Sometimes happiness just happens. I am saddened by the fact that for me it is often reflective, pondering the life I have to understand it. Sometimes feeling punished for the episodes bipolar presents, so I am intentional about gratitude, looking into my life and how it has preceded my understanding. From the little things like sleep to the big things like life, I do it with my family.

I get as much or as little sleep as my body desires. My husband, my seven year old and six year old tiptoe and breathe in silence, whisper under breaths, under breaths never to be heard. I’ve earned this privilege, not out of magic parenting, but bipolar disorder. Sleep is key to keeping my episodes in check, this especially during hypomanic episodes where I struggle to sleep. When I lay my head on the pillow an assault of thoughts meets in the arena that is my mind. Sleep does not come easy as my body fights restlessness, ants crawling under my skin forcing me to get up and do something. Sleep is what is needed to take the reins on a hypomanic episode, so no one bothers me when I sleep. My family has adapted to this truth. I sleep, they grant me sleep.

I keep company with them when we are out. A byproduct of hypomania, my grade B anxiety is upgraded to the point that it causes dysfunction in my life. We were at a food festival recently, and got in line- one of the many lines at all the food trucks present- and my husband suggested I get in another line to buy drinks. I took a deep breath and turned on my heel to do so. Five steps in and I felt the world closing in on me, people, people everywhere, people too close, people, too many people, I could hardly breathe, my chest tightened, my throat threatened to close on me, I couldn’t do it. I turned on my heel again, back towards my husband and children. My husband held me tight until it passed, he has learned to recognize the signs and words were not needed. We got our food then all got in line for drinks.

My children are accustomed to staying close to me even at home. I am in a constant skirmish with anxiety where I also constantly lose. Meditation has become a part of my writing ritual to create a safe emotional and psychological boundary as I write. Thing is, I cannot write knowing my children are watching tv or playing or things that children do in the safety of our home. Anxious thoughts take over my mind, playing every which possible danger that can come upon them without them being by my side. I bring them into my room to play or watch TV in my room as I work, where I can see them, where I can reassure myself with their safety under my watchful eye. All I say is, “Mommy needs to work on something now,” and they scurry into my room, understanding what I need.

I want them all, my husband included by my side all the time. Their company fills my days as I struggle with anxiety. Being around me so much sometimes proves a challenge for my husband who has the patience of a saint when I am hypomanic and have intensified irritability. He pours me a cup of coffee in a coffee mug and I pour it out exclaiming how it was a mug I hated. He turns around washing the mug and kisses my forehead. He understands I am in one of my states. I am sometimes highly irritable, and he is highly tolerant.

His forehead kisses are magic. They work in all my states, they soothe the festering wounds, especially ones that come to me in a depressive state. In its classical sense, I do experience depression, sometimes glued to the bed save the times I need to get up to do things for the children. At times I am numb and soulless, a ball of nothing. Scrap the play dates, scrap the weekend trip, scrap the trip to the mall, scrap family fun night, scrap, scrap, scrap. Priorities are rearranged to accommodate this passing spell. Forehead kisses and plans rescheduled.

Sometimes hypomania is a gift. I am blessed with creativity and productivity and joy – though my therapist would call it euphoria- and I am a blast to be around. When I am in this state especially, I reserve every possible minute for my children. I recover everything we forwent in my downtime. I am fully present and participatory. We pull out the board games-note, I hate board games- and we play together, something that brings my children much joy. I cook every meal with great pleasure, mine and my family’s. But then, they let me sleep.

Eventually with the sleep regulated and brain balanced, I fall into the baseline where the episodes are tucked away to be triggered another day. Here is where the cavalry is summoned to preserve this much prized state and my family delivers. We work together to avoid stressful situations and when we are in one, to help de-escalate the stress together. We work on avoiding triggers – my husband has learned so many of them to catch them even before I do. I walk the tightrope and they are under the rope holding my balance.

Keeping me in balance is something our family has taken to task. On the flipside, I am functional when we make the adjustments and compromises. Together we are able to do life. When I’m in a state I can be present, I am fully present, basking in the happiness that is my family. In the little moments of gratitude through the episodes and not, I am in happiness, whether it shows or not. My heart tells me I will make it through the hard times, I register happiness.

Writing this and recalling all the things written here and not, all that we have just adapted to has me astounded. I’m reminded of the learning curves we’ve had to take to get here. I wonder what it would look like if I compared my life and our quirks to other families. Different I’m sure, but aren’t all of us different anyway? All of us living life, loving each other and doing the best we can by each other. I think of the years to come, as my children get older, as my marriage ages and evolves, what our life will look like. With these thoughts, I recount the years that have passed with us evolving with the changes so far and I suppose we will continue evolving while strengthening the bond and foundations of our home. I used to house shame and guilt for all of this, my life. I used to harbor resentment for the illness that I did not ask for and that my family lives with. My husband and children have taught me the most important lesson in life. We are a family born of love and in love we live. I find joy in them and them in me, we live through these states together. Happiness happens.