Love, Marriage And Mental Illness
By Kimberly Zapata
October 19, 2007 was a beautiful day. It was unseasonably warm, but comfortable enough for this Florida girl. I can still remember the feeling in the air. It was heavy and humid, and the grey skies lit up with the occasional flash of lightning, like energy coursing its way through universe.
Red and yellow leaves cracked beneath my stark white heels. And while the ground was wet and muddy, I didn’t mind; everything was perfect.
But then again, it’s easy to remember your wedding day that way. Relationships, however, are not perfect — they are far from it.
In fact, the years that have followed since my wedding day have been extra trying because of my mental illness.
Of course, my husband has never known me without it. I was diagnosed with depression when I was 15. I first heard the term “anxiety” when I was 19, and learned I was bipolar in my early thirties. Mental illness has always been a part of me — a part of us — but that doesn’t mean he fully understood what he was getting into when he promised “in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.”
Because when I am “sick,” I am very sick. I am angry or apathetic. I am drained or overly energetic, and whether I am depressed or manic doesn’t matter. I am not the loving, thoughtful, attentive wife he wants. I am not loving, thoughtful, and attentive woman he deserves.
But my mental illness is more than just a list of textbook symptoms. When I am in the grips of a depressive episode, dishes are not washed and dinner is not cooked. Our relationship becomes loveless and sexless, and our home becomes a physical manifestation of my mood, with floors unswept, beds unmade, mail unopened, and everything in complete disarray.
