Equinox

It's the equinox.  Happy Mabon!

I used to love the long, hot days of summer.  The hotter, the better.  The more humid, the better.  Longer light lifted me.

Now though, I'm happy it's the autumn equinox.  Want the shorter days and longer nights.  Less light.  Our son, struggling with bipolar disorder and home now, on so many, many drugs, seems to do so much better in the time of less light, the time of less warmth.  He's slowly improving.  Starts an outpatient psychiatric program next week.  Again.  Like last year.

Only this isn't like last year.  This year, I've kept working.  I am stone.  Falling apart won't make any of this any better for me, or for him, or for my patient and silently strong husband, or for his older brother.  I need to hold on.  Advocate for him.  And, so importantly, stand back.  He's 23.  He will have to be compliant with the medication requirements, live his life, make his choices, recognize his illness and also see how much more he is than just that.  That he is not defined by it.

Still long days ahead.  However, not so long as the summer ones I used to love.  Crisp, shorter, cooler days and I see him in his eyes again, a little bit.  It seems that he wasn't there for so long.

Prescribed Behaviours

We're going to the hospital again today.  Most of our time revolves around when we can go, how long we can stay, what we will bring, how things will go.  On weekends, we can spend longer in the afternoons with him and come home for dinner.  During the week, Ron picks me up from work and we go over, taking an hour break to go grab something to eat in a restaurant.

We were saying yesterday that he doesn't seem much different.  On the up side, he does not appear to have progressed and become worse.  Maybe we just have to be more vigilant.  Maybe, if it is caught sooner, a change in meds will stop it from coming on full force.  Or maybe, maybe this will be it and he won't have to go through this any more.  Maybe all the things he works so hard for the rest of the time will be allowed to exist for him.  Maybe the school and the job and the girl will all be there when this is over.  Again.