So there are the moments when my son is manic but does not recognize the mania before it becomes too intense that make me chuckle. Bless his heart, he can sit there rocking back and forth in a chair saying over and over and over again, "I'm so happy, I'm just so happy...ha ha ha...I'm so happy" and when you ask him, "Do you think you might be TOO happy, son?" He says, "NO! How can you be too happy!!!"
Well, these moments come a couple of times a week and it is important to remember that the person with mental illness does not know when their crazy is showing, kind of like the person unaware of the toilet paper on their shoe or that woman who tucked the back of her dress into her panty hose. It's funny and still a little bit sad but you just can't help but laugh. One night while I was in law school, he decided to play hide and seek...but he didn't tell anyone. Okay, seriously...that's funny! Finally, after realizing it was too quiet in my house, I came out and asked the respite worker, "Where's Lexi?" and she looked around and said she wasn't sure. Shortly thereafter, not getting anyone to hunt him down, he decided to storm our house. Yep, the neighbors loved that one. Again I tried to ask, "do you think maybe this might be a bit manic, honey?" and I got a resounding"NO! I"M JUST REALLY REALLY HAPPY!!!"
He has found a friend at church, older then him, who also has bipolar and he loves to go hang out with him and talk to him. I never fail to crack myself up by asking if he and his friend are planning to talk about their ups and downs. It's just too easy. Sometimes when he comes home from school I use the same joke, "How was your day honey?" he will reply, "I don't know, okay I guess." and I have to throw back, "up and down?". Really, it's all for self amusement! Sometimes he catches it but most of the time he doesn't.
The easiest humor is in the hallucinations. Yep, he has gotten so delusional he hallucinates. Now, when he has the hallucinations, they are not funny BUT this does not stop me from making light of them AFTER. Seriously, hallucinating is scary and embarrassing stuff so I like to diminish the power of it's fear by finding humor. At one point he was hearing whispering, it wasn't clear, couldn't make out what it was saying, just whispers. So for this one, my daughter and i have decided we want to get a really good sound system in the house where we could whisper in to speakers around him wherever he goes things like, "beeeee niiicccceee to your moooottthhhherrr...cllleeeeaaaannn your ssssiiiiissstteeerrsss rooooommm" and see what will happen.
One day he also hallucinated a red basketball. A really benign hallucination but he was sure it was there. Hard to explain how these things happen but trust me, it happened. So, we have since looked for the basketball and have not yet found it in our plain of reality. I laugh and tell him if he ever is really messing with my head, I'm going to go buy a bunch of red basketballs and hide them all over the place, in his bed, in his seat in the car, at the diner table, etc. I still might actually get him a red basketball for Christmas. He totally laughs at this I promise you. The red basketball became a very analytical moment in our discussion of hallucinations and how the brain works but because it is so harmless, I so want to play with it to help diminish his fear about his hallucinations. Don't you think it would be funny to get a red basketball for Christmas? I do.
I have been dealing with the funny of autism for years and have so much material on "sometimes autism is funny". I got tired of people thinking autism is a tragedy. It is not. It is just who they are and if we treat them like they are a tragedy then they won't learn to accept themselves in any other way. It really is funny when my daughter and I went to the grocery store and he started to flip out so I would escort, carry etc him to the car and close the doors and lock him in until he calmed down. He was safe but couldn't open the doors without setting off the car alarm so he would tantrum in the car wildly like the tasmanian devil. The car would rock and there was faint screaming heard and my daughter and I would sit on the curb watching him, waiting patiently for him to calm down, chit chatting. Sometimes the tasmanian devil would come out while we were driving. On our way somewhere and all seatbelted in and safe, he would just start screaming, and hitting the car door, the seat and fighting his seat belt because something irritated him, the sunlight, the seatbelt, the smell of the car, the sound of a motorcycle, etc. My girl and I just ignored it, she quietly whispers sons to herself and I calmly sit like it isn't happening and listen to my NPR. I always giggle a little and wonder what the folks staring at us might be thinking. Ha.
The point is, it isn't all tragic. parts of bipolar, autism tourettes suck BIG but parts are funny and we need to honor that. I can't hug my son, our bodies can not touch, he flinches at the human touch like I am poison to him...doesn't feel good as a Mom but is it fun to tell him if he doesn't clean his room he has to hug me...yep. Let's laugh a little, lets use the humor. It helps others feel more comfortable and it helps US feel more comfortable. I hate bipolar and I hate autism some days but at the same time they have expanded my heart and soul. More importantly, they give me great comedic material. How boring would life be with those dang "normal" kids. Man, we'd HAVE to watch t.v. as it stands now, we are self entertaining. :)
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