Six Months Later

Dear Fatbear,

I dream about you sometimes.

We sit and talk about everything. The future I wanted us to have. The mistakes that were made. The choices I still wish I could stop you from making.

You are an open book. Full of more honesty and integrity than you've ever possessed outside of my subconscious. I wake up feeling cleansed. It's cathartic.

I spoke to the prosecutor's office last Friday.

I called because D keeps asking me when all of this will be over. She's terrified that she'll have to speak in court. It doesn't matter how many times I reassure her that she won't have to see you, no matter what, it's just not enough.

I wish you had to see her tremble.

The prosecutor assured me that you were still being reviewed. That you hadn't fallen through the cracks. The police have charged you with one count of child abuse and one count of violating the Order of Protection. The prosecutor will then decide to keep, modify, drop or add to the charges. I'm still expecting a Violation of Probation charge and probably more Violation of a Court Order charges for the week you just couldn't seem to stay away.

Everything is done by chronological order. Did you know that? From the time you're charged, that's when they get to you. So no matter how horrible your crime, you still have to wait for the people who were charged before you. Seems like a silly way to do things, but I guess it makes sense.

Here's what I want you to know: I don't want you to go to prison. I never did.

Not after your first two Domestic Violence convictions.

Not after your first Child Abuse felony conviction.

Not after you gave me a concussion. I lay there crumpled on the floor, sobbing until my throat was raw, and all I could think was, "I can't tell. He'll go to jail."

So I didn't.

This time, If I'm asked my opinion, here's what I'll say: You have completed over two years of court ordered Anger Management. You started counseling in 2003. You began medication in 2005. You have been on supervised probation since 2007. You have been treated by renowned doctors at Mayo. You began and quit group therapy. You've had every opportunity to receive help. You've been given THREE chances to avoid prison.

I cannot stand by you anymore.

It kills me.

This time, I will not organize a letter campaign, lauding you for being an exemplary father.

I will not speak on the stand for you.

I will not hold your hand and reassure you that we will make it through together.

Most likely, you are going to prison.

Most likely, you will not see your daughters for a very long time. D is no longer yours at all, and you will only see her if she decides to contact you as an adult.

What a shame Fatbear.

I look around, and there are memories everywhere. We had the cozy house with the caring neighbors, and the lucrative business and the three beautiful little girls that everyone envied. You were my high school sweetheart. You built me my picket fence and I would have followed you anywhere.

And now you're someone I don't even know.

You don't ask about your daughters.

You don't pay child support.

You pretend like we never existed at all.

I will be in court, when you are finally convicted.

And I will stare you in the eyes.

Because we do exist.

Everything happened.

And I will never let you forget.

Beautiful Disaster

I think the hardest lesson I will have to learn as an adult will be that I can't save everyone.

I wish I could say that I will leave him a little better, a little happier, a little stabler and a little more hopeful, but I don't think I even achieved that. He's still troubled and angry and I'm a little less shiny, a little less innocent and a little more jaded.

I can't help but want to stay stubborn... not strong... stubborn, and refuse to let this disease win. But maybe it was never meant to be my fight. Maybe I'm not meant to slay this dragon.

It makes me sad. It makes me weary. And it makes me angry.

During my hardest times I can usually sit by the water or under the stars and talk to God and feel like I really get an answer on what I should do. This time He feels so, so silent. And I feel so alone. I wish I knew what the right answer was.

But every day I fight this fight for my husband's sanity and our marriage, I find myself further losing my spark. I feel myself becoming duller. I miss being shiny, and I don't think I can find it again with this constant barrage of discontent.

Either way, I'll miss you my Fat Bear. You were my first love, and I loved you deeply and I tried so hard to hang on for us both. I hope you fight the good fight and don't let this disease ruin my best friend and his true potential for greatness. I will always believe that you can find happiness and that in the end, you'll start controlling your destiny.

I'm not sure where I go from here.

Beautiful Disaster

Lyrics

He drowns in his dreams
An exquisite extreme I know
He’s as damned as he seems
And more heaven than a heart could hold
And if I try to save him
My whole world could cave in
It just ain't right
It just ain't right

Oh and I don't know
I don't know what he's after
But he's so beautiful
Such a beautiful disaster
And if I could hold on
Through the tears and the laughter
Would it be beautiful?
Or just a beautiful disaster

He's magic and myth
As strong as what I believe
A tragedy with
More damage than a soul should see
And do I try to change him?
So hard not to blame him
Hold on tight
Hold on tight

