What is Normal?

Learning

I alway had a choice. I didn't have to stay with Mike. I could have gone back to my life where I didn't have to learn how to handle such a mean and unfair disorder. But putting that aside, he was and still is the most wonderful man. So, I started reading. The first book I got out of the library was so old that it talked about old drugs that were used like thorezine and electric shock.
So I traded that in for Diagnosis Schizophrenia by Rachel Miller and Susan E. Mason. I ordered it from a book store because they didn't have any in stock. While I was talking to the cashier about there not being enough information out about the disorder for people like me who want to learn more and handle relationships better, she shared that her brother was also diagnosed with schizophreina. She told me that he was married, and didn't want children. She said that he had a very hard time when he was first diagnosed, but that he was now married and his wife was his rock.
That's kind of Ironic. Mike calls me his rock too.
Anyway, the book helped. So did a lot of the internet sites. The information helped me discuss it with Mike. It made me brave enough to make sure he knew to take his medication. I ask him everyday, because he takes it the same time, everyday. He has to.
That has been one of his biggest problems, remembering his medication. Without it the symptoms swoop in like a bird of prey and steal his true reality away from him in an instant.
Medication is so key. It is as essential as to his well being as sleep and food. Without it I know I would not have been here so long. He still has the "there is nothing wrong with me" attitude. My attitude is if "you don't take your medication I can't stay with you and be happy."
He takes his medication.
I have also learned that the symptoms come and go in a cycle, a very normal cycle. Almost like a woman's menstral cycle. The symptoms always come to head. Sometimes they are so extreem he is completely exhausted and withdrawn afteward. Others he gains control again quickly. It depends on the time of the month. (And if he has taken his medication consistantly). At least his does. I can always tell something is eating away at his brain. That something is not quite right, that the reality has turned into something he doesn't want to believe but has no control. He gets this look on his face. Its a confused, scared look. It is mostly in his eyes because expressions are so rare for him. Smiles and frowns are what I get most often. There is not much else in between.
I feel and felt so bad when I first found out that alls we did was talk. We would talk for hours until I talked him back from the edge of whatever dillusion he might have been having.
I reasured him over and over and over that what he saw or heard was not real and that it was a dillusion-now the talks don't last so long. He feels better quicker. But that took a lot of work. A lot of work and a lot of tears and anger and sometimes hate...somedays I hated his disorder. Someday's I still do. But I can't blame him anymore than I can blame someone who has cancer. It's not his fault and therefore, I had to find a way.