His World, My Hell

Well today is the day that I leave for a trip to the prison.  I am going to attend a marriage seminar.  I am hoping that this is going to be an eye opener for my husband and myself.  I cant fool myself, I am not the perfect wife and im sure that this weekend I will see some things about me that will probably shock me. 

I hope that Leo gets something positive out of this weekend as well.  My marriage may not have been ordained by God, and we may not have asked him if we were right for one another, but I do beleive that since we made that plunge God does now honor it. 

Marriage is hard, but marriage can be so rewarding.  Living with bi polar in an already tough marriage is exhausting but God has given me much strength, and much patience.  

Im not the perfect wife, I burn food, I mess up the laundry, I have silly insecurities, but I know this, I am faithful, I am loyal, and I know that without God my marriage is doomed.

I pray this book is a blessing to someone.  I pray that it is a blessing to us as a couple.  I just hope that when Leo reads it for the first time he doesnt cringe as he sees himself through my eyes.  Its one thing to hear what it is about but to read the words and see it in your mind as a movie screen is so different. 

Let me clear this up now,, those of you that will read it, Leo is not a bad man, he is a man with a bad disorder.  Many have written to me and objected to my title, "When satan comes to your house in the form of Bi polar", and i respect that because in thier lives the bipolar affected them differently.  This disorder has many stages.  I do believe we have the worst, but I know that we can both handle it otherwise we would have it right?

Anyway, pray for us this weekend. I will update you all when I get home and let you know how God blessed, cuz I know he will.

His world, My hell

When satan comes to your house in the form of Bi polar

I chose this title because I feel in my heart that my husbands bi polar was and is the devil  in our home.  I do not mean that in the literal sense but only in trying to paint the picture of the hell that we have gone through.

I had a writer post a  message to me in where he stated that he was offended by my title.  I want you all to know that I mean that out of no respect for anyone, however this was my life that I lived and yes it was hell!

What really bothers me is that someone has the audacity to tell me that me saying my husband bi polar was my satan is offensive to them.  Live my life then judge me.

We write our lives on paper to be transparent and honest.  To call it anything other than what it is to us is being decieving.  Again, not everyone that suffers from bi polar has rage episodes, and I want to make that clear.  However, ours is rage and anger and hatred. 

So if I have offended anyone here with my book title I do apologize and simply say this was our hell.  Your very well could be different and not full of the violence that we endured. 

FOr the record,,, I wont change my title to accomodate one person who found it offensive i simply tell him not to purchase the book.  I want my book to be for people that are hurting and looking for some kind of reasoning in dealing with a bi polar individual.  Someone to afraid to speak out loud that they are hurting.  Let my pain and my trials be your strength.  Let my husbands pain help your healing. 

Christmas Eve here is going to be quiet tonight.  I am spending this christmas without the love of my life.   Its funny how your life can chage so drastically in the blink of an eye.  No warning comes with love, no sign that says beware this and beware that.  No instruction on how to do it right so that nobody gets hurt.

Our life has been such a mess over the past year and a half but the one thing that we know is that we love eachother very much.  Yea, I get mail everynow and then that is ugly and hurtful, but i have come to learn his disorder and know the ugly in him is not of him.  Does that make sense?

I pray for all those that suffer this disorder tonight. I pray a peaceful and chearful holiday without interuptions from the dark part inside.

If my husband were here today, right now, I would curl up with him in our bed, watching Televison.  Watching movies like the what a wonderful life.  Does anyone remember that movie.  Where he thought everyone would be better off if he had not been born...  Wow,,, wow great was that movie.  No matter what we experience in life, we affect the people around us more than we believe we do. 

Through all our trials and all my tears, my lfe is what it is and I can not imagine it without my husband.  Though time after time he has managed to hurt me, he has also managed to love me in a way that no one else can.

Tonight, hold your loved one.  Tell them you love them.  Kiss them tenderly and appreicate that fact that inspite of all your flaws they still love you.

