I've created a bookworm!

Well, you might recall that I mentioned my daughter (dd) and the fact that she is adopted and that she has special needs. Well, I just wanted to share with you an amazing milestone.

When she first came to live with us, she didn't have any stories to tell about her own life. All of her stories about "her" life were taken from TV shows. For example, when we had sparklers for the 4th of July, she told us a story about "herself" that was almost a verbatim recitation of a scene from a movie that DH had recently seen, where a little girl does cartwheels with sparklers, and dances. She told us how she always does cartwheels and dances when she has sparklers, and described exactly the same scene as the movie. Then when we handed her a sparkler, she was terrified, LOL.

She had no interests at all except TV and movies. And the kicker was that she could not read at all and she could not write. At age 8. Not a bit. She had been attending a special day treatment center where academics weren't as important as good behavior, and so she really had no reason and no encouragement to read or write.

I set out right away to change that. When she misbehaved, she always had to write an essay about what happened, what she was feeling, and what she needed to do different next time. We started a routine bedtime story. And required her to read for 30 minutes every day, whether it was a school day or not. Oh how she fought to not have to read!!!! But now it's just another part of her day. She comes home, does her homework, and then reads for a half hour, usually out loud, because when we started the "read every day" rule, we only knew if she was really reading if she was reading out loud.

This fall, she took some standardized tests at school and for the first time ever, her reading score fell into the "low normal" category, and so we had a celebration to recognize all her hard work.

Tonite, though, took the cake. DH was driving one of his friends home, and I needed to take a nap before work. DD was home and was instructed to be quiet and not wake me up unless someone was bleeding or the house was on fire.....I woke up shortly before her bedtime, and went to get her ready for bed, and there she was, lying on the couch, reading a chapter book!!!! And nobody made her do it. And she wasn't grounded from the TV. She was reading because it was a "good story". I have just been beaming from ear to ear!!!

Counting my blessings

Even though this journey through mental illness has not been something I would have asked for, I truly have a lot to be thankful for, and sometimes I forget that. Here are a few of those:

1. We bought a relatively inexpensive house, and so far I have been able to pay most of the important bills.
2. We both have strong family ties and both of our families have helped us with financial stuff and emotional stuff.
3. While we have been hesitant to share the truth about DH's bipolar, the friends who DO know what is going on, have, to the best of their abilities, been supportive, and even if they are uncomfortable with the situation, they have not abandoned us.
4. Our daughter, who was pretty unstable for several years before this, has been mostly stable for the last several months.
5. Because of our daughter's special needs, we have been less troubled about receiving services via the county than we would have otherwise.
6. I had learned to conserve money and to be frugal before I was forced to live that way.

As I was typing, I realized that there really is an endless list of things I am thankful for. And most of all, I need to remind myself that there are families that are going through much more troubling times that ours is--it's just that I have never dealt with these issues before, so I guess I still have a lot of whining to do! But I do understand that our problems are probably pretty small compared to some of yours, and remembering that also helps me remember to be grateful.

Friends are good

Well, today DH has two friends over. One friend knows what has been going on, and I think doesn't really know how to handle it, so he hasn't been calling or coming over as much as he used to, and it really bothers DH. I don't know what to say, though, because if I went to my friend's house and my friend just stayed in bed all day and didn't want to do anything, I probably wouldn't be all that excited about coming over there either.

The other friend, Jim, was a soldier in Iraq for two tours of duty. When he got discharged, he went to Egypt to work as a civilian "mercenary" and made really good money. He knows a LITTLE about what's been going on, and he even gave DH $2000 (!) to bail out his checking account a couple of months ago (it didn't work, it's back in the negative again, of course), but he doesn't really know the true extent of what has been going on. He does know that I've been working 2 jobs, and DH hasn't been working at all. I get along well with Jim, although he has more energy than I think I've ever had....anyhow, I guess he told DH that he wants to build me a new chicken house and a new duck house (!) I tried to get some pictures of the chickens, but I think it was at the wrong time of day--anyhow, the chicken house and the duck house are really falling apart, and DH hasn't been able to help me fix them. I've done what I can, and made them draft proof and all, but they look bad, because I don't have all the tool knowledge that I probably should have. So it sounds like I will be getting new houses, paid for by Jim!!! It feels a little weird to have one of DH's friends do something like that for me, there is no way I can pay him back except with home cooking and the occasional conversation, but I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, for sure!