Oh 'cause I don't know
I don't know what he's after
But he’s so beautiful
Such a beautiful disaster
And if I could hold on
Through the tears and the laughter
Would it be beautiful?
Or just a beautiful disaster

I'm longing for love and the logical
But he's only happy hysterical
I'm waiting for some kind of miracle
Waited so long
So long

He’s soft to the touch
But frayed at the end he breaks
He’s never enough
And still he's more than I can take

Oh 'cause I don't know
I don't know what he's after
But he's so beautiful
Such a beautiful disaster
And if I could hold on
Through the tears and the laughter
Would it be beautiful?
Or just a beautiful disaster

He’s beautiful
Such a beautiful disaster

It's Hard to Tell Where Truth Ends and Illness Begins

There are a lot of resources that are limited. Tears, I have discovered, are not one of them.



J and I had a conversation last night, where he was saying that being Bipolar was like being a superhero. I retorted that if that was true, he had unfairly cast me as the villain.

"Why, what do you want to be? The hero?"

"No. I just want to be the wife."



In this round of mania, it seems that I am the source of all of his unhappiness. Except he wasn't happy when he met me, and since Jerry Maguire was full of shit and it's actually impossible to complete a person, he's still unhappy. And as he says, he loves the feeling of being angry, so how on earth can you be happy if you're choosing anger every day? You certainly can't have both.

He wants a divorce. Or so he's said for the last few days.

I buried my grandmother just five days ago. Well not me personally, I don't mix well with physical labor, but you get my point. He didn't even wait two days after her funeral before he became the bully once again. I didn't know that I could get any lower emotionally than I already was, but he's proven me wrong.

Over and over and over.

Now all I can do is cry. Cry for the man that I've fought so hard for. Cry for how hard it must be to be so angry all the time. Cry for myself for once again being the proverbial punching bag. Cry because I didn't even have time to grieve before I had to once again become counselor, defender and protector.

Why does he want a divorce?

It depends on what time it is when you ask him.

Sometimes it's because I've done nothing positive for him.
Sometimes it's because he doesn't find a single part of me attractive.
Sometimes it's because I can't go hiking with him or keep up with him physically because of my health problems.

He wants someone to make him happy. He wants someone who can take his anger away. He wants someone who doesn't challenge him to find a better way to live.

I've made a choice to stay with someone with severe mania. I know there will always be manic episodes. I know that life will never be consistently peaceful. I know that I will always have to fight for his mental health. I stood before God and said, "In sickness and in health," and I meant it.

To hear him say that I'm not enough, that I'm not worth it, that my illnesses make me un-want-able is like a punch to the gut that I just can't handle. Even though I know that none of this is true, I can't stop crying and I can't stop thinking about every horrible situation he's caused that I've faced head-on out of love for him.

My seven year old found his wedding ring; thrown in the laundry room like it was some tin tchotchky from some God-awful pizza place. I wore it on my thumb and told him that I would give it back when he knew he wanted to be with me. That if he couldn't wear it, I would wear it for both of us. And I did, for three days. Today my hand just felt heavy. Like it was a weight I just couldn't bear anymore.

I'm not strong enough today to carry this relationship for us both. So I hid them somewhere safe until I'm ready to carry us through again.

I don't know what the truth is. I don't know if his mania is like alcohol, and all of the truth is coming out, or if it's simply his anger talking and he really does love me. All I know is that my heart is broken for us both and I don't know how to fight this battle alone anymore. My heart is so full of pain that it's hard not to pick up something sharp and fall into old self-harming habits.

I wish I could put my heart next to our rings, until it was safe to take it out again.

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?

Surviving isn't enough.

Sometimes it feels like everything is crashing down. Even when it’s not. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is turning upside down. You’re supposed to realize that your problems are nothing when compared to the bigger issues. Realizing this doesn’t help. It makes you feel smaller and ineffective and even more worthless than you already feel.

I can’t fix my dad. I couldn’t make him love me the way I needed to be loved and I can’t cure his cancer so he can live long enough to maybe figure it out. I can’t make him want to know his granddaughters and I can’t make him interested in my life. I can’t make him hug me in a way that doesn’t make him lightly shove me away like my very touch burns him.
I can’t forgive him for never being there and I can’t stop wishing that he was.



For my dad, there is no cure. There’s only postponing the inevitable. Which only makes sense if you’re actually living in the interim. I wonder what living is for him. For me, it means being grateful for one more chance to lay next to my husband watching a movie or playing Name That Song. One more chance to talk to my mom for hours about nothing and everything. One more chance to cause a ruckus with my best friend or rub her back and reassure her as we always do for each other during a crisis. Mostly, it would mean one more chance to giggle with my kids, to tell them I love them, to whisper the incredible experiences they’ll have whether I’m here to witness them or not. In short, living is family and people and giving more than you take.

