Living With Someone Who Has Mental Illness; Relationships Torn Apart
We met online after I had escaped an eleven year abusive marriage, I was manic, no questions asked. I was suffering greatly from mental illness yet life was fantastic, but in the midst of it all it wasn’t. Not really.
I had packed up three children and moved home, changed their schools and for the first time in my life I was in charge. This was difficult, just being able to leave the house when I wanted or phone who I wanted proved a challenged. I was cut free from the chains that had held me, yet those chains were all I knew.
I met Matt in a time of my life that wasn’t real, I have no idea who I was but he fell in love with me. The fake side to me.
Within 6 months of talking online we arranged to meet, two weeks later he moved into my home, four weeks later we were expecting our first child. We had three children in three years and through this the cracks were beginning to show. I wasn’t the person he thought I was.
I am not proud of what I have done or said in times of madness.
I also have no excuses other than I was mentally ill. I do regret not speaking out sooner as many people suffered at my hands.
I was cruel but so was my illness.
I have screamed, shouted , packed his things and thrown him out so many times I have lost count.
I have loved him and hated him, wanted him and resented him.
I didn’t want him because I knew I needed him. I have made his life hell.
I knew without him there to pick up the thousands of tiny pieces I had broken after an episode what would happen to me, to my children? He was and is the backbone that holds our family together.
I hated him being strong, for doing all the things that I should have been doing.
I resented him because the children went to him for help, I was no longer their main carer, the three eldest children were mine not his, why did they go to him?
Quite simply because I was too busy smashing my head off walls when nobody was looking to rid of the voices that were plaguing my life and I had started to lock myself away in the bedroom, I didn’t even notice I had children.
Is it any wonder the children went to him?
“I cant just fucking get over it” I screamed when he lost his patience with me
“Take the kids away then, I don’t want them” was my answer if he raised his anger over the way I was behaving around the children
I was treat like a child because that’s exactly how I behaved. I would throw more temper tantrums than our 5 children if I was questioned or anyone tried to help.
Things had to come to a head and they did. My life had broken, ripped away at the seams, that last piece of thread holding it all together was about to snap.
I was 4 months pregnant and crazy.
I finally accepted I had lost my mind. I could not take anymore and I did plan out my end. I was taking my own life.
I did go to the GP and speak out and after that everything went so quickly I was lost in the haze of it all.
Looking back I can’t remember much of that time. I lost years of my life. Worse still I can not remember when Kia now 4 and Kaiden now 3 started to crawl, walk or what their first words were. I was there but was not really there.
I have no idea what I put my husband through and what I continue to put him through. I often tell him to leave me, that he can do better and he deserves better than me. The women he met 6 years ago was not who he thought she was.
He has had to give up his career to care for me, to care for six children and to do everything that I should but can’t. We have our moments and of course he gets angry and frustrated with me. Yet he is the first to stand by me, despite me not being the easiest person to live with.
He is my husband, my best friend and my lifeline. I don’t know what would have happened if he was not there to support me and continue to pick up the pieces of destruction I often cause.
