My Brave Husband in the Waiting Room

This short post is in response to Mark Lukach's article "My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward," a January 2015 piece published in Pacific Standard and currently making its rounds on social media.  

When true love is in bloom, it is easy to overlook the possibility that weeds may come in to ravage the garden.

That is how it was for Rob and me.   When we were preparing for marriage, now ten years ago, we had the blank and beautiful space of time that stretched ahead with so much hope and promise and if any suffering were included in our vowed journey together, it would be for the sake of sharing the love of Jesus with others and no other reason.  It sounded romantic and adventurous and real. We look back on that, our way of thinking, and laugh--with a touch of sadness--at our naivete.  

We even look naive here, in a limo on the way to honeymoon.

Rob had known that I struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) since I was a child.  It was part of my story; a classic case of rituals, including excessive hand-washing, fueled by fears of the uncontrollable.  I never went to therapy, but as I became self-aware and aware of the world at large, I realized this wasn't normal.  So I read about exposure therapy during high school, and over the course of two years, was able to rid myself of my rituals and many of my fears.

I 'therapized' myself.  Or so I thought.

What I didn't realize then was that I could not rid myself of the part of the brain where the disorder would lay dormant for years.

Fast forward to when I was 23.  Our oldest daughter (only child) at the time was 18 months, and I began to have a breakdown, for an unexplained reason.  Postpartum?  Maybe.  Stress?  Definitely a factor.  But one thing was for sure; it caught us both completely off guard.

Here, this wife began to wither away, dramatically dropping weight, obsessing hour after hour, day after day, and finally (thankfully?) someone suggested that he take me to hospital for a psych evaluation.

Sometimes mental illness is not visible.  Weeks before I was admitted.

My hospitalization was a huge shock to Rob.  Here was his precious wife, surely looking with despair and emptiness in her eyes, usually full of vibrant life and violent laughter.  His world as he knew it shattered.  He has often said to me that he didn't know if he would ever 'get me back.'

The ER took me by ambulance to the psychiatric wing, husband and bag of belongings in tow.  He helped me settle into a room. Then he said goodbye. They shut the doors, the ones that held me in and kept him out, and he had to face the harsh November cold and a new reality without a clue of how to do it. And so, he waited.

Since then, I'd say he has been in the proverbial waiting room.  Waiting for answers.  Waiting for relief.  Waiting for someone to tell him that one day, this will end.  Waiting for when it's good for things to turn sour, and cycle back again.  It will be over soon enough.  You will get your wife back, just like she was before, when she walked down that aisle of pine trees with a peach-colored gerbera daisy in her hair and a smile that stretched for eternity.  When she desired you intimately. When she promised to love unconditionally.  When she was more focused on you than on the voices that told her lies.

Thankfully, thus far, I've only been hospitalized one time.

For someone with chronic mental illness, this is nothing short of a miracle.  But the time passing has not come without trial, where Rob is being drained as caregivers get drained from having to be on alert all the time.  Giving so much and getting so little in return.

I see you there, tired man, old man.  I hear your sighs and see you're weary.  I see you waiting.

The following years have been packed with more kids, a bit of confusion, changing pill bottles and a lot of prayer.  We both changed because of what happened, what is happening.  We are humbled, sensitized to others around us.

Whereas some husbands may have ran from the crazy, the unsure and unpredictable, circumstances, mine stayed.  And he waited. And I know he will wait, come hell or high water, because he is mine and I am his.

Thank you, my Rob the Bruce, my Rob the Brave.

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He's ordinary
There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He's ordinary 
  --(Foo Fighters, There Goes My Hero)

MAY IS MENTAL HEALTH MONTH!

 

 

As a part of the hidden stress and coping for caring for someone with a long-term chronic mental illness, Rob has gotten invovled with NAMI and their family support groups and continuing education classes.   You can find more information at www.nami.org.