Living With Madness

My four guys all have OCD, my husband has bipolar and left the workforce two years ago, my eldest son has schizoaffective disorder, my next eldest son has depression and anxiety and is being monitored for psychosis and my youngest son has Tourette's. Not surprisingly.

Every night the house gets rearranged and every morning rearranged again. You can never find anything and NOTHING in this house is sacred.

Son J is having weight loss surgery and had to get his sleep apnea sorted out first. So now he is on a CPAP machine. And none too soon because his snoring was driving son G crazy. Son G, to escape the sound of son J snoring, was camping out in the garage. In the end, even that didn't work and now son G is awake all night while son J is asleep. Son C is the only one still at school and he is hanging on by a thread.

My husband's conversation is innocent enough but not always sane. For example, he once suggested what a cool idea it would be for letterboxes to be underground. He is adamant about the merit of his ideas and it upsets the boys no end.

So I am working full time of course and trying to counsel everyone to be tolerant of everyone else.

And now that son J is through the worst part of his psychotic illness ie he is established in the system, complying with medication and has a network of support, it is not actually all that bad. We are coping.

But why does it have to be so hard to get to that point?