It all began with Dick and Jane

A NOTE TO THE READER:

I have been trying to write this for twelve years now, and every summer I tell myself , "Now I will finally finish and publish this book!" But there is always something that holds me back. The pages are all written, and I know it is a story that needs to be told, the story of how my husband' battles with mental disorders and chronic illnesses changed my life and our family. I began again this summer, always looking for another rewrite, another way to improve upon it.
But it is what it is. There is no place where I can write "And they lived happily ever after." Our story goes on. But perhaps that is the point: it goes on. We continue to struggle, but we also continue to rejoice in what we have. So, this summer I have decided to attack this project in a different way. With over 1200 followers on my first blog (http://writingonthebrokenroad.blogspot.com/), I have again turned to the world of the internet to make our story known. Perhaps someday I will publish it in print.Perhaps then I will be brave enough.

           This work is not mean to be a scientific or informational article on mental illness. I have tried to prevent some relevant facts, but I am neither a psychologist nor a medical doctor. I am, however, the wife of a man who has suffered from bipolar disorder and clinical depression—as well as the aftermath of a vehicular accident. What I have written is our experience; it may not be yours.

            I also wish to point out that my family has a very warped sense of humor. We have used it to survive the changes in our family brought about by mental illness and concurring disorders. In this blog, I have at times used the common vernacular of “crazy” and “loony” when referring to mental illness in one form or another. I have made no attempt to be politically correct. If you have a problem with these terms, I offer a simple solution:

Do not read this blog.

FORWARD

            Do you remember the books about Dick and Jane? Created as a series of readers by William Gray, they were used to teach children in the primary grades between 1930 and 1970. Heavily criticized as lacking in cultural awareness, Dick and Jane books are now pop culture items and can fetch as much as $200 on E-Bay. But I learned to read with Dick and Jane; sitting in the reading circle at Edgewood Elementary School, the over-sized book propped up by my teacher, Mrs. Hottenstein, I laid out my future, a slightly updated version of the text. Two kids, a boy and a girl. A house in the suburbs. A husband that went to work each day carrying a brief case and wearing a hat. The ideal life. A small, safe life. Unknowingly, my plans also placed God is a small, safe place.

            We were a Christian family, if not overtly religious. My mother raised my brother and I as Catholics, taking us to mass on Sunday and enrolling us in catechism classes so we could make our First Communions. My father was a Methodist and, as far as I could tell, spent Sundays doing home repairs. My grandmother was also a Methodist and took my brother and me to Sunday School whenever we spent the weekend at her house. In truth, the Methodist Church seemed to be more fun than the Catholic Church, but I wasn’t really looking for my spiritual beliefs to be amusing. I was looking for them to protect me, a magic cloak that would hide me from the evils of the world.

            I wanted my small, safe life. I worked towards it, the good girl who obeyed the rules. I gave God only a tiny space in my life, with no room to grow.

            My life is no longer small. I live an enlarged life, messy and chaotic and full of challenges and decision that Dick and Jane never had to face. I know far more about hospitals than I want to, including how to talk my way past security guards after visiting hours. I have watched my husband hover at the edge of death on more than one occasion, and I have figured out how to change the oil in the car and throw baseballs to my son. I have been forced to show my children a suicide note left by their father one dark day when he was bent on self-destruction and rejoiced with them when he was found unhurt. I have sat in various waiting rooms for the outcome of 26 surgeries and visited my husband in six different hospitals and one mental institution. I have prayed fervently, on my knees, for my life to be different, to be calmer to be—yes—smaller. I have made bargains, sworn oaths, and lived in fear of ambulance sirens.

            And I have survived. I have survived and grown and within my hectic, chaotic, messy world, found what Dick and Jane did not.

            I found God.