I counted last week and right now we have 41 chickens (not counting the 2 mamas sitting on eggs). About 15 of those are roosters and I just don't have the heart to do anything with them. I know if I sell or give them away, pretty much their only value is in someone's soup pot, and I hate the thought of that. So Jim proposes that the new chicken house will have one part just for roosters, so I won't have to part with them, and if they are away from the "girls", then they hopefully won't fight with each other.

And the best part of all of this, although I'm excited about the chicken house and the duck house, is that DH is so happy to have his friends here, and so today has been a really good day. He even bought me a frozen pizza at the store (I am really really hoping that Jim paid for it, he's the only one around here with money!) so that I would have something for supper at work tonite. And he volunteered to give Molly her ear drops, too. (Of course, I'll have to remind him about a dozen times to do it, but the thought is so nice). I really get my hopes up on days like this, and even though after all this time, I know that "what goes up must come down", and that in a day or two he'll probably be depressed again, I welcome these "good" days with open arms.

Molly McMutt

Here is a picture of my dog Molly, whom I referred to in the previous post. As near as we can guess, she's a mix of Collie and German Shepherd. But we aren't sure at all, because I found her in a parking lot; she was all skin and bones, and at that time, she had curly hair, like a poodle!!!

But now her hair is long and flowing, she is a beautiful dog. And smart as a whip, too. Molly is by far the smartest dog I've ever met, and we currently have five dogs, so I am not exaggerating. She is also by far the happiest dog I've ever met, and the dog who most enjoys having her picture taken (she knows she's glamorous!)

Whew!!!

Well, nothing like a little panic to set your priorities straight! I just got a look at our new prescription plan for next year and whoa. It looks like DH's prescriptions are going through the roof. I have no idea how to pay for these, I can't pay what they cost now, and that's nowhere near what they will cost next year. It's pretty sad when you have a "good job" with insurance and you can't afford to use it and you can't afford the prescriptions. I'm hoping we can get some kind of assistance somewhere, or things will be looking pretty bleak.

Even if I stop contributing completely to my 401k, which is the only retirement we have, I still don't think there's any realistic way I can cover those prescription costs. I'm scared. But I won't tell DH yet, because it'll probably send him into another tailspin and he hasn't recovered from the one last night.

Something's just not right

I just got off the phone with DH again and I don't know what to think (more drama, of course). He sounds like he's had too much to drink or is overmedicated or something, his voice sounds "thick" like it's hard for him to talk, almost like it's such a struggle to be conscious that he can't talk right.

He swears that he hasn't done anything he shouldn't, and that he hasn't overdone any of his PRN Lorazepam that he takes for anxiety. I don't necessarily believe him, of course, I've been lied to too many times throughout this ordeal. When I asked him what he was so upset about last night, he still doesn't know. He says he doesn't feel right. When I asked him again if I had said or done something to upset him, he says he doesn't know.

I don't know what to do to stop worrying. I worry that the animals are making him angry because he isn't usually alert enough to pay attention to their patterns. For example, Molly, one of the dogs, needs to go outside at midnight, otherwise she will NEED to go out before 7am. But I'm not sure that when I'm gone, he can remember that, and then I think he gets angry when she needs to go out at 4am because she's been holding it since midnite. But he gets so angry over so many things these days, I don't have a clue how to stop all the things that make him angry.

P.S. In case you were wondering, I don't think he gets abusive towards the animals when they make him angry (when I'm not home), he just gets angry. Although I have been thinking about getting some sort of recording device just to make sure....nobody (none of the animals) seems afraid of him, and nobody seems any worse for wear when I get back from work, so I'm about 85% sure that he doesn't hit them or kick them or anything like that...

Marriage: Not as simple as it looks

I talked with my best friend last night, she’s the only one who knows what is going on at our house, but I sense that she is uncomfortable listening to the things I tell her, so I don’t share as much as I would like. Anyhow, the things she said made me sad. She confessed that she believes her husband is cheating on her with other women and with their 18 year old foreign exchange student, too. She told me that he hasn’t kissed her or held her in over three years, not even when she asks. I told her she didn’t deserve that, and she said some very sad things: “I really don’t care what he does any more, as long as he doesn’t knock anybody up”, “I can’t afford to leave, we’ve got too much debt for me to go anywhere, so as long as he keeps bringing in his paycheck, I’ll keep up the façade” and then she said the thing that floored me in a way, but on another level, I completely knew what she meant: “If he just stopped coming home, that’d be fine with me.”

