Living Her Reality Through My Eyes
Can you live with the mental illness surrounding the ones you love and not take an active role in keeping them safe? Mental illness is more of a pressing issue than cancer, but is just as deadly if the proper treatment is not administered promptly. There are many issues the mentally ill face daily as well as within their treatment to support a stable life for themselves and others around them. There needs to be a change in how the mentally ill are treated and cared for.
The day I realized my wife had become unrecognizable to me; I was scared for her, myself, and anyone else who confronted her. The drive was long listening to her beg me, "Please I will behave," but it made me more confident in making the awful decision to have her admitted to the UNMH Psychiatric Ward. Remembering how hysterical she was when the doctor told me to leave and the look on her face was just as I imagine a child who has just been abandoned by the only person they have known, loved, trusted in, relied upon and believed in could look like. All of this just heightened the misery I was feeling about admitting her to the hospital in the first place. I told her that I would always love her, no matter how sick she becomes. I also promised never to leave her and to take care of her forever. How will I get her to understand I did not break my promises to her? Consequently, I drove home feeling alone, full of guilt, crying, and just hoping they heavily medicated her so she could get some rest and not be afraid. I am now noticing "My Wife's Million Dollar Smile" is fading into our future of bipolar I, PTSD, major clinical depression w/ extreme suicidal tendencies and thoughts, generalized anxiety disorder, constant pain, 24 hr. care, social security, medicare, doctor appointments, and medications. I have now switched roles with my wife. She was always the caregiver to her children, her mother during her childhood, even within her career before she got sick,...