Bipolar Bug is Back in Town

Sometimes I feel like I should just not come home. If they didn't have an alarm that came on automatically each night I could start sleeping at work rather than coming home. I mean, I spend enough hours there as it is; I don't really do a whole lot at home other than sleep here. The one thing that happens at home that I could avoid by staying at work is being completely irritated and angered by my eldest child. He is bipolar and can't always help his behavior, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with.

My son has actually been doing pretty well, until he graduated in May. At first it was just little things that were happening, like drinking all of a special (non-alcoholic) drink the same day it was purchased without letting anyone else have any. Lately though, it is getting worse. He wants to stay up all night long (literally, he goes to bed when his brother gets up to go to school) and then sleep while everyone is at school. When he is awake and people are home, he is belligerent, uses inappropriate language (wouldn't be such a big deal if we didn't have a 9-year-old girl living here also), gets involved in every argument in the house, and says cruel things like."It would be a lot better if you keeled over.". He doesn't do anything positive like help out around the house or even search for a job. I mean, he's applied to a job here or there, but he isn't really working to find one. One of the biggest reasons we are having these problems is because his messed up sleep schedule is making him manic.

What makes everything worse is that if I try to address anything, I'm the bad guy. My husband certainly won't say anything and he doesn't want me to say anything because he thinks it's easier that way. His policy is basically to just let our son do whatever now "because he's an adult". Plus, he doesn't like dealing with the backlash of telling a bipolar child to do anything he doesn't want to do. It really bothers me that my husband does not back me up, or worse, basically tells me to stop. We are supposed to be a team. I don't want to let our son act like a complete douche-bag just because it's easier than addressing the situation. That's not good parenting in my opinion. And if my son (and apparently my husband) want to fall back on the "18 and an adult" logic, then maybe my 18-year-old adult needs to find somewhere else to go be an adult. THIS adult is tired of not feeling welcome in her own home and the extra stress. I have enough stress in my life as it is. Or maybe I should become as equally difficult to deal with as my son and then maybe I'll get to be the one gets backed up for once.

What would you do if you had an adult child living with you who was verbally/emotionally abusive, but unable to support himself because of not having any income? Would a mental disorder be enough reason for you to put up with it regardless of how it was affecting the rest of the family or would enough be enough? Let me know below.

P.S. to My Husband

I know you'll read this babe and sorry if it upsets you, but...welcome to the club.

Quantity versus Quality

    Sorry it's been a while. I've been busy. Very busy. I'm in a new grade level this year and only in my second year of teaching in general; so I'm still figuring things out. Over Labor Day weekend, while my friends were posting on Facebook about their adventures at the beach,  theme parks, and other various outings, I went over district timelines and wrote lesson plans. In fact, out of the three days I really only got to do something fun on the final night. I played Mario Kart with my family for an hour before the kids had to head to bed. That's it. That's a pretty lame weekend if you ask me. I should be able to truly enjoy my weekend. So I got fed up, returned to a Facebook game (I quit playing them a couple of years ago), and stayed up 'till an ungodly hour playing rather than sleeping. Call it my rebellion against the system that steals my precious time with my family and that mythical me time, I guess. I decided an hour of fun wasn't good enough and stole from my sleep time to have a little more fun.

    I know you're dying to know what game I started playing again. "Is it a game I play? I really need another friend so I can level up, plus send me some items." Well, the odds are that you don't play this game (apparently ALL of my friends have quit playing it and moved on to the newest Zynga craze), but I'll tell you what it is anyway: Frontierville. Except now I think it's called Pioneer Trail, but you can play it under either name on Facebook. I don't know why, but I always liked playing that game. I never cared much for Farmville or some of the others, but Frontierville Pioneer Trail sucked me in big time. Now, I am super far behind and it's trying to give me about 50 missions at once. Those will be difficult to complete without any active friends, but I'm going to try it anyway. Look how busy my land is! It looked a lot busier yesterday, but I've cleared some stuff out.

    So, other than rebellion, why did I return to a life-sucking, time-consuming Zynga game? The short answer: it's easy, fast, and requires no thought. Personally, I'd much rather be playing a Nintendo game. My favorite games are any of the Legend of Zelda games, but I also really love Mario games (Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine), Harvest Moon games, and Endless Ocean. The problem with those games is that they have lengthy storylines and you need to be able to remember what goal you are working towards or where you are going between playing sessions. Unfortunately, I get to play so infrequently these days that I can't remember what the heck I was doing the last time I played and use up at least half of my time retracing steps and figuring out what I needed to do next. That's very time-consuming and frustrating so I've decided to abstain from playing those types of games for now. And that's why I'm playing a mindless, but fun game on Facebook instead. After all, I deserve to have at least a few minutes of fun everyday. This is definitely a case of quantity versus quality!

What do you do to have fun and relax on your days off? Do you choose (or get forced to choose) quantity versus quality?