Free All the Things We Never Knew by Sheila Hamilton Page A

when he told me his family was the most important thing he’d ever had. And given what I now know about how difficult it is to cope with the destructive and alienating thoughts of bipolar illness, I’m in awe of David’s capacity for holding his life together as long as he did. I was coping, too, during those difficult years, so that Sophie might grow up in a household with the one man who would always love her unconditionally.
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    FOR CAREGIVERS

    The symptoms of unipolar and bipolar depression are such that caregivers can feel enormous frustration in attempting to support a person who seems uninvested in recovery. Many family members report loved ones sleeping as much as twenty hours a day, refusing to participate in household chores, and canceling social engagements. People with mental illness may stop attending to their own grooming, causing frustration and embarrassment for other family members.
    More than forty million women are the primary caregivers for a sick person, very often the man they married. In The Caregiving Wife’s Handbook, Dr. Diane Denholm advises caregivers to avoid assuming roles and jobs because someone else thinks we should and to realize that sacrificing yourself completely will not make the sick person well. Also, Denholm advises that the caregiver should never accept abusive or dangerous behavior.
    During the acute phase of David’s mental health breakdown, loved ones and friends would often call to ask how he was doing. Very few people recognized the emotional and physical toll I was under as I cared for our daughter, kept a household afloat on one income, and managed the emotional heartbreak of witnessing David’s deteriorating physical and mental health. I am most grateful for the friends who did not judge, but who listened.
    The mental health of the caregiver is also at risk during the time of acute care. Denholm advises taking care of yourself first, by eating well, exercising, and arranging assistance in order to get needed sleep. Denholm says if you become depressed, feel excessively guilty or angry, or fear becoming abusive, it is time to step away from your role, if only temporarily.

Chapter Five
    May 21, 1998. Sophie’s cry didn’t sound right. It was too distressed, too high-pitched. She woke me from a superficial sleep. The clock said two o’clock; that meant I’d been dozing for roughly two hours after finishing my shift at the TV station. I grabbed my robe from the foot of the bed and ran to the nursery.
    Sophie’s skin was hot to my touch; she was running a high fever, burning up through her pajamas. Her skin was flushed, her face swollen and lips dry from dehydration. Damn it , I thought to myself. This had happened before with Sophie, and I knew what it meant: another trip to the emergency room.
    I went back to the bedroom and dressed in the dark, quickly pulling on a pair of jeans and a zip-up hoodie. David stirred in the bed. “She’s sick, D. I’m taking her in.”
    He wiped his eyes, groaning. “Ugh, not again. Want me to come with you?”
    â€œThat’s okay.” I gathered my purse and cell phone. “One of us should sleep.” I swaddled Sophie in a blanket, trying to remember how many ear infections she’d had this year. Three times her fever had spiked up above 102, the point at which her doctor said she needed to be seen. These days I could tell how serious it was just by feeling her skin.
    Sophie was just short of her second birthday, and the ear specialist had warned us that her Eustachian tubes were still horizontal—the liquid in her ears didn’t drain properly. If the infections persisted, he wanted to perform surgery to put in artificial tubes.
    I tucked her in her car seat and drove through the night to the Legacy Emmanuel Emergency Room in North Portland. The pediatric waiting room was full of mothers just like me who looked worried, pensive, and haggard.
    Three hours