One my favorite songs is by Lyfe Jennings, "Must be nice" when those 20s stop spinning and all those gold digging women disapear,she'll still be here."Any one that knows my husand can see how that can relate to us. 

Anyway, i find myself rambeling but really want I want to do right now is go to bed close my eyes and crawl into his arms.  Where no prison bars can seperate us, at least not for the next 8 hours.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE, AND REMEMBER

LOVE ONE ANOTHER LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW, BECAUSE IF YOU WAIT TO DO THAT YOU MAY MISS OUT ON A BLESSING!!!!

I sit here on the 23rd day of December reflecting on the last year and a half of my life.

I am greatful to answered prayers and to unanswered prayers.  Let me explain.

9 months ago we were at a crossroad in our marriage.  My husband bi polar condtion was out of control.  No one seemed to be able to help us.  His outbursts, his reckless behavior, his words to me were at a point where I was burnt out and tired.  So tired in fact after an incedent I stood at the door watching him drive off to one of his escapades I just prayed for God to take him that night or put him in jail.  I had had enough and there was no way out.  I couldnt leave.  Im sure partly because I didnt really want too, and mostly because he wouldnt allow it. 

Two days after that prayer my husband was arrested.  I cried, I asked God to take it back.  That I didnt mean for him to take me serious about that prayer. I was hurt, angry, humiliated and lost.  I just wanted my husband to be healed from this disease and be all the time who he was some of the time.  Does that make sense?

God chose to not answer my second prayer and although it pains me to have lived 9 months without him I beleive that this saved our marriage and also our lives.  Had God not intervined a terrible tradegy would have happned.  My husband was living a life of horror.  He was hurting himself and all that love him.  Emotionally, mentally, physically. 

For days we thought he would be coming home. That this was something we could fix with faxes and phone calls and emails.  Yet, nothing worked.  Ive cried,  Ive begged, I've asked for forgivness.  At times he hated me, he hated me for putting him in prison, for ruining his life.  For taking his freedom away from him.  I hated myself for those same reasons too.

Yet now, as time goes on we both realize that this saved our lives, our marriage and our future.  Who knows what the future holds but God.  Our marriage could survive or it could end, only God knows that, but what I do know is that if God had not answered that unwanted prayer the way he did our lives today would have been destroyed.  That I am sure of.

Bi Polar disorder can affect people in different ways,  it can bring about depression, it can bring about a feeling of great hieghts and it can bring about anger and violence.  That was the case in our situation.  Violence was always the outlet for his bi ploar. 

Although we begged people for help.  NO one really cared.  We went to agencies, we called professionals, we went to church, nothing seemed to make this better.  It just got worse and worse and worse.

My husband is a good man. He is a loving man who loves me more than I could wish for.  I am his queen, his schukims, his world, when he is not have an episode.  Yes, he has done many things to me,  as our book will show, but one thing that I am positive of is that he loves me, and this disorder is killing me slowly.   In his mind he feels that he can not get better, that he cannot be the man he knows he should be, but I know different.

With the help of a good therapist and proper medication he can recognize that he is that wonderful husband and father.  He can put his pain to the side and realize that he has a great life and can live a life of peace without fear and anger.

Our book is to help heal, to encourage someone to seek the help they need for bi polar disorder before your freedom is snatched away or even worse your life. 

We have but a moment on this earth and our days are not promised.  I cherish each moment with my husband and I recongize that it will not be an easy road, but it is one that I am determined to walk down with him, for him and because of him. I see the good in him, I see the love in his eyes, for I can see into his soul.  No matter what the past says, or what people say when they whisper about us, I know what we have is LOVE PERIOD.

Pray for our strength in the Lord and healing power for my husband.

Well here we are on the 15th of December of this wonderful year of the Lord 2007.  What  a blessing to even make it through another year isnt it?

Today driving home from visiting my husband I sat and listened to talk radio.  I was following the Highschool allstar football game.  East Vs West.  My son played football for 4 years straight all through his highschool days.  I remember the day he joined.  Never having played football before, overweight, slow, and no skills.  After about the 3rd practice he tells me that he was going to quit. 

