The Continuation

We didn’t think anything would change; in fact, everything seemed to stay the same.

Richard was constantly switching medication, trying to find the right meds and the right doses. The medication dilemma has put us in some rough spots already. It seems that, if the medication is working it is far too expensive to be on, even with benefits, and if it isn’t working.. well, it isn’t working. 

We have now (as of this post) been married for just about three months, there is non of that ‘honeymoon period’ that we always have heard about.  I don’t think we ever went through a ‘honeymoon phase’, maybe that’s because we never had a honeymoon, maybe it’s because we’ve been living together for over a year, maybe it just doesn’t happen.

Richard has been manic since his last psychiatrist appointment, so going on 4 weeks now; this time, it isn’t so bad with the money aspect as it has been in the past.

I remember the first time he was manic while we were living together, he came home with a brand new car ($17, 000), the second time he came home with a brand new gecko and all the equipment that went with it ($600).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember being so extremly angry at him for getting the gecko (he knew I was completely against the idea, I don’t like lizards etc and he would be working on the oilfield (meaning, I would have to take care of it). I sent him many angry texts throughout my work day (as I was working until 10pm that night) and when I got home I couldn’t even talk to him, so I left to my parents where I stayed for a few nights. This, as I have learnt is usual for him, made him depressed because he knew he had done wrong so he was thrown into a deep fit of depression (but only for a night or two).

He ended up buying me a hamster (as I used to have one and loved having it, and of course still had over $200 worth of equipment for it) in order to make me feel better about the gecko. This didn’t work,   I didn’t feel like having a hamster when I knew the reason behind it, and told him so. We ended up returning the hamster to the store and selling the equipment on Kijiji, due to the money we now desperately needed. I still was very angry about the gecko and therefore he sold it without saying anything and took a $200 hit on it.

The small apartment was back to normal, just us. Soon, I found a cat had joined us.. that lasted less time then the gecko. I don’t like cats, never have and this one was dirty, messy and didn’t use the litter box but instead used under our bed. We ended up having to shampoo the carpet due to mold so many times, I had enough. Richard ended up giving the cat away (we had gotten it and it’s belonging for free anyways).

Soon after the cat, Richard found a dog, a Border Collie, being given away on Kijiji. It wasn’t long before that rescue dog, scared and skinny as he was found a home with us. I have grown up with dogs and had a few Border Collies, this was the right addition to our family.

Anyways, back to present day haha…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We still have our Border Collie, and recently acquired a kitten (I’m still not sure how long this kitten is going to last). We have renewed our lease on this place and are here another year. Richard is not in a spending spree this time, or at least not yet. I figure it will be another week to a week  and a half before he comes down; and as usual will hit a horrible downward spiral because he doesn’t know what ‘normal’ is anymore. Such is life with someone with bipolar.

I have found that learning more about the illness can make it a bit easier. Every so often we will go to a support meeting here in Calgary for OBAD (Organization for Bipolar Affective Disorder), I think it probably helps him more than myself, but it’s good to go no matter what.

I think what’s really lacking out there is support for the Spouse, the child, the parents of someone with bipolar. Learning about it only helps if you don’t understand; if you do understand you just need support for all the ‘crazy’ things that happen. There are a lot of things in this relationship that people who don’t deal with it won’t understand and there is a lot of times many people in my position feel like packing it in. Over the few years there have definetely been times where I just look at him and look at myself and don’t understand why I am in this situation or why I continue to stay. There have been times since being engaged (and even in the past three months) that I have thought about just taken off the ring and leaving.

It’s a difficult life, but it is one that I chose. Now, I intend to share my thoughts, my difficulties and my suggestions for anyone else in this position.

The Middle

In the next year (this being 2009), Richard attempted suicide, I was the only one he let know. I panicked, “what was I supposed to do from 8 hours away?”

