I AM A WRITER

If I take nothing more away from the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop that I attended last week it is that I am a writer, a real writer, because I write. This is both thrilling and terrifying since it implies a level of responsibility for what I write. And yet, I write.

I quit my day job on March 16, 2012 and on March 17,2012 I became a professional writer--which really means that I am working without a net. Yikes. I am trusting my bipolar husband who has been working as a truck driver since September to provide for our family enough to pay the bills until I start making money on my writing.

Oh, I'm already making money on my writing. It just isn't enough money to pay even one of our bills. But I went to a real writers' workshop and had real writers tell me that I am a writer and I'm praying that, like the Velveteen Rabbit, it will somehow miraculously be true. It took me most of the next week to get back to reality and I am finally getting back to being able to work on my stuff and now I feel even more like a fraud.

Who am I trying to kid? I'm not a real writer. I'm a housewife who went through some interesting experiences and wrote down what I learned from them. A writer goes out and finds stuff to write about, right? Having an interesting life with lots of drama doesn't make you a writer. But maybe writing stuff that people actually want to read about it does. Maybe?

Sometimes I worry that bipolar is contagious. I seem to have higher highs and lower lows in fast succession these days. Maybe it's just the stress of suddenly being in a position where I don't have a regular paycheck and where I am fully responsible for everything. The writing life is a bit bipolar, unless you're JK Rowling or Stephen King and I'm sure it was the same when they were starting out.

So here I am, watching for the checks to roll in. Hoping that I'll get this all figured out before we starve to death or I give up and get a real job. I am a writer.

The Road to Happily Ever After?

If anyone thinks that this is going to be a story where the bipolar becomes just another pill to take and life will be normal, you're missing the point. This isn't about that kind of happily ever after,. This is about the struggle to live happily in spite of the obstacles by working together and making the best of things.

It's been three weeks since I quit my day job to write and I'm still working out the kinks. I know that this is stressful for Troy but I still believe that quitting the job was the right thing for me and for us and that I will be able to thrive whether my income increases or I learn to live on less.

Troy finally got in to the doctor about his heartburn and is going to be checked for ulcers next week. Getting in to see a doctor isn't hard, but the test he needs could not be scheduled immediately. Waiting isn't easy when you aren't feeling well.

Troy decided he'd like to train in someone new. Usually the company uses drivers who have been with the company for at least a year, but Troy is a quick learner and since he'd shown an interest he was assigned a trainee during the time he is waiting to take this test. I'm not sure that was a good idea, since the experience he had with this trainee was enough to cause ulcers.

He was assigned an older man who had some experience with other trucking companies, but who was having trouble keeping on schedule and using the equipment the company provides: a text tranceiver for communicating with dispatch, the forms used for keeping records, and the truck itself--which is a little different from what he'd driven in the past. Since the man came with the attitude that he knew what he was doing and wasn't going to learn anything from this young guy with less experience than he had--and since Troy is mostly stable, but not really capable of dealing with what he perceived as disrespect, things got interesting.

I got regular phone calls as Troy worked to keep himself calm and knew that he could count on me to help talk him down. I got a play-by-play of every behavior that seemed inappropriate--this man was nearly 20 years older than Troy, from New Jersey, and black. Troy is from German ancestry, grew up in Wisconsin and has lived in the midwest all his life. I try to explain that some of it might just be cultural differences and reminded him that this is a temporary situation.

Troy finally blew up, told the guy that he had been assigned to train him and that if he wanted to work with the company he'd have to pay attention and learn the ways this company works and that he could screw up as much as he wanted when he gets his own truck, but he's going to do things right during this training session or he'd just report to human resources that he wasn't co-operating. Funny how a guy doesn't just quit on the spot when you're out in the middle of nowhere with no way home but the one truck. When the air cleared the trainee had decided to play along--good choice.

Troy goes in for his medical testing next week Monday and is already looking into getting a new trainee. The man in charge of assigning trainers agrees that this was not an easy situation and that the next trainee should be more open to instruction, so Troy is looking forward to an easier situation.
I am happy to see that he is dealing with his own issues and finding ways to make things work. I am glad the company can see that he knows what he is doing and trusts him to train others. It makes me a little less nervous about his ability to keep this job.

