One flesh

Continued from "What's Wrong?"
November 2001 - May 2002

Can illness really make you stop loving a person? I have seen a few marriages break up over the years due to mental illness. Obviously I fully understand that it can be very scary to watch the person you love turn into someone you don’t even know. But surely you must realise that somewhere deep inside the person you love is still there? I understand how circumstances become very different, and they’re not the circumstances you chose, but isn’t every marriage like that to a greater or lesser degree? And I understand how unhappiness with your circumstances can make you want to change them - end them - but can you really stop loving the person you married, just because they’re not well anymore? Can you really see yourself being happy without that person?

Shockingly I had people suggest that I should get on with my own life while my husband was in hospital. People have seemed surprised when they realised that I visited him every day. I had one person tell me that they thought I liked being married to a sick person that I needed to look after. I had a nurse tell me that I would end up resenting my husband for being ill. And I even had a doctor tell me that if I wanted a family I would have to leave my husband. These attitudes are merely symptoms of a world where unconditional love is idealised – as long as you can have everything your own way.

I’m not pretending that I haven’t struggled with coming to terms with my husbands’ illness. Sometimes grieving the loss of how things once were has taken me to a very dark place. Worse than that was watching the man I love suffer in the most indescribable way. I confess, I wanted to end the pain – for him, for me – but I have never wanted to leave him. Why would I? Why would I want to tear myself away from someone I love so much, and allow him to suffer alone? It was hard enough to say goodbye each night, and leave him behind at the hospital. I’d walk out of the door and look back through the little window, and see him sitting there, lonely, and scared. I wanted to protect him – from his own fears and from himself – but I couldn’t do it alone anymore. He had become so suicidal that he needed 24 hour care, and I couldn’t give it.

I remember the night before he first went into hospital so clearly – or rather, the emotions I was feeling. I had done everything I could during the previous 6 months or so to reassure him of my love for him. He was in such a deep depression, and at this point no one knew about the voices. He had changed so much. His smiley eyes had gone. His loving, romantic nature, his sense of humour. My husband had gone. He was just a man, emotionless, expressionless. His medication made him sleep for about 18 – 20 hours a night/day, and he would wet the bed up to 4 times during those hours, because of his medication. I would get him up, wash him down, change the bedding including the duvet cover, and let him get back into bed. It was so degrading for him, a grown man who couldn’t control his bladder. He would apologise for being such a burden, and I would try to reassure him that he wasn’t. I’d cook him a meal and get him up for the evening. I would run him a bath, wash his hair and body, and he would just sit there, motionless. He couldn’t understand why I still loved him and was willing to care for him. I wanted to show him that doing all of these things for someone you love isn’t a burden, and I needed him to understand that my motive was love not duty, so I would do my best to stay cheerful while doing these things and then after bathing him, drying him down, and helping him to dress, I would sit on the floor in front of him and massage his feet as well. He’d look at me confused, and ask “Why are you doing this?” and I’d smile and say “Because I love you”. There were tears, but I had plenty of time for those while he was asleep. It was a very lonely time.

Actually, I'm not sure which was worse, the loneliness from being without him while he slept for so long, or the loneliness from being with a man that didn't resemble my husband at all. No one fully knew or understood what I was going through. It was really a time of grieving, I missed him so much, and at the same time I was having to care for this unresponsive stranger. I knew somewhere deep inside the man I loved was still there, and I never gave up hope that if I kept showing love he would come back. Looking back I know that if I hadn't continually "gone that extra mile" to prove my love for him he would have ended his life.

"Because I Love You" by Philippa King

Many times his Psychiatrist suggested that he go into hospital, but he didn’t want to, and I didn’t want to cause him to doubt my love by making him. His Psychiatrist would ask how I was coping, but she always asked me in front of him, and I had tried so hard to prevent him from feeling like a burden, I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t cope. I sensed that he often felt suicidal. This was confirmed when his Psychiatrist asked him directly if he ever felt suicidal, and he admitted that he had. She asked him what ways he had considered and he told her, and she also asked if he had made previous attempts and he had. I learnt that he had saved his medication and taken a large dose in one go, with alcohol, and then gone to bed, and I hadn't even noticed. Although inwardly shocked I tried to just put my feelings to one side and show understanding and support. I didn’t want him to feel that he couldn’t turn to me through fear of how I would react. I started watching him more closely, and supervising his medication. Once these suicidal tendencies were out in the open I often asked him how he was feeling, sometimes asking direct questions in the way his Psychiatrist had. He began to trust me more and became more open. One night we were having an honest chat about how he had been feeling and he confided that he had been thinking about waiting until I was asleep before trying to kill himself again. I couldn’t hold my emotions in any longer. I held onto him and sobbed. How could I possibly protect him? I knew then that it was time for him to be admitted, and after seeing me so distraught, he agreed. I hardly slept that night, every sound, every movement my husband made, woke me. We made an emergency appointment the next day to see his Psychiatrist and she had him admitted into the psychiatric ward the same day.

Totally crushed I could only hope that they would find a medication that worked for him soon. I was now taking anti-depressants myself, and was suffering from anxiety. I thought I had reached my limit of what I could cope with, but there was worse to come.

Next: "First Hospital Admission"