Written by Dr. Donna Nicholson
Content Warning: Suicide, Self-harm
In the summer of 1990, I learned that your life can change in the twinkling of an eye. Mine did and it was never the same again. My husband was a respected bank president who had reached middle age and was seeking something he could do that would test his mettle. To that end, he and two friends, all experienced horsemen, decided to take a horse packing trip to the Weminuche Wilderness in Colorado. This is an area which offers some of the most dangerous landscape in that state. So on a morning in late June of 1990 as the dawn was beginning to break, I watched with a terrible foreboding as the convoy of horse trailers and trucks which was just a dark silhouette crawled down our driveway toward the highway that would take it to the mountains.
Within ten minutes of their arrival at the entrance to the Weminuche Wilderness the horses had been unloaded, saddled, and packed. Each man was riding a horse and pulling one behind as a pack horse. The man at the back of the line did not realize when loading his pack horse, he had not secured the tin coffee pot and lid far enough apart. When they began to move out the coffee pot scraped loudly against the lid. That spooked the horse, and he began to run which sent the others into a stampede. My husband was in the front of the line and his horse began running toward a sheer drop off. He turned her head to redirect her, and she bucked him straight into the air. He came down face first on the very rocky terrain. He hit the frontal lobe of his brain and was unconscious. The other five horses could not stop and ran over him.
It was ultimately determined that he had sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury which had in turn caused bipolar disorder (that happens in about 9% of TBIs). I would eventually learn that bipolar disorder is the world’s sixth leading cause of disability; 3.5 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury each year; and traumatic brain injury is considered by the U.S. Department of Defense as one of the signature injuries of troops wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. I would also learn from doctors the fact that my husband sustained a blow to the frontal lobe was related to his behavior. The frontal lobe is where executive decision making takes place. Those functions include but are not limited to organization, impulse control and decision making. All are critical to everyday life.
I began the search for books and other information that could help me understand and effectively deal with my husband’s condition. There was nothing. However, I was living with plenty of examples of manifestations of both TBI and bipolar. I was now dealing with a husband I had loved for almost thirty years who had disappeared. Although he looked the same on the outside he was becoming more and more of a stranger on the inside. He was delusional, hallucinatory, paranoid and would cycle between mania and depression. He refused to take his medicine consistently no matter how hard I tried to get him to, and he absolutely would not consider working with a psychologist or psychiatrist.
He gave $10,000 dollars away in a 24-hour period before I found out and could limit his access to our bank accounts. His first commitment came in November following his accident. We had some friends over for dinner when my husband started talking about monetary systems and the use someday of smart cards (This was before debit cards.). He moved from that to stating he was going to go around the world helping people and then he declared he was Jesus. That was when I slipped away to the other room to call the doctor. He arrived in record time with a signed committal order from the county judge. He told me the law was clear that the county sheriff would have to transport him, and I could not ride with him. As I watched the sheriff’s car pull away, I felt such pain for my husband. He not only was not well but he was now also alone.
I finally found a book An Unquiet Mind by Dr. Kay Jamison Redfield. She is a faculty member of Johns Hopkins University. More importantly she is bipolar. I couldn’t read her book fast enough and I began to understand what I was experiencing with my husband. She explained why people who are bipolar often will not take their medicine. She said the manic loop of bipolar is as additive as cocaine or heroin. The difference is that the first high you get with cocaine or heroin is as good as it gets. The high from the mania just gets better with each episode. Dr. Redfield used to call the manic high she got dancing on the rings of Saturn because the high was out of this world and who would voluntarily give that up.
As I neared the end of ten years after the accident, my husband as I knew him was now completely gone. I not only didn’t love this stranger I didn’t even like him and he was leaning toward violence. I knew I was going to have to leave him. That happened when our son came home after he left the Navy. He had been home about twelve hours when my husband declared he was going to get his gun and blow our son’s head off! I sent my son to get help and I settled my husband down. Our divorce was final seven months later.
My husband moved to Arizona after our divorce where he had so many run-ins with the police that he was facing prison time. In November 1999 he pulled his truck onto the Zuni Indian Reservation where he put his 45 under his chin and pulled the trigger.
If you are struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicidal ideation, you’re not alone. Call 988 for immediate support: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Call. Text. Chat. (988lifeline.org)
Continued in Part Two
