, moods don’t impact just the individual; everyone inside the person’s sphere of influence is involved.

My wife has bipolar disorder symptoms. She hasn’t been to the doctor yet to see if a diagnosis is warranted, so we can only call the shots as best we can. We are relatively uneducated participants, but she and I both know this best describes her condition.

Knowing the issue and living with it are two separate animals. I am so very tired of my wife’s mood swings. Not tired as in ‘impatient’ or ‘not willing to be bothered’ but tired as in a deep, heavy weariness. Christ I’m depressed by association it seems. My moods pretty much follow Newton’s 1st law of motion – once in motion they stay there until consciously acted upon by myself or by someone else’s passing strong emotion. So when she’s hit by a depressed mood my own feelings become dark and I must leave her be for awhile because I’m working on staying functional myself. Usually she rebounds fairly rapidly but I am left stewing in my own juices. Other times I’ll get off the phone with her while she’s very funny and chatty and witty and I’ll come home in a like mind but can’t predict her response if I refer back to the funny conversation we had. Sometimes she thinks I’m clever because I recalled a trivial bit of our earlier conversation, and sometimes this irritates her to no end.

When my her mood swings back and forth sometimes multiple times a day I am often a wreck by morning because I find myself spinning in circles, trying to play catch-up. I know that’s not a healthy approach but some days it’s all I know what to do to keep level. And I say “morning” because many times I’ve done something or said something or failed to do something which will trigger sometimes bizarre and uncharacteristic responses leading to a sleepless night of fussing or tossing and turning on both of our parts. She’s only hit me a couple of times in her sleep but that is enough to keep me sleeping lightly on nights when she’s extremely irritable or when I’ve done something particularly annoying. It’s not an abusive relationship, thank God, and I am thankful for that when I read some of the other postings.

I must confess I often wonder whether or not I am overreacting to her biting comments when the mood strikes her and she’s speaking “just honestly”. I think I am acting as “normal” as anyone else would but I can’t tell any more. This is one of those moments. I fear I am becoming damaged myself, unable to tell what is true and what is an imaginary truth. I know I must go through some counseling to find an emotional grounding point. We’ve gone to church and events to help socialize and to find a group of people to help with this but it always seems at some point that the demands of outside relationships trigger some kind of mood change and I’m left red in the face explaining to people why she won’t answer any more phone calls or emails or won’t take visitors on a given day, when the day before or the week before she’s been heavily involved in their lives.

Other times I’m left awake mentally dealing with her discards of activity. Overdrawn or not-paid-accounts, consistently near-zero bank balances, commitments made and abandoned, all take their toll as time progresses. Other times (thankfully most of the time) we go to bed quite nicely, like two newlyweds or comfortably funny friends snuggling and spooning together. Those nights I cherish.

I love her so much and we are wed for better or for worse. And the “better” is so good. She’s beautiful, charming, a cunning cook and a tiger in bed when things are great. She has a keen shopping and design instinct and can buy more high-quality stuff for a buck than anyone I know, so the money is usually spent very wisely. During those times I wonder what all my worry is about, and wonder “why do I sound so pathetic in my journals”? Then the pendulum swings and it can be hell going in the exact opposite direction for a few days. I know now that the “good times” are a symptom of the manic phases and the “hell” is the depression phase. I’ve often thought the “negative”, depressed state is the one to avoid but these days the manic state is hard to play with any more. But that may just be my tiredness talking at the moment.

I think the only mood that really is odd is the “neutral” or no-mood time when she has no emotional reaction to anything. You’d think living with someone with mood swings would find this to be perfect but this is really the time I get really anxious. I don’t know why yet but I’m trying to find out why this is a problem for me.

Before our joint internet research I thought I had hooked up with a multiple personality disorder, but knew this was extremely rare, and just attributed her behavior to things I did wrong or failed to do. Now it makes more sense and my self-worth is growing back to where I think it should be.

Yesterday I hit a very emotional realization that was both very funny and severely depressing. I love the Rubik’s cube. It’s a happy game for me. For Christmas my wife gave me a 5×5 cube, which is a step harder to solve than the traditional 3×3 cube. As I was fiddling with the cube my wife remarked how she was happy to give me a challenging puzzle. My response, which came completely from my subconscious (since I was actually focusing on the colored blocks), was “Yep it’s cool, most of it is solved and the trick is to figure out which moves I can do now which won’t break the stuff that’s already fixed.”

As soon as I said it I realized that was how I live my life every day in the shadow of someone with bipolar disorder symptoms. Some days the towels have to be folded just right; other days it doesn’t matter if we have clean towels or not. I can joke and tease her about behavior in a playful – never mean or sarcastic – way (just as I joke and tease about myself) but I find it’s safest to do some exploratory conversation before I do so. I find that the only thing I can really do consistently right is cleaning the kitchen – for some odd reason this room escapes her critique. Not that she asks for and gets a clean and tidy house from me and the kids; it’s just that if I venture into the other rooms to straighten up or arrange the furniture it’s tough to tell when the response is going to be extremely positive, negative, or ignored. The bathroom is an odd place, my things stacked tidy and in order (if I don’t have my stuff in order she does it for me) but her belongings have exploded throughout the room, overflowing the counters and on the floor… Unless she gets in a tidy mood and the bathroom sparkles for a few days. The kitchen is my safe harbor then – when I don’t know what else to do, I tidy up the dishes or wipe down the counters or clean the fridge. I must say we both got a laugh from a scene in “My Cousin Vinny” that echoes my domestic situation. There are other equally intricate layers of activity going on in the house that allow me some breathing room and help her maintain a sense of control. A finely-tuned dance that is fun and agonizing to watch I imagine.

Again, this is a perspective from someone who’s just recently gone through a swift and very dramatic mood swing with her. She’s fine now, but discussing these thoughts with her is inviting an accusation of me being hypersensitive. I may be. I guess it’s like when you burn yourself cooking and for awhile anytime you put your hand near any heat source it hurts like hell even if the source isn’t dangerously hot.

Where to go from here? Doctor’s I imagine for both of us. Our kids are getting older and can analyze situations enough to know things aren’t always right, but not yet old enough to keep from absorbing and echoing some of the energy pounding through the house. My work is starting to be impacted as well; I can’t always concentrate as I am frequently tired now or find myself thinking of this issue instead of the work at hand.

I need to help her help herself; we need a balanced home.

John