Luckily, just a few weeks prior, I had been to his home (for Reading Week) and we had gotten to know each other just a bit more, I knew his address, I actually had it still sitting in my car. I did the only possible thing, I rang up the Regina 911 department and told them what was going on in Calgary; needless to say, they had to hang up so that they could contact the appropriate people. It took a few days before I found out what had happened. I received a text, in the middle of the day.. blaming me for him still being alive, even though just a day previous he had thanked me with all his heart. I was destroyed by this outburst, he had asked me to help him and I had done so.. The only reason I talked to him after he got out of the hospital was because he had forgotten everything and forgot everything daily, it was weeks and weeks before I could finally talk to him without having to repeat myself. Through this our friendship grew stronger and further apart, all at the same time; I don’t think either of us really understood what was going on. He had a girlfriend, a long distance girlfriend who he was with simply to be with someone, yet he didn’t want to break up with her because he didn’t want to hurt her, he said this on multiple occasions.

2009 was a year of disaster, my life went completely downhill; I ended up in hospital more than a few times, I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and panic disorder and eventually I ended up dropping out of University in my fourth year. I wound up back at my parents home, that I had tried so hard to get away from and closer to Richard. My mother constantly complained that Richard was my problem, it was all his fault, he was the reason I was depressed and wanting to hurt myself… I told her that he wasn’t so many times that eventually I yelled at her, she didn’t bring it up again.

At some point in the spring or earlier summer of 2009 Richard did something that made me very upset and we stopped speaking. Even though he says he didn’t understand why, he also never tried to contact me. Somehow we ended up speaking again and started hanging out more and more in the late summer and into 2010.

Even though we still didn’t know each other well, we ended up taking a road trip way into Northern British Columbia, or that was the plan anyways. For some reason the car broke down in the middle of nowhere 200 Km from Jasper. We sat in the car throughout the night and finally someone stopped to drive us to a phone, in the morning. After getting to a phone, we ended up having to hike 25 Km back to our car (we only managed to get a ride for 10 Km). We spent a night in Jasper in a far too expensive hotel (we had planned on camping) and became even closer. We were still only friends but we both knew that this friendship could easily go somewhere.

He got his license and a car, simply so he could see me.  He would drive an hour on the highway, to my town just to see me and spend time together after work. We started spending time every weekend together (or every day off), any moment we could, we spent it together. Both sets of parents started getting angry, as a lot of gas money was being spent and numerous kilometers were being put on vehicles. When I got fired for no reason from my one year job and had to move to a night job, Richard would spend the night in his car so that we could spend the day together. We couldn’t get enough of each other. If one of us was upset or depressed, all we needed to do was hang out and it was a different world almost. By this time he had been finally diagnosed as Bipolar I.

March 26, 2010 we finally started dating, he broke up with his long distance girlfriend the same day as he asked me to be in a relationship. We went on our first actual date the next day. The months flew by with the same type of ideas, just spending a lot of time together. He attempted suicide once more, and again I was the one to rescue him. I moved to Calgary in June and got my first job in the city. I was living with him and his parents and we were sharing a room. By July I had had enough of living with his parents and we jumped at the first decent place we found; a month later I found a better paying job which was also closer to where we now lived. In November we realized we had a ‘slumlord’ and quickly found another place and left immediately.

We had picked out my engagement ring, and it arrived on October 2, 2010 as we were settling into our new suite. When we finally announced the engagement, his parents were furious; they were more furious when we told them that we already had a date picked (August 13, 2011). They let us know exactly what they thought, we were too young, we didn’t have any money and we should wait. We didn’t see any point in this.

The 10 months went very quickly, we didn’t plan very much and tried not to stress about anything. I got yet another job at the end of January, which lasted until the end of June, as it was only a contract job. We became more stressed as the days ticked by, towards the end of my contract as I had been looking for over a month for another job. Four days before my contract ended, I received a phone call asking for an interview I gladly accepted; two days left and I was finally offered a job, I started on July 1 (I call that pure luck).

