Have The Fight

Have you ever begun to wonder if you are the one that is cycling? That because you recognize the signs in your loved one, you are actually the one that begins to spiral first? I have. Recently I have begun to believe that even when I am afraid of how bad it may get, I am knowingly elongating the process by not just stepping out of my box and confronting the situation. How I respond is so often based on how much energy I have but also how stubborn I am being in the moment. I can state time and time again that we shouldn't have to live like this. That we hate walking on eggshells. But at the end of the day, it is my responsibility to remember that this is an illness that alters my husband's personality and ability to take on life and therefore, it is my responsibility to help him back to himself.

Easier said than done when we are in the throes of the cycle. We are tired, nervous, watching for signs of it worsening and often hopeless of it getting better quickly enough. For me, I am an ostrich. I will see that he is starting to complain, and starting to hover and point (oh how I hate the pointing) and I will avoid conversations with him at all costs. I will immerse in work, my phone or the other members of the household so as not to feel the stare and hear the sighs. Two weeks out of the most recent cycle I am able to realize how pointless and damaging this approach is. I am able to see that by avoiding and elongating the process, I am not only creating more rough days for him, but also for myself and my family. Preaching tired and anxiety ridden may be true but regardless, unhelpful. In this moment it is clear to me...have the fight. It completes the cycle for him and therefore, for the rest of us. This does not mean that the fight can happen too soon or it is just an argument. The fight for us is a repetitive list of complaints of every aspect of our home and family that renders me completely in shut down mode. Only after a certain point am I able to rear up and say ENOUGH! I have been afraid for that point to come sooner because I do not want it to become my personality. I thrive on responding over reacting, but if I am being honest, I am not myself until my husband and marriage are back in sync. So have the fight. Stop trying to think that they will see what is being done to those around them and remember that it is an illness that brings them to this point. What I know about my husband is that when he can control it, he does. So when he can't, I can't get so tired that I can't help him either. We both have work to do and the time has come to do it!