Wow.

I'm in Tennessee at my parents' house. The one they're trying to get on the market so they can sell it and move to Boston. I got here last night, and I'll be here until the 10th, for the beginning of Passover (which starts Friday night) and to clean out my room and help with other parts of the house. We moved to this house when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, so there's quite a bit of accumulated stuff...

While I'm here, I get to see and deal with my brother in a full-on manic/hypomanic episode (I'm pretty sure I've mentioned his bipolar diagnosis here before).

And... Wow.

I can't even begin to describe to you how much his illness is currently affecting me, not to mention the rest of my family. He was diagnosed at 17 and he'll be 31 in less than 3 weeks. But since I live so far away, I have very little to no experience actually being physically present during his episodes (he's also been quite stable and functioning very well for much of the last 14 years). I've spoken to him on the phone at times during them, and I've heard what my parents have relayed to me, but I haven't actually "lived it" until now.

And... Wow.

It's 7:20 am, and I've been awake since 6:30 (when I woke up to pee, but I'm pretty sure I'd been dreaming about my brother and his issues), and I can't fall back to sleep. I can't get him and his shit out of my head. All I can do is cry. So I thought blogging it out might help.

He doesn't make sense. He was here for about 4 hours last night, barely stopped talking the whole time, and said exactly two sentences the whole time that actually made any sense. He randomly breaks into song (actual and made up), raises his voice very loud, yells, throws things (not at anyone, just onto the carpeted floor), slams things around (the door, a glass onto a glass table, etc.), interrupts, changes the subject, demands things (i.e. TURN OFF THE TV!!!), stands up, sits down, paces, leaves the room, walks away... You really have to watch what you say to him so you don't set him off (not that you can really tell what will set him off anyway). As my dad put it, it's not that he has a short fuse, he has NO fuse. Lovely.

He puts his keys and phones down (yes, he carries around two phones - one broken and one not, don't ask me why - he really doesn't make any sense!) and within a minute forgets where they are. Yet my dad trusts him when he says he's taking his medicine. How can he possibly be remembering to take medicine - not to mention the right ones and the right doses - twice a day, when he can't remember where he put his keys down literally a minute ago?!

This episode has been going on for 6 weeks or so now. He was hospitalized for one of them (and in my opinion was let out way too soon). My mom was away for two of them (in Boston for one, and then vacationing in the Southwest with my sister the next), and my dad's trip to Boston and then NY for the same two weeks had to be cancelled so he could stay home and "babysit" my brother. My mom is close to tears much of the time when my brother is around, because it's so upsetting. My dad is pretty good with him (although I don't always agree with how he handles things), but he's starting to lose his patience.

Before coming here, I had built up a LOT of anger around all of this. It's all I talk about with my therapist anymore. I knew I was angry - I could feel it. I've gone to a support group for family members and friends of people with bipolar a few times that's been somewhat helpful. But I've just been so mad about this whole thing. What it does to him, but really, what it does to ALL OF US. How much it affects so many other people besides him, and he can't and doesn't see it or therefore care.

I KNOW he can't help it. I KNOW it's not him - it's the disease. I know... but for some reason it's still just so hard to separate out the two, and to only be mad at the disease, not at him. And not to blame him.

My reaction to my brother was different than I thought it would be. I'm not exactly sure what I thought it would be, but I wasn't expecting this. I could barely make eye contact with him. I was almost scared of him, in a way. I didn't know how to act or react. I didn't know what to say or not say. Maybe I was just afraid I'd lose it, because that's been my fear - that I won't be able to hold back my anger and I'll just let loose and yell at him (which I know full well would NOT be at all helpful!). I wasn't looking forward to seeing him, and I couldn't wait for him to leave, and I HATE that.

So now lying here in bed this very early morning, not able to sleep, what has me most upset and crying? That I think I've made (or at least want to make) a specific parenting decision, my very first one...

I will not expose my daughter to this. I do not want him around her when he's like this.

I guess this is the "protective mama bear" thing kicking in. But there are so very many problems with this parenting decision that I can't even begin to process.

I want to tell my parents that if my brother is there, and he's manic, my daughter and I send our regrets, but will not be there (at whatever family function or holiday celebration or just dinner or whatever it is). But that's not fair to my parents, and would seriously upset them. They'd basically have to choose between two of their children, and I don't want to do that to them. And it's not that I don't want to see my brother, I just want to see him starring himself and his own personality, not bipolar's manic one.

I should probably state for the record that I've not saying I think my brother would do anything to actually physically hurt my child. But emotionally? She's screwed, and she's not even born yet, and that's just NOT FAIR! I've already apologized to her, out loud, for bringing her into this family (yes, while in tears, and several days ago, before I was even in Tennessee). I don't want her to have to be exposed to his craziness so early on, before she even gets to know what "normal" people are like. She'll be learning and developing so much in her early life, and is THAT what I want her to be learning? No - it's as simple as that.

I don't even want her to be exposed to all the stress we all feel in regards to my brother. I realize I can't control that as much, and I also realize that life isn't perfect, and that she WILL be exposed to stress and craziness at times in her life, regarding my brother or not. But still. Do I really have to start out her life that way?? Not if I can help it. I just have to somehow figure out how to balance my child's needs with those of the rest of my family - not just my brother, but my parents and sister as well. And that doesn't seem like such an easy task!

There's obviously this huge issue with what happens with/to my brother when my parents move to Boston. He depends on them SO much right now (not really financially, at least not yet, but emotionally), his wife just left him (that's a whole other story entirely, yet related very much to his illness), and he'll really have no support system whatsoever in Tennessee. My parents want him to move to Boston, too (although not in with them), but he doesn't want to. And he's a legal adult, so they can't make him move. So what's the plan? There is no real plan, not as far as I can see. I think they hope he's stable by the time they move, and then they'll deal with things as they come, since they can't know what exactly will happen or when to be able to plan for it.

I wanted him to move to Boston, too... until last night. I very much - desperately, in fact - want him to get the help he needs, but not in my territory! And how selfish is THAT?! But I most certainly don't want him bringing this shit up to my neck of the woods, and infecting my world, and my soon-to-be brand-new daughter's world, with it. No, thank you. That is so NOT how I want the beginning of my daughter's life to be.

And then once I realized that I don't want to subject her to this after she's born, I realized that I really don't even want to be subjecting her to this in utero, either! The stress I feel affects her in some way, I'm sure. And supposedly she can hear now, so she can likely hear when he yells things. And as I said to my parents after he finally left last night, I don't know if I can stay here for 10 days. I hate that - SO MUCH - but I just don't. I also hate that I wasn't even looking forward to seeing my brother, in fact I was dreading it. And that in and of itself makes me cry! I don't want to feel that way! My parents reassured me that he won't be here every day, and that it'll be easier as I adjust to it, that it's probably especially hard since this is really my intro to his mania. I just really wish I didn't ever have to be introduced to it...

Ok, maybe I can sleep now. It's 8, and I have to be up and have the bed made by 9:30, because the photographer is going to be here taking pictures of the house for the realtor's website.

Thank you for listening. I REALLY needed to get all of that out!