 "No your not!  Why do you want to quit?" 

"Because mom, its hard,  you dont know what its like out there.  I am too slow, it hurts too much and I cant do it!" He slammed his shoulder pads intot he trunk of the car.

"Look, your not going to quit.  I dont care how much it hurts, I dont care how hard it is and I dont care how slow you think you are.  I did not raise you to quit at anything and if you quit at this one thing you will be setting yourself up to quit anything and everything in life that seems to hard."

He was mad as hell at me.  His sisters and his father all insisted I allow him to quit.  I stood my ground.  Seeing what they didnt see.  Potential.  Strength. Speed and heart.  With anger in his heart at me he continued with football.  I told him at the end of the season if he chose to not play next year that was fine but he started the season and he will finish it. 

After the 5th game of the season that year we were driving home from a game when he grabbed my arm before I got out of the car.

"Thank you mom, for not letting me quit!"

I wrote that story (which is true) to say that no matter how hard something seems, and how bad we are at something we start if we just press on and not quit we will see victory in all we do.  Life is about challenges and trials.  Football may seem so small to some but to my son at the time it was his greatest hurdle.  Now 4 years later and graduation is upon us he knows that no matter what he attempts to do he can overcome the obsticles that come alone with that challenge.  HE is a winner!

IF you are faced with something that seems to hard, just remember these words;  He will not put more on you than you can bare."  Keep pushing past the pain, past the disapointments and past the obsicles, before you know it you will be on the other side looking back saying.  "I made it through!"

You know today is a bad bad day.  I had a serious meltdown at a job interview and I walked out. I supose that I reached my breaking point.  No Job, husband in prison, husband wants to leave me, christmas time, no tree, not gifts for 7 year old.  Hell, no money for mortgage.

I realize that this is just another passing trial but this one is hard to deal with.  I also realize that Christmas has been too glorified as material givings but when your dealing with a 7 year old thats kinda hard to explain.  Christmas is about love, family, blessings, and faith.  I am the biggest believer in the goodness of God and the blessings that he brings, but yet I find myself feeling like I have run out of his blessings for my life.  Like I have done too much wrong and he has just decided that my prayers arnt worth it.  Now dont get me wrong, when I stop and analize this I know that this is an attack of the devil,  yet guess what my flesh is tired.  I am used to taking care of things, but now that everything is falling apart at the same time and I cant handle it. 

How do I smile in my 7 year olds face when he gives me his list?  How do I accept that my husband is sick and probably never going to get better?  How do I pick up the pieces yet again.  I just pray that my book helps someone out there realize the pain that can be caused by bi polar, and take it serious and get help!  Please get help.  NO one should have to feel like I do right now at this time.   This pain is almost too much to bare.  NO it is too much to bear right now.......

Prayer is the only thing that is going to get me through, God, his grace and most of all his mercy!!!!

Yesterday was a very hard day for me.  On top of the fact that I dont have a job and my husband is in prison and it is Christmas time it all came crashing down on me yesterday.

I drove 240 miles to see Leo on a borrowed gas card from a friend to sit in visitation and listen to him put me down and degrade me.  His bi polar is really takings its toll on me and I have no out lets for my pain anymore.

I sat there as he said he didnt love me, and that he could forget me as easily as yesterdays trash.  He said I disgusted him.  Said that my life now was my problem.  Since he was in prison and was getting three meals a day and a roof over his head he didnt care how me or his son survived.

I truely blame the justice system as they provide no couseling for him.  They feed him his medication and thats about it.  If you know anything about bi polar disorder you know that you need to take your medication in conjuction with your therapy and couseling or it will not work.  Well TDCJ has decided that he is fine and that they will give him TEL-MED couseling in February.  He has been locked up since April. 

