In the Cold, Cold Night

Numb.

That's all I'm allowed to be.

Every forty days or so for the last several months, the husband becomes manic. He scares the kids with his energy and rage. He can't sit still. He fidgets. He comes up with wild ideas that he will defend with violence if necessary. He yells and argues and slams doors and breaks whatever happens to be in front of him when the rage hits. If I leave the room, he will hide what he broke and insist that it never happened.

He will do anything to try to convince that I'm crazy.

And sometimes it works.

Around him, I am zen. I am calm. I am acutely aware that arguing with a crazy person only makes you crazy. It doesn't always work, but I try pretty damn hard.

Sometimes I scream and rage myself when I'm alone, just to get all of those feelings OUT. I walk to the canal and sit and argue with God and throw rocks in just to watch the ripple effect. I chain smoke clove cigarettes that make me wheeze and hack but are heaven in that they allow me to focus on something other than the chaos surrounding me. I rehearse my various escape routes so I always know how to get out in an emergency.

Right now it's the calm after the storm. He's level and loving and I want to injure him. I want to hurt him until he knows what it's like to be hurt by the person who swore to love you the most. I want him to see the rage that he has inflicted upon me so often. I want to see my pain on his skin.

I'm not allowed to talk about his episodes. Once they're over, I'm supposed to pretend like nothing happened. There's no discussion, no restitution, no apologies, no responsibility. Just a facade of perfection that I'm supposed to embrace because, as he says, "it's over." It doesn't matter if it ended last month or yesterday, once a new day has begun, we're not allowed to discuss anything that happened before.

Like being Bipolar is simply an excuse to mangle people's lives every forty days.

He wants to hug me and hold me and all the while I taste bile every time he comes near me.

I have divorce papers nearly filled out. No one knows this. Every time he becomes manic, I fill out a little more. Soon it will be complete and then I'll have to make the real decisions. I don't know if it's what I really want, or if it's just something for me to do that makes me feel like I have at least a little bit of control on the situation.

All I know is that this anger, this waiting for hell to begin again, this game of pretend he insists we all play is killing me. I've given him everything. What's left for me?