I do my best brooding in the shower, especially on a cold October day like today, gray as cinder, an all-day rain-snow-sleet sludge pelting the doomed snapdragons in my wife’s garden, and there’s Minnesota in 2020 for you in one snapshot.
I sound like a sourpuss, because who isn’t one these days. But I’ve got hope. My wife’s late-onset bipolar disorder has stabilized, thanks to good fortune, great docs, and the right meds. A few summers ago, though, I nearly lost my own mind during her initial rageful manic episode, a couple years before I nearly lost her altogether from her suicide attempt during her second severe depression.
I brooded about that today, about the pain of a loved one’s invisible illness. About an AARP report this month suggesting two thirds of the adult population in the United States is suffering social isolation and anxiety during the pandemic. About how millions of people are trapped in their own homes and in their own minds, closed off to the help they need. How most people, especially these stoic Midwesterners I shovel snow alongside, would rather wallow in silence over a hot bowl of mush than tell anyone what a desperate hole they’re sinking in.
Well, when the stress of caregiving for a woman with eyes popping out of her head got to me, I, for one, fessed up. I needed help and found it. . . .
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