The Light

Recently, Jack and I were discussing a sports figure, who was assaulted during a sporting event. This person, though not badly injured, recovered fairly quickly from her injuries, but emotionally, never recovered at all. Although she returned to play once again, she retired very early on, and has become somewhat of a recluse. So very sad to see, as she was amazingly talented, and gifted, with a bright future.

This got me thinking about my own life. I have not always been Maribeth Sunshine. In fact I have fought living in the darkness for many years. And for me to have found my way to where I am, right now, surprises even me. Let me explain.

I’m Bipolar. Okay, there I have said it. Whew! After years and years, of keeping my illness, hush-hushed, I decided to come out of the closet and share with all of you, not only the struggles of this illness, but the joy one can have when they are regulated on their medication.

If I am honest, I can say that I knew as far back as 5th grade, that something was very different inside of me.

I married early and had my children. I loved being a Mom, but even then, as they grew I found myself fighting the demons of depression. Anorexia set in and my doctor told me that this was the cause of my depression.

I was in the terrible car accident and my daughter was killed, and the depression became debilitating. It was as if I was in molasses. I could hardly move. I could not think.

Divorce was next in my life and it wasn’t a great thing to go through. I found a small apartment, a job at a local grocery store, and I started to try to learn how to live. But the depression was there. And getting worse every day.

I had known Jack for many years as a friend. He saw me pretty much abandoned by everyone and I think he also saw that emotionally I was not doing well at all. In fact I felt like I was drowning.

Our courtship was short and we married pretty quickly after our divorces came through. Jack saw that I needed to get away, and he provided many opportunities, as a pilot for Pan American World Airways.

  We flew all over the world. If there was an empty seat on his plane, I was in it.    

I saw people and places I had only dreamed of. We had a sailboat and sailed the Intracoastal Waterway from Miami to Maine and back again. We lived on Jack’s apple farm in New Hampshire, with his dog, Rex and a kitten I’d gotten, Tigger and his cat, Dottie.

Most of the time, I was doing okay, but there would be the dark moods, which came, before the high mood returned. During this time, I learned to run, and the running helped me to control the darkness.

We moved five years after we married to Florida. We’d found a beautiful home, in a lovely town and everything seemed idealic. I found a Psychiatrist that I felt comfortable with. He diagnosed me with Bipolar Illness. This was the first mention of this disease affecting me. Reading up on it, I knew that this was me. Finally I knew what was wrong. This was 1996.

In 1998 Jack retired from flying and one day I sat down with Jack and said, “I want to go home to New Hampshire”.

Jack flew up, stayed with friends, and eventually found the land we built our house on. Our Florida house sold in three weeks, and we packed up and were in New Hampshire in April of 1999. Work began on the house, while we lived in our camper. With two dogs, Max and Shubi, and one cat, Tigger. It was a long process, but by Christmas of 1999, we were living in the house.

I was still rather unstable with my Bipolar Illness. But moving back to New Hampshire was the best thing I ever did. I found a Psychiatrist whose specialty was medications. Within six months, I was finally stable on Depakote.

It’s strange when you are stable. You never reach those wild highs and the lows are also tempered. It’s not perfect. But it is so much better than being off the medication.

Then one day recently, after Jack was home from the hospital, my cousin mentioned that I was dwelling in the dark again. Not looking at the happiness around me.

At first her words hurt me, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that she was right. So I decided to start thinking differently.

I start each day thinking positively. I look around me and see the good things in life. Not just the things that happened today, but over my lifetime. For all the difficult things I have lived through in my life, there have been a hundred times as many, that fill me with sheer joy.  I have to concentrate of living in the light. I want to hold tight to the good memories, while creating new wonderful ones. As I do this, life becomes better and better.

I do not want people to say, “Poor Maribeth, she lost her child, and then lost her mind”. I want them to say, “Wow! Look at Maribeth! She had so many challenges, and yet she chooses to live in the light!”