WRITING BOOK WAS ‘THERAPEUTIC’
How hard was it to relive some of those moments that you and Giulia experienced while you were writing, reviewing and editing this book?
There are some parts that I still can’t read without crying, especially the stuff that involves our son.
I’m a full-time teacher, so I’d spend the day at school, then I would come home, pick up our kid, play with him, cook dinner and put him to bed.
Then I had to psych myself up and go into the office and work on this for a few hours knowing that I had to relive some of the hardest moments I’ve gone through. There were some nights that I wasn’t up for it.
How does it feel to be on the other side of those hard writing days?
I feel like I put in the work to process what this (Giulia’s mental illness) meant for me and my life.
And I think Giulia, in reading the book, in all its different iterations, the two of us put in the work to come together as couple after these traumatic hospitalizations.
I look back and feel this was such a therapeutic and healing process for the both of us . . . As hard as it was, there’s no question it was worth it.
Do you have a message to those, at any age, who are working through mental illness, either themselves or as a caregiver to someone they love?
What I would say to people is twofold: First, I’ve become such a big believer in the impermanence of things.
Especially for someone who is going through a bout of depression or who is feeling suicidal, those feelings, although they can be so all-consuming, they are not permanent . . . you will not feel that way forever.
The other thing I would say, for someone on my side of the equation, as the caregiver, is how important it is to take care of yourself.
I threw myself at trying to fix things and I got so drained I wasn’t being a help anymore — I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I needed to, I wasn’t as healthy or as rested as I needed to be. You never know how long or short caregiving is going to be, so you need to take care of yourself so you can be up for the challenge.