I wonder if he goes through these awful treatments over and over in the hopes that if he sticks around long enough he’ll actually figure out how to live.

Parenting for Fucktards 101

1.) When you are told that your four year old child has Pneumonia, do not respond with, "Annnnd what am *I* supposed to do about it?"

2.) DO ask if the child is alright.

3.) DO show an interest in the child's treatment. Does the child need to go to the hospital? What medications is the child supposed to be taking? What other special instructions did the doctor give? If you don't know the answers to these questions, you are a completely self-centered douche bag and should surrender all parenting rights now.

4.) DO NOT refuse to come home because the child's mother is being "touchy." If you had to live with someone of such small empathy and compassion, you'd be a little fucking touchy too.

5.) DO NOT bounce from friend's house to friend's house just so you don't have to actually fucking be a parent.

6.) DO NOT say that the reason you didn't ask about your child's well-being is because your wife is SuperMom and can handle anything. If she can handle anything, then she doesn't need your sorry ass. Take your walking papers and go move in with your parents like every other failure.

7.) DO NOT say, "Call me when you think I won't be an ass anymore." You sound like an idiot. And guess what, she won't call you because she KNOWS that day will NEVER come. And as you mentioned before you fucktarded asshat, she's SuperMom and doesn't need your worthless "help."

8.) DO NOT say that you will stay at home with the child as long as you don't have to work. You own your own fucking business A-hole. You make your own fucking hours. And your wife only works five hours. And it's fucking Wednesday. You can't tell your customers that your kid has Pneumonia and there's a total of ten fucking hours that you can't be at their beck and call for the next two days? Your business is open 24 fucking hours you ass! Prioritize!

9.) When your sick child is crying and asking for daddy, don't tell your wife that she can handle it. Get your sorry ass home and comfort the child who is so naive that she can't yet tell that she has the sorriest piece of shit father to ever walk the earth.

10.) If you are such a prick that your wife has to make a list like this, reexamine your methods of parenting and make changes immediately. Because you Sir, are a Fucktard and don't deserve to lick the dirt your child pees upon.

All My Loving

I don't write when I'm happy. I get so caught up in savoring the blissful moments, that I forget to commemorate them. Looking at my journals, blogs and diaries over the years, it looks like I've had a pretty hellish life. Really, I've had a loved life spotted with hellish moments. I guess I just don't need the cathartic release when I'm content.

Things have been good. So good that our fights have been normal (mostly) husband and wife arguments and have occurred in a mature (mostly) manner. I'm not on edge. I'm not thrashing through the night with nightmares. I'm not crying over nothing. It's a decent place to be.

A few weeks ago, I was rocking our four year old H to sleep. It's something I hadn't done in months so when she asked for the extra cuddle time, I was eager to oblige. She had just drifted off to sleep when the husband did something completely unexpected- he sang to me.

I'm a musical girl. As a kid I could pick up any instrument and pick out a familiar song within the hour. I sang for talent shows and in community musicals. I was always attracted to anyone who could play an instrument or carry a tune. I always had the fantasy that some special guy would randomly jump up on stage (or a table) and belt out a tune dedicated to me. The husband is terrified of singing, so the dream died a little when I married him.

I had just rocked H to sleep when "All My Loving'" started playing on our stereo. It's always been a favorite and I was feeling so loving towards the husband at the moment that I thought it was fortuitous. When he actually sat in front of us and started to sing it (loudly!) to me, I giggled. When I realized that he was REALLY singing and the whole thing was planned, I cried.

Moments of such unselfishness with him are rare. It took him a week to memorize all the lyrics (he's not exactly musically inclined) and he was waiting for the perfect moment. It may seem small to anyone else, but it was a dream fulfilled and one of the sweetest moments we've ever shared.

Close your eyes and I'll kiss you,
Tomorrow I'll miss you;
Remember I'll always be true.
And then while I'm away,
I'll write home ev'ry day,
And I'll send all my loving to you.

I'll pretend That I'm kissing
the lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true.
And then while I'm away,
I'll write home ev'ry day,
And I'll send all my loving to you.

All my loving I will send to you.
All my loving, darling I'll be true.

Close your eyes and I'll kiss you,
Tomorrow I'll miss you:
Remember I'll always be true.
And then while I'm away,
I'll write home ev'ry day,
And I'll send all my loving to you

All my loving I will send to you.
All my loving darling I'll be True.
All my loving All my loving ooh
All my loving I will send to you