And I could relate, I really could, with that statement. I get so tired of the mood swings and the ups and downs, three different times now, he has gotten angry enough with me to walk out, and then he comes back. But you know, when he has been gone, things are so much more predictable, so much more stable, I confess, that sometimes I do feel the way my friend does.

I didn’t sign up for this. I remember how I used to share every thought with him, how supportive he was, and how he always wanted to do things around the house because it would make my work easier. I remember how he would remember my little comments like “I wish our kitchen was yellow” and I would come home from work to find that he had painted the kitchen yellow. I remember how thoughtful he was, and how he could calm me down when I wasn’t thinking straight. And now all that is gone, and I really feel like I got myself another special needs child, except he has access to adult situations, like work, banking, credit, and I can’t control him at all.

He finally called me today (I’m working again) and told me he had no idea why he was so angry last night. I asked him if I said or did something wrong, “No”, I asked him if something happened at home , “No”, he just didn’t have any idea why he was so angry. That’s pretty typical. A lot of times he gets extremely angry over little things that usually don’t make him (or anyone else) angry, and usually things that would make people say “oh, bummer”, become the end of the world.

Sometimes I wonder whether, even if he gets completely better (and how likely is that), how much our marriage will have been affected. I’ve become the “person in charge” by default in a marriage where all decisions used to be made jointly. It was difficult to become that person, it’s not who I naturally am, and I’m not sure what, in the long run, it will do to our relationship. I do know, though, that despite all my misgivings and seemingly negative thoughts, that if our roles were reversed, I would want him to stand by me, and I can’t assume that his needs are any different.

Confused and Frustrated

That ought to be the title of about every other post on this blog!
The last three days have been "good" days, and since DH's Seroquel dose was upped, and they added Lamictal into the mix, I thought that maybe the good days were the result of the new/additional meds. So, once again, I started to think we were going to get back to normal. But apparently they were just as much of a "fluke" as usual.

From what I understand, some bill collector called (they call all the time these days) regarding a check that he wrote over the summer that bounced and apparently (surprise) hadn't been taken care of. Some other collector had called for the same reason (albeit a different check) last week, too. Anyhow, both of these collectors said that if he didn't cough up the money, that they were turning it over to their attorney(s). He asked what that meant, and was told that a warrant would be put out for his arrest. He hasn't worked since August, so basically the only way he can get these checks taken care of is by me neglecting some other bill so that I can pay off his bad checks. Which I have already done several times this year, but have been told by his therapist not to do any more--he made the mess, he has to deal with it.

It's hard for me to watch him be so upset and so worried, I really am fighting back my urge to help him, although all the other times I've paid off checks for him hasn't convinced him to stop writing them, so maybe he really does need "tough love". I don't know. All I know is that he's really down today, and he's insinuated that if our positions were reversed, he would pay my checks...and that makes me feel mean and guilty....but I've paid checks, I've paid bills, I'm on the line for loans that I never signed for....(remember back in the beginning when I told you to make note of that loan that we got for the well? Well, apparently in my "happy marriage" naivete, I apparently signed an "open-ended" loan agreement, which basically said that either of us could take out a loan without the other. I KNEW he would never abuse my trust...anyhow, earlier this year he moved his 4-wheeler loan and his truck loan (totalling about $13,000) from a different bank to that bank, with neither of us realizing that by him doing that, it made me jointly responsible for those loans)...anyhow, I am sick to death of paying things that he messed up, but I also don't want to see him feeling bad.

What if his current depression is only related to those bills he incurred when he was "not in his right mind" and maybe by not paying them, I'm making things worse? On the other hand, how many times have I paid things and things just kept going full speed ahead? (debt-wise)....and what do I do if he goes to jail? Do I bail him out, or is that enabling too? I never in a zillion years imagined that I would have to wrestle with these types of thoughts.

Anyhow, on to tonite. I'm at work. Every time I called him to see how he was doing, he sounded really really down. I had to remind him four different times to go and close the door on the chicken house. (That's basically the only 'chore' that I expect him to do while I'm at work). And when I called him for time #5, he didn't answer the phone. When I finally got him on the line (after 20 minutes), I asked him if everything was ok, and he said he had to "cool down" before he talked about it. Talk to you later, bye. And I haven't heard from him since. So that leaves me so open-ended--wondering what on earth is going on and I'm afraid to call him and upset him more.