This past week Troy was given a stop inside a cave. These are huge caves, but for someone with claustrophobia the fact that you are driving under tons of mountain can be more than a little difficult. The loading docks were built when smaller trucks were running and between the tight space and the claustrophobia, Troy had a hard time getting his truck exactly where it needed to be. I'm sure he was stressed out, but he managed to get the trailer lined up in the loading dock and get in and out of there.
That was Thursday.

He got home Friday evening and slept all day Saturday. I was a bit nervous that he might be sinking into depression, but he got up Saturday evening with a list of things he wanted to accomplish before leaving Sunday night. We managed to get everyone to church--it was Easter Sunday so our son came from across town--and we did a bit of shopping before our family dinner. We didn't get everything done that he had hoped, but we did get the stuff we'll need to do things and I can do some of it myself.

Sometimes I wonder why we set ourselves up for so much stress when we know what it does to us, but I think we need to stretch a little just to feel alive. So far he has pushed through every obstacle. I know that no matter what happens, we can survive and we will get through it.

Life on the Home Front

This is the second day that my husband is at his orientation for his new job as a truck driver. I'm pretty proud and happy that he is doing this, not least because it takes some of the stress of supporting the family off my shoulders. He calls each evening and we talk about our day. He's doing fine. I'm NOT doing drugs...though sometimes it sounds tempting.

Being home alone sounds wonderful. Until I realize that I'm not alone. I'm with a roommate/friend who might also have a mental disorder. She is a bit paranoid--hey, maybe they are out to get her, what do I know? And she thinks that she has the only valid point of view. I can live with that because I'm used to irrational thought and being able to not take it personally or seriously. Unfortunately...

I also live with my son and his fiancee. I love this girl, but she takes everything personally and tries to argue with insanity. YOU CAN'T WIN! Yes, I yell it in hopes that she'll actually hear me and let it sink in. Nope. Two mildly irrational women arguing about nothing until everybody's mad and...get this...it's all MY fault. I even get a call from my son (he's at work) telling me that I need to apologize because I made his fiancee cry and she called him to tell him. WHAT THE....

I'm on vacation from my day job, so I guess I've become the de facto referee. Thanks, but I don't want that job. I want to retire and be a professional writer and publisher and spend my spare time marketing the books that I've written. I don't want to spend forever in the middle of crazy. I've been there and I didn't like it and MY crazy got himself help and takes pills to ward off crazy so I can live in peace. I think dropping lithium in the water supply to this house might be beneficial.

I read something today about addictions and abuses of prescription drugs and I heard about someone, husband of a friend, who can't get in to see a psychiatrist without a therapist's referal because they are afraid patients are just trying to get drugs. Huh? There's a black market for lithium? They hand out Ritalin like candy and lock up the mood stabilizers and wonder why the world's gone mad? Start handing out mood stabilizers like candy and keep your amphetamines under lock and key and see what happens. It would have to improve things.

So, my bipolar husband is stable, working, and living a normal healthy life while I am still home living with crazy. Sometimes I think it's not him, but me with the problem. Any other crazy magnets out there?

Fear of Flying

I guess I should be calling this fear of trucking, but that doesn’t have such a nice ring to it. My husband is all signed up for truck driver training. He is going to get some training, get a license, and get a good job so that I can quit my day job and work on writing.

To those who believe that being self-centered is part of the bipolar disorder, take note—it may be part of some episodes, but it is not a constant for people with bipolar. If your partner is always selfish, it’s not the disorder, you’ve hooked up with a jerk.

Ok, so the thing is that he has passed the DOT physical for the license and got the doctor to sign off that his bipolar will not affect his ability to drive safely, but I am worried that potential employers will see that he has been on disability for mental illness for the last several years and decide that they don’t want to hire someone with a serious mental illness on his record.

Of course he doesn’t want to believe that it will be a problem. Neither do I, but I know that stigma and prejudice are out there and with so many people looking for work, employers may find reasons to hire people who are physically and mentally healthy over someone who has been hospitalized within the past year for mental illness. He might not be able to get health insurance through an employer because of his history.

