This is the first time I have written here.  I have a hard time with this, because I feel for my husband who has bipolar but I also feel bad for the kids and I.  I am 37 with 4 kids and used to be so incredibly in love with my husband of 20 years.  I wish someone would have told me in high school that it was a severe mental illness and not immaturity.   I had no idea what mental illness was until I had to experience for myself what a devastating thing this is.  I have the most amazing kids, so I can’t say I would have made a different decision on marrying him, but if they were not in the picture, then I definitely would have chosen to just be friends.  I have had to deal with everything from drinking, drugs, cheating, verbal abuse, arrests, car accidents, lying, leaving the family multiple times, etc……  

 I consider myself to be a very patient and caring person, but there comes a point where you don’t even know if you think life is worth living when you have had to deal with so much.  I wanted so badly for a better life when I got older due to my Dad’s metal illness and I stepped into something even harder.  I can’t change it for my kids.  They have seen and heard things that no kid should ever have to deal with.  I am scared for the people they will become as they get older due to their circumstances.  This is what I have a problem with.  All I hear is ‘end the stigma’.  I will be completely honest, and say there will always be stigma when the illness affects others so profoundly.  How about instead of ‘end the stigma’, we should be saying 'end the pain and suffering by pouring more resources into the cause and making it a national emergency’.  Not just for those suffering, but the loved ones as well.  Sometimes us 'care takers’ become so called 'mentally ill’ because of all the pain we have to endure.  Don’t know where to go from here.  Want to stay and help and also want to run as far away as I can.  I guess time will tell what will happen to our family, but it can’t keep going on like it has for another 20 years.  My 'hope’ is dwindling fast.  I’m tired of wishing my life away!