It's kind of funny the way your mind will try to soothe and deceive you. You might think you're aware of the situation, painfully aware of all the possibilities, good and bad. But it probably isn't the case. You've probably begun lying to yourself so you can live in the safe world again. Building that safe world back up again, brick by brick, until you're so walled in or walled out that there's no way back again.
When Craig came back into my life a few years ago, when he was in grade nine, I accepted that Albert was being abusive toward him. It was okay because Craig wasn't my kid, he was just a kid who was in a rough situation, like a million kids were. Sure, he was Julia's son, but that wasn't the same as him being my son. He was Albert's son, and Albert was hurting him, and I came to the rescue. That feels good. It's good to be the positive, saving force in someone's life. If someone had been hurting Angela, however, that would have been different. Angela was mine, and the feelings over her being hurt would have been different, deeper, cutting with little teeth until I couldn't stand the pain. Don't get me wrong. I felt bad for Craig, but not in the same way I would have felt bad if it was Angela.
It sounds kind of callous, I know, but that was back then, before he had really become a part of this family. He was a virtual stranger. I'd seen him on only a handful of weekends, and then Albert tightened up the reigns and Julia got sick and I didn't see him for a long time. Once it was clear how hurt he was, suicidal and being beaten all the time, I felt sorry for him and upset over the situation. But it was almost like watching a movie about it, or seeing something on the news. You feel bad, but not as bad as if it was your own baby daughter that you had seen and held and read to every day of her little life.
Things went pretty well, once he moved in and then once Albert died. I mean, Craig became a part of my family, a part of my heart. Things were fine, I thought. He had friends and he had girlfriends and he played the guitar and he seemed like an average, normal teenager. This is what you want. Normal and average, because that is where happiness lies. I didn't know what those traumatic experiences might do to him. What if he became depressed? Or a drug addict or a drinker? What if he had anger issues, school issues, attention issues? Trust issues? I didn't know. Of course, there were things I didn't know, but he seemed okay.
He seemed okay until grade 11. Grade 11. And I lied to myself, or saw only half truths, or pieced together parts of a story from overheard bits that were too disjointed to make any sense. I knew the money from his father upset him, but I wasn't so sure as to why. Did he feel like his father was still trying to buy him, his forgiveness and love? Did it remind him of the lavish gifts he got after awful beatings? Did it remind him of the pain of love, the pain of his relationship with his father? I didn't know. And I didn't bother to talk to him about it because, because, I don't know that, either. Craig was 16, and that's still young and still troubled and still an age where guidance is needed and I didn't do it. I didn't talk to him and I didn't help him and maybe I didn't think the money was that big a deal.
I had money issues of my own. The business was failing, in a way. It was complicated, but it had to do with the economy and people buying food and paying rent instead of buying cars and there was the whole bus and rail car system in Toronto so people could make do. So bills went unpaid and rent went unpaid and the stack of unpaid bills was growing a fine furry coat of dust and I found myself buying macaroni and cheese instead of steak and if things didn't change I didn't know where we'd be. And I saw Craig buy that expensive guitar and I felt this pang of anger, not so much at him but at the situation in general and myself and I wanted that money even though I knew it was wrong. It wasn't mine and I had no right to it but times were tough, baby. Times were tough.
So I asked Craig for rent money, not thinking it through, not seeing it as he would see it. I asked because he had a ton of money and I was struggling. He would probably think that I didn't see him as my son but just a border in my house, someone who should pay for his keep, and then he would think I didn't love him like I loved Angie and by the time he was in grade 11 that wasn't true. I loved him like my very own son and the things that hurt him hurt me and I couldn't believe I asked him for the rent money like that. And he left. He took off and stayed with Sean and it wasn't lost on me that he hardly ever hung out with Sean anymore and it wasn't lost on me that he had gone to Sean when his father almost killed him with the golf club that fateful day.
This brings us to the bipolar. Bipolar. I've read up on this, and I knew it is a mood disorder, a major mental illness characterized by mood swings, by manic behavior and depression. I knew that some bipolar individuals would spend a lot of money, dress flamboyantly, behave in such a way that can be overwhelming. The talking. Craig spent a lot of money and was violent, another feature of the illness, but there is the talking. He was never particularly talkative, though he could be at times. When he first moved in with me he was quiet. Watchful. Scared. He hid being scared, or tried to, but I saw it in his eyes, his movements. Now, though, the talking. It is amazing, that someone can talk so much. It isn't normal. You feel flooded by their words, the weird flow of ideas from one topic to another, and this is called "flight of ideas,"
The bipolar. This was something to deal with, a challenge to be met head on. And I met it. I got him help, I got him the psychiatrists and the medications and I dealt with it. And I thought I understood that there was no quick fix, that it would be an ongoing illness, something to deal with, I thought I understood this. But I didn't. I treated it like a car accident, and when he was in the hospital it was like he was in a body cast, bones knitting themselves back together. And when he came home, curiously subdued and even sleepy on all the meds, I thought he was better. Psychiatrist, meds, all better. I didn't know I thought that, I thought I understood what everyone was telling me. Yes, this is a major mental illness. Yes, he will have to manage medications and doctor appointments and mood swings and all of that for the rest of his life. The rest of his life. It doesn't go away. It can be managed, like diabetes can be managed. But diabetes will eventually take your eyesight and your kidneys and your limbs. What would this take?
It takes something to happen, sometimes, to wake you up to what you really think. It took finding those pills in the wastebasket upstairs and understanding that Craig had run away, and not just like he had run away from his father in grade nine. This was different. He wasn't on the meds. He wasn't thinking right. What was he running from? Ashley's rejection? Me and Caitlin fighting? The demons in his own mind?
I felt bad for Craig because of this, and I kind of wondered about the difference between how he was and how he is, because it is different. And what I wonder about is the brain thing. Bipolar may be caused by some chemical imbalance in the brain since lithium is so effective with it. So has this imbalance caused him to be like another person? Has it really affected his personality in some way? If it hadn't happened this way would there have been a different sort of person walking around, one who wouldn't have spent all that money and had those crazy ideas and punched me in my own living room?
So here I sit, worrying and waiting while Craig is gone, and I realize that now I know what this bipolar really is. It is something that will never go away. It is something that will put Craig at a disadvantage for the rest of his life. It is something that will land him in the hospital and possibly jail, it is something that will destroy relationships and careers and everything it touches.