The month leading up to the wedding there were a lot of money worries, as Richard had also just started a new job, due to missing work for a good week for the wedding. August 13 got closer and closer, we pushed forward. His parents were angry at everything and wanted nothing to do with the wedding, even though frustrated we just let it be.

The wedding went off without a hitch and we were on our way to marital bliss and perfect harmony… or so we thought.

The Beginning

Good Afternoon All,

I hope you take the time to look at that little tab that says READ ME, as it will tell you just what you are going to find.

This being the first post, it’s going to be an introduction. My life before & how we met. In my next post I will begin to discuss my life after we met and together.

My life before Richard was pretty complicated and a whole lot frustrating and depressing. I was born and partially raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. My family ended up moving very quickly to a small town in Alberta when I was 10, leaving my 17 year old brother behind.

High school was, as always, difficult for me. Because it was a small town, I was constantly ‘the new kid’ and this was very tough for me. I had gone from a few very close friends to having absolutely no friends and being forced to deal with it all on my own, as my parents had their own issues. I constantly felt horrible, and thought bad things and eventually decided to seek help. At first I went online and tried to work through a lot of issues by simply ‘venting’ to an online community. About a year later the site I was on, closed it doors suddenly and I as well as a number of others were left with nothing.

Eventually I decided to reach out again and found another website. This website showed me that maybe medication could help. It took awhile but I did end up booking an appointment with a doctor and was diagnosed with major depression and put on antidepressants. I knew right away that my family could never know about this, and hid the medication from them. It took awhile but I did end up telling my mother about the diagnosis and the medication, she didn’t agree with it. She yelled about how it was all made up and that there was nothing wrong with me, she found the medication and tossed it without my knowledge. Needless to say, it was never brought up again.

After high school, I promptly moved back to Regina, thinking that it would be my salvation. I enrolled in the Music Education program at the U of R, a four year program that would have me working as a high school music teacher when complete. The first years went by pretty great, a few hiccups here and there but I figured, that’s normal. I still kept on with the new website and became staff, having different positions.

Third year, was a whole different story. A few, downright awful things happened and I looked to the website for guidance. I was at a loss, yet was still ‘counseling’ teens through the one on one help system I was working with. One night, the program was pretty slow (I guess people were doing okay that night), there were only two operators on so we struck up a conversation.

We quickly found out that out of the thousands of people on the website from all over the world, the two of us to be talking that night had alot in common. He said he was from Calgary and was 17 years old, I told him my parents lived near there and I was 19. We began to talk often, on the website and on msn. We helped each other through alot of different situations in the next couple of years

December 2008, I was home for Christmas and we decided that instead of taking the plane, I would take the bus (not uncommon for me, due to the price difference). In taking the bus, this would give Richard and I an opportunity to meet, in person, for the first time. It would be the first time to see what we both looked like, and put a face to all of the late night conversations.

My bus ended up being two hours late picking me up, which made me more nervous and anxious than I already was. I kept telling my parents that they could not take me to Calgary, but for obvious reasons could never tell them why. Richard kept texting me, asking when I would be there, and I just had to keep responding with ‘ my bus is late’. Later on, I found out Richard was walking around downtown Calgary, attempting to find us the perfect restaurant to go to, that would still be open when I eventually made it there.

Around 11:00 pm, my bus finally pulled into the station in Calgary, I quickly texted him, letting him know I was getting off the bus. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I thought I was insane.. meeting someone who could just as easily kill me as take me to dinner. All I knew of Richard was the situations he had been in and the fact that he had a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and Social Anxiety as well as a few others thrown in the mix. I walked out into the station, took a look around and saw who I thought might be him. All I said was “Rick?”, he nodded and we walked towards downtown. I had never been in downtown Calgary in my life, and here I was with  a complete stranger, following him more than willingly; oddly enough I felt 100% at ease and it was only when I got to Regina that I started wondering ‘why?’.