Because between my paycheck and his disability we are earning too much money, he doesn’t qualify for financial aid, so we will be taking out a loan for the full amount of his tuition, fees, books, etc. which means that instead of getting ahead and being able to quit my job, we may be in debt and I may have to continue to work even after I’d be able to retire in order to make up enough money to pay the debt off.

Maybe the books will do well enough that I will be able to use that money to pay the student loans. Maybe I’m crazy to be worried and he will find a job when he finishes his class and he will be able to pay the bills and the student loan and allow me to quit my day job.

Whatever happens, we are trusting God and I’m not going to panic. In case I forget and panic, please remind me.

Symptooms The Book Never Told You About

As a member of support groups, I have come to realize that there are some symptoms of bipolar that aren't listed in the DSM but that are so common to people with bipolar as examples of some vague symptoms that are commonly listed that I think they should be listed. I don't write for the DSM people, but I write this BLOG.

These are the symptoms the doctor forgot to warn you about:

The book might mention hypersexuality, but what they don't tell you is that a person with bipolar may not be interested in sex for months, even years at a time when in depression or on certain medications, but will want to do "it" several times a day in every position in every location, sometimes with every person or all alone or with pictures or video or prostitutes or....you name it.

The book might say something about impulsive behavior, but it won't tell you that a person with bipolar can take a perfectly adequate paycheck and buy a gallon of milk, forget to pay the bills, and not have a dime left. The fact that there may also be absolutely nothing at all to show for it is a bonus. Or perhaps there are many things to show for it--and the fact that you have the trappings of a hoarder delivered from ebay on one otherwise beautiful afternoon is one surprise that none of the books will prepare you for. The doctor would never tell you.

The book might tell you that depression involves some slowing of functioning--it doesn't tell you that your depressed loved one might slow to the point of stopping--I worry that my husband is gathering dust when he gets stuck in his chair for days on end and I'm sure the cobwebs coming out of his ear are not MY imagination. I know he is miserable, but if I don't laugh I'm inclined to cry along with him and we might never drag ourselves out from under it.

What the book won't tell you is that depression doesn't necessarily involve sadness. Sometimes it's anger or irritability or stomach aches or head aches or just falling asleep and waking up several weeks later, ala Rip Van Winkle.

And the happy maniac of the book is a rarity, with mania more likely to occur as anger, irritability (see any patterns here), racing thoughts, forced speech,little need for sleep and a sort of feeling like you are wound too tight and if you don't keep running fast enough the spring is going to sproing.(I knew there was a good reason for that fast track.)

Alas, the symptoms in the book, the symptoms that the doctor diagnoses by, are dull, dry, stereotypical and clinical while the truth of the matter is much more interesting and lively and human and scary and real.

Up and Running

My schedule for the bipolar spouse project has everything up and running by now, but the only thing really running is me and I seem to be running in circles. This is a lot more time consuming than I remember. Of course last time around I started with a captive audience at Prodigy and I didn't have Facebook and Twitter and Blogspot to worry about. I just had a simple website with maybe a couple dozen articles, the class, the discussion list and the newsletter.

The good news--or the bad news, depending on how it turns out--is that I am seriously looking for ways to quit my day job. In the past this wouldn't have helped much because I have a husband home on disability who wants my attention every two minutes when I'm at home. But if he's not home to distract me I can actually get some work done.

My husband is getting manic about truck driving again, something he did for a couple years about 15 years ago, and if he can actually get his act together and do it we will have a reliable income that is sufficient to support us, and I will have whole weeks of uninterrupted time.

Not sure I can handle that--been known to sit at the keyboard and work on a book project for days on end when not interrupted by something--but if I set a schedule for myself if just might work.

Thanks to a "social networking for authors" class by Kai Wilson, I will probably have a whole "to-do" list and a marketing plan to work with. I'm not sure I can keep up with the class right now, but I'm doing the assignments on my days off and taking notes. I will probably be tweeting about my blog posts before she's done with me and I don't even know what that means now.