I dont know how I made that drive home yesterday as tears were clouding my vision the entire way.  I feel lost and hopeless and alone.  ITs christmas time and no money for gifts for my 7 year old.  NO tree to trim, and no money for the mortgage, or the lights.  Yet, for my husband life goes on.

If you have bi polar please get help.  Find a suport group and understand the pain that this causes your family. Again, you may not be as severe as my husband but get the help that you need.  It kills families.  It destroys self esteem, and it abandons love.

The only thing that got me up this morning was church. I sing in the chior and if i dont go I worry that souls could be lost.  Now dont get me wrong, im no singer but what i mean is that I have a commitment I have to keep, no matter how bad my days get.  I owe that to God to keep on going even if I feel like I cant.  Someone else needs me.  It could be a smile I give to a woman who is lost inside.  It could be that hug I give a young teenage girl that is secretly going through.  It could be that hello that someone really needed to hear.  If I lost that chance I would just crawl into a hole and die.  That is how I feel.  God I my strength, because man will always fail you and disapoint you.    TDCJ ruined my marriage by not providing the help that my husband needs and if he comes out soon he will be worse than when he went in.  God help us then!!!!

I remember the days of my youth when time was not important to me.  It was just a measuring between day and night, not having the reality that I was in.  Yet, I had no clue as to the importance that the hourglass which was turned oer in heaven for each of our lives was so precious and vital to our earthly beings.  I remember my youth and how quickly I wanted it all to end. I was in such a hurry o grow up and be an adult, yet at what price?

I remember the wisdom of my parents and the sternness  of my fathers voice as he molded me into who I am now, and I remember the anger and the hatred that I showed him for loving me enough to chastise my ways.  I couldnt see it then. I wasted years by assuming tha time was not important.  That the hourglass of life was always going to be full, never leaving me with only grains.  Wanting somehow to cheat life and turn it over one more time to replay those timeless images in my mind.  To do it right this time.  To not waste the I love you's, and to not be angry and hold resentment for things done or undone.

We can never have back those, moments, those hours, those days those years.  We can never get back the time lost to bitterness, anger and hatred.  We recklessly and childishly forget that our time here is precious and over in the blink of an eye.

Let go, let go of the hurt,the anger and the pain of the past.  Take each day forward and cherish it.  Cherish the air you breath, the wind in your face, the smell of each flower and the touch of another human being.  When the hour glass has dropped its last grain of sand our time here is ended.  We can not go back and say; im sorry, I love you, I forgive you.  With sand still in your hour glass embrace those around you.  Accept those loved ones for who they are and never forget that the gift of times comes from above.  It is but for a moment.  Use it wisely.

Copyright sonja cooper 2007

There is nothing harder than a prison visit.  I get up each Saturday full of anticipation of holding Leo; if only for a little while.  The drive is not that bad, only 235 miles to Ft. Stockton Texas.  On the way I think of ways tell him that I love him and that I am here always for him.

The Gate guards are usually really nice as they process me in.  As I walk toward the door I know Leo is watching me as his window is right there. Sometimes he calls out to me; "Hey baby!"  I never look toward the window as I dont know who is standing there so I ususally just pray that Leo is there. 

Once inside I give them my Id and I wait for him.  AS he comes throught he door I see his beautiful smile and I know that today is going to be a good day.  We get to spend 2 hours holding hands and talking.  He calls me Shnukums, and I call him Hubbybear. 

Sometimes we pray together.  We should pray together all the time but the time just flies past us and before you know it someone is walking to the table to tell us its time go go.  Prayer is very powerful, so I begin each day with prayer for Leo.

Time to go.  We get up and he walks me to the door.  Where for about a minute he holds me close and kisses me tenderly, taking me back to a time of normalicy.  I always cry.  Letting go is so hard.  Although I know this is something we have to endure the pain of seeing him like that make me so guilty for calling the cops last year.  However, I know that this was a blessing, as horrible as it sounds.  This saved our marriage.  I miss him and this is the hardest thing I have ever endured, but God will carry us both through.