God

I've always been interested in the way that God permeates mental illness. I believe in God. I believe that He can speak to us in all sorts of ways. I believe that those who have faith and are committed to a relationship with God can truly feel and see his presence in their life and the world. So I am always curious about His appearances in the lives of people with mental illness. Dave and I walked a path toward faith for awhile. After a year or so of living in our very quaint little community we began attending church. I'm not sure if Dave was atheist or agnostic or just didn't think that Christianity had the monopoly on life everlasting, but we definitely came from very different religious backgrounds. So I was hopeful when we attended a course together and it seemed that our faiths were aligning. I had always wanted to share my faith with my husband. Unfortunately it didn't last long and Dave veered in another direction after our pastor said something negative about Buddhism. Then Dave's faith made a come back about a year later when his passion for saving us from the world ending was peaking. He believed that God wanted him to create a safe space for us and as many people as we could help, to live in when the world began destroying itself. Okay. So many red flags now but at the time I was submerged in this world he had created. I had no idea the depths to which his planning was going. So, through his most sick times Dave had a "God connection". Where did this come from? Was it real? Was it demonic? Was it something his mind had created as rationale for his actions? I'll never know. There was one time when I came up to Calgary looking for an apartment to rent and I asked him to come with me. This was at a time when he was living with family and was supposedly on medications...which he wasn't taking. Anyway, his "crazy" was continuing and as usual he was fairly good at hiding it. But on our drive around the city, at one point his eyes got all glossy and he began telling me how God was telling him things. There was such an eerie feeling in the car, almost palpable and it scared me. I don't remember the conversation exactly but I do recall telling him I didn't want to talk about that anymore. I had actively shut down that chapter of my life and I had no desire to continue it. Clearly Dave was still very sick but he was no longer my problem. Nor did I have any link to his psychiatric clinic or a contact to anyone who would listen. I couldn't deal with him anymore. But now, thinking about what that would feel like... Imagining for a second that I was hearing God's voice, or feeling like God was prompting me to do something....believing it was real and clear as day...that would be really overwhelming. Very compelling. And I could see this in Dave's eyes. He really believed it was true and what lowly human would disobey the very clear and compelling voice of "god". Dave's delusions were very very strong. Terrifyingly strong. Strong enough to bring about total collapse of our life together. I don't ask too many questions these days but once inawhile I'll ask him if he still does his "science stuff". He casually says no, seems almost bored with it. And who's going to argue with such a nice, easy going guy? I have no idea what he does when he's not with me and the kids. Not really sure why I ask.

At the Core

I don't think that schizophrenia has changed who Dave is at his core, but it changed almost everything else surrounding that core. With everything else altered, that core human being can't function as he once did. Dave was always so good at taking care of me when I was sick. He would cater to me, wait on me, take away all the worry and minimize the effects of whatever illness I was suffering from. He loved me....held my hair and rubbed my back while I threw up, rushed around trying to get me whatever I needed to help me. I knew that if I was staying home sick he would set up our bedroom for me with the laptop to watch movies, or at times he actually brought a tv up to our bedroom with a tall stack of movies for me to watch. He'd make tea, make soup, go to the pharmacy and get me medicine, make a nice hot bath for me, rub my feet, tuck me in bed. He did all of that for me. For several years! I got quite accustomed to that pampering. I loved it actually. I miss it and feel profoundly more alone when I'm sick, as I am now and have been a lot in the last couple months. I still feel that is who he is at his core. An immensely loving man who wants to care for his children. But he can't do that for me anymore. As Dave's illness progressed he still tried to care for me but it became rushed. He always had something else to do. Something else to get to. So the tuck-ins became more rushed, but he tried, that's for sure. It must have been difficult with his mind going a mile-a-minute and me trying to get him to sit with me and do the baby journal we would read together each night when I was pregnant. He would sit with me, however distracted and we would reach each day about what was happening with our babies as his mind was simultaneously pulling him away from me. He felt such stress and pressure to work on his science and math that he never did complete a page in the journal meant for the daddy to fill out. As the last few years of our marriage went on, I can now see how the disease crept up over him and grasped him, pulling him away. After the babies were born he tried so hard to do his 4 hour shift with the babies so I could sleep a little. I remember one night waking up after a blissful 6 hours of sleep to find that he hadn't slept at all, did two feeds with the twins all the while working on his science. It was chaotic. But amidst the chaos he always tried his best to take care of me. Now his mind is slower, possibly clearer, and he does what he can to help with the kids which sometimes feels like very little and other times it is a lot. But I can tell that multi-tasking is very hard for him. Well, its hard for many people not suffering from schizophrenia, but I've seen a decline in his ability to multi-task from where he was previously. I no longer have my husband, but at least the kids have their dad.