Bitter Sweet Moments

     I was going to attempt to map this whole thing out from the beginning to present time as to what we as a family have gone though but I need to interject here because it is relevant to the last two posts regarding Hospital stays and coping skills. Just yesterday my DD #2 came home from a 12 day psychiatric hospital stay, her 4th inpatient stay in the last 2 years. The whole family was happy and excited to see her come home and my DD #3 even made a sign and put it on the front door welcoming her home. We had a nice supper and all was good, for the first few hours.
     After supper all three DD were painting at the kitchen table and an issues arises. My DD #2 began to express her feelings and using her words to make it known to those around her, one of her many coping skills she has been working on. I was proud of her for using her words to communicate instead of her usual violent temper. Unfortunately her words were not met with the same feelings I had but instead were met by my DD #1's argumentative disposition. DD #2 did great with her response to this negative attitude and that in turn made my DD #1's negative attitude even worse and she ended up storming out of the house to cool down.
     This is a prefect example of how you cope with stress in the proper way, with positive skills, you can remain in control of your own actions and words. When my DD #1 allowed her negative behavior to supersede her ability to utilize her coping skills, she in turn began to loose control of her emotions which in turn escalated her behavior toward those around her. Both of my DD's have had similar counseling in using positive coping skills for various situations but when one does not implement those skills, it is as if they never had them to begin with.
     For successful treatment for MI, one has at least a duel process if not a tri-level process. Some MI issues only need counseling and training on the proper use of positive coping skills. In a tri-level process, medications may be needed to achieve this, sometimes short term medications and some are life long medications. We began the process many years ago with just counseling and positive coping skills, because I was not ready to place my children on medication in the fear that they would become dependant on it. I really believed that if we taught them what is ok to do and what is not ok to do then they would be fine.
      I am not saying that what I did back years ago was the right thing to do and I am not saying that I regret having held off on medication. This is where the hard science verses the soft science comes into play, MI is a trial and error process. You try the least restrictive methods first and go from there until you have reached the right level for optimal stability and then do your best to maintain that stability. Also just because you reach a stable point in your life does not mean you will always be stable, that takes time, patience, skilled professionals and willingness to learn and continue to implement the proper skills learned.
     Even with doing all these above mentioned things, instability can arise because of sickness, body chemistry changes, onset of puberty, the cycle of menus in females and many more that I have not mentioned. Any doctor will tell you that your body chemistry and makeup changes every seven years, so what works for a season in your life may not work forever. This is why it is so important for people dealing with MI to be in constant care of a profession who is trained to see these signs early and be able to catch them before one becomes too unstable and "tweak" the treatment.
      Life for someone who deals with MI in themselves or a loved one is a never ending process. Yes you have good times when stability is reached and you cherish those times because you never know when the tough times are going to show it's ugly face again. It could be a week, a month, a year later but most of the time, at least in what I have experienced, stability does not last forever. I struggle with the thoughts of "why me?",  "Why my kids?", "When is this going to end and life gets back to normal?".
     In addition to these questions that really have no answers are the thoughts I will never put to words outside of my head. I despise them even having a place in my head but this is reality. Thoughts like...."I hate him when he does........." "I cant stand her when she did....." "something is wrong with her because she said......" and the list can go on and on, hundreds of pages long. I even find myself saying I don't know how much more of this I can take but I also keep reminding myself of one thing. In all of these statements I say it is in reference to what the person did and not the person itself.
     My love for my children is one of the top 3 reasons why I continue to battle for my children's well being. My top 2 reasons are my love for God and the knowledge that He is there to help guild, support and bring to pass His peace and wonderful miracles in theirs and my life. One day I believe that we will come to a place where there is no MI, no need for medications and His glory will be proclaimed and until that day comes, I will love and support my children in any and all ways I can.
     I count my blessings and times when my children are stable. I put those memories in the back of my mind so that I can retrieve them when the times are tough and remind myself that things will get better. The times when we are sitting around the living room coffee table playing "Who Am I?" and we have goofy cards taped to our foreheads. Or the times when we are having a water fight outside and trying to get as many as we can sopping wet. The times when we are sitting around the kitchen table drawing a still life while DD #1 descriptively writes what she sees (she loves to write but hates drawing). These are the times I plant in my head to try and over shadow the hard memories of instability. Taking those bitter times and replacing them with the sweet ones.