I'm not sure how I feel about the truck driving thing. It is probably a good fit for my husband because he enjoys almost everything about it. He has a good driving record. He is stable on his medication and stir crazy at home. He needs a job where he is pretty much on his own because he doesn't get along well with most people if they spend a lot of time together. That's his big issue with the bipolar disorder--he doesn't play well with others and he's prone to telling the boss exactly what he thinks, which isn't usually complimentary. Not a lot of jobs out there where you don't have to deal with people on a daily basis. He's not prone to road rage--thank goodness, he can tolerate "stupid people" (his term) in other vehicles. He just can't stand to share a room with someone who isn't aware of his opinions.

Still, will he drop out before he he finishes the training? Will he finish the training and be unemployable because of his illness? Will he be employable, but uninsurable because of his illness? Will he quit or get fired a couple months in?

Life is full of risks. This one could pay off big or put us into debt for a long long time. Gotta love that manic energy. We're swinging for the bleachers here.

Sanctuary

Last year I almost lost my home when my husband went through a manic episode and mortgage payments disappeared into nowhere. This year my husband is only mildly manic and I'm liking this a lot more. The mortgage is paid to date and he set up my pond for Mother's Day.

That sounds so simple, but setting up the pond is a labor-intensive project. The "pond" is a black molded plastic preformed pond that our oldest son bought me for Mother's Day when we lived in another house. We brought it with us when we moved and it's been about 8 years. The area where we wanted to install it is in a small grove (my oasis) of trees, but digging through the roots makes installing there difficult.

I came home from work the Friday before Mother's Day and found that he had dug the hole, installed the pond, set up a pump to the waterfall, turned up the soil around the pond and filled with topsoil, filled the pond with gravel and water, set up lights around the area and bought wildflower seed. A bench that we had bought for the purpose was set up facing the pond. It was beautiful.

We added a string of can patio lights overhead, put out hummingbird feeders and planted some pond plants in the water. While cleaning up around the area, Troy (my husband) discovered that there is a sort of stone/concrete area that probably went all the way around the trees at one time. He cleared it off and it is a nice solid base for the bench.

If anyone is still wondering why I didn't cut and run when there was violence early in the marriage or when bipolar disorder was diagnosed, I think you're missing the point. Yes, I have a lot of stress in my life and I really need this quiet oasis in the yard, but I do have a husband who, even with his limitations, really loves me and will do anything in his power to make my life a little better.

Spring mania is a scary thing and watching all of this construction can feel a bit tense, but sometimes that pent up energy can be released in ways that make the world, at least my part of the world, a whole lot nicer to live in.

If you visit me you will see my sanctuary and you may even get "buzzed" by a hummingbird or two. That's peace.

Why We Stay With a Bipolar Spouse

We stay because there is always that potential. There is always the possibility that the next med change will bring him back to the one we fell in love with. We stay because sometimes we see that man and sometimes he even sticks around for a while. We stay because we believe in love, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. We stay because we know what we want and we know that we will never have that same relationship with anyone else and even if we will never have it with him again, we are willing to take that chance. We stay because where there is life there is hope and we have hope.



I second guess myself regularly. I stayed through physical and emotional abuse. I stayed through terrifying psychotic manic episodes and months of living with a zombie. I stayed because I knew that the body-snatchers might return my husband and I didn’t want to miss it. And slowly. With lots of bumps in the road. With ups and downs that would make an astronaut ill. With one medication, then another, new doses, new medications, so slowly that it was physically painful, he emerged from the darkness and like a child learning to walk, he became human again, then disappeared, then emerged, and still…he is back and he wants to share our life and raise our children and be my partner and even though it isn’t always easy and he isn’t always reachable, he keeps struggling and I keep struggling and we are more together than apart.



If I had given up early in the marriage, no one would have blamed me or found fault, but I always knew that I would rather stay and fight than give up. I would rather have him sick than someone else healthy, though having him healthy would be almost too much to even hope for. I have grown stronger and wiser, more patient and tolerant through our struggle and I am thankful for that—if only I could have gained that with less pain, but that isn’t the way it works.

I can’t say if it is worth the effort for you to stay in your relationship or if leaving would be best for you. I can only say that doing the insane thing with an insane person was right for me—so far. Twenty-five years and counting.

Bonnie Rice

Author of Love Has Its Ups and Downs

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26408

Wife to Troy, BP1