My Bi-Polar and Marriage

 We left off last week's dirt with my pregnancy with Bryan. Nick wasn't around, but he had a change of heart in December 1997. It was confusing at first, because he called, stayed over, then disappeared again for a few days. When I finally went into labor with Bryan on January 16, 1998, Nick was around most of the time. He was there for Bryan's birth on January 17th, and I thanked him over and over for giving me this little miracle.

When we had Bryan baptized in April 1998, Nick had been living with me and Bryan for a few months. We had had a DNA test because of the questionable parentage, and I wanted Nick to be 100% sure that he was Bryan's father. After the results came back in Nick's favor, we changed Bryan's last name from my last name to Nick's and had him baptized. I was a hormonal mess. I smiled nicely for the pictures but cried in the bathroom. I had everything I wanted in my little family.

I pushed hard for marriage, though. Nick and I moved out of state with Bryan, and for a long time, I felt like Nick did it because he HAD to (frankly, I still feel like I trapped him sometimes, but that's another story). I wanted the ring since I had my little family, and it always felt like Nick was holding off, like he didn't want to be married, and didn't want to have a family. That messed with my mental state something fierce. When I was feeling depressed, it made me feel as though he really didn't want me around. If he was busy doing something else, I knew it was because he had better things to do than be around me.

(Bear with me here, I may have the timeline screwed up a little bit. I've had ECT and some of this is fuzzy.)

Nick finally started hanging around with a guy from work, helping him build a garage. This wasn't a good thing for me. I was alone with a young little boy. I had no friends. Nick was gone almost every night having, in my eyes, fun. My mental state was fragile, to put it nicely.

And then Nick proposed. It was a hot, sweaty day, and I had just got back from grocery shopping. I had originally bought the ring and brought it in to be sized (again, another story), and Nick had picked it up. He dressed up in a suit, and when I came in, he got down on one knee and proposed. I was pissed. This was not how I imagined being proposed to. I had sweat dripping down my face. I think I said something along the lines of, "Of course not," and he walked away. But we did get engaged.

We also moved out of our little apartment and into a starter house. I loved this house in the beginning. And remember how I mentioned Nick's friend? He started hanging around. And my fragile mental state? It went manic.

In the spring and summer of 2001, Nick had to put up with a God-awful manic phase and affair with his friend. I ended up in the hospital several times due to my manic phase, and then depression, at the end of that summer. I was finally smart and broke it off. This friend threatened to crash our wedding, and I grew afraid to get married. (After I had Tea, my neighbor caught someone lurking outside our windows claiming to be a utilities person that matched this person's description. Not the first creepy thing that happened.)

But we did get married. It was a beautiful wedding. I was suffering from post-partum psychosis, though, and things seemed unreal. I felt like I wasn't in my own body. It felt like I wasn't experiencing it, but rather like I was directing it. You probably wouldn't guess that from these pictures.

What would a wedding be without drama? One of my bridesmaids was getting out of a bad relationship and was "friendly" with just about everyone, and I called her out on it. She left, and I was put into a bit of a time-out, if you will. Here's Nick trying to calm me down after my little spat with the bridesmaid.

Tea was seven weeks old at the wedding, and I suffered from post-partum issues for at least three years. Motherhood was exhausting to me. Many times all I could do was just curl up on the couch and fall asleep, and Tea would curl up with me as she was growing up.

When Tea was three, and I finally pulled out of the depression/psychosis, I slid right into one of the worst manic phases that I've ever had. I went into a drinking binge that lasted an entire spring, summer, and fall. I had an affair that led to divorce papers that Nick filed on me. I ended up being committed to the state mental hospital for my golden birthday. I was put into halfway housing when I finally got out of the hospital because I could not get along with my husband enough to live with him. Nick and I couldn't get along long enough for me to visit with the kids. This manic phase started in the spring of 2005 and I finally stabilized in October 2005. By November Nick and I were able to talk again, and by December we were living together again. It took a long time to gain each other's trust though, as there were both things we had done while we were apart that hurt each other.

So, marriage is hard when your moods are all over the place due to manic and depressive episodes. I can safely say that 2005 is the last time I've ever put Nick through a cheating incident, and I never want to do that to him again. I try really hard to keep in touch with my episodes. I've had many incidents of depression, including some suicide attempts. Next week, however, with Christmas coming up, we're going to go into a little gratitude.

Until next week's dirt!