Good Days, Bad Days
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
This intimate documentary profiles several individuals who love and support someone who is struggling with mental illness, examining the profound impact that these disorders can have on other family members. A devoted mother supports her daughter, who has bipolar disorder, and talks about ways that we can all help our relatives. A husband whose wife is also bipolar describes how she had to abandon her career as a psychiatrist, and the struggles they have both had in coping with the life changes they have had to make. A couple who both struggle with schizophrenia and depression, and have learned over time how to support each other, show how they combat the isolation that often accompanies mental illness. This sensitive film not only captures the heroic tolerance and acceptance these family members display, but outlines various techniques that may help people who are trying their very best to assist their loved ones in coping with severe psychiatric conditions.
'Very well done - powerful...these personal stories make assisting a family member dealing with mental illness so supportive.' -Comments from: Mood and Anxiety Conference, Queens University, Ontario
Citation
Main credits
Ledbetter, Gary (filmmaker)
Ledbetter, Krista (filmmaker)
Other credits
Music, Jeremy Ledbetter.
Distributor subjects
Closed Captioned; Depression and Manic Depression; Brain Disorders; Fanlight Collection; Mental Illness; Psychology; Psychiatry; Social WorkKeywords
WEBVTT
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[music]
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It was in June of,
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I think it was 2000 and 2. I couldn\'t go
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to sleep. I felt that there was
something really, really wrong. So
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I called her cell phone and I left and message,
and I said, I know there\'s something wrong.
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I don\'t care what time it
is, please call me, and I
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will be there. At about 1:30 she called,
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and she said \'Mom you have to come.
And she was the one who said, Mom
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I\'ve got to go to the hospital.
And I said Ok lets talk about it.
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So on the way to the hospital I asked
what had happened, what she had done. And
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she said I took an overdose of my
pills mom, I just wanted to die.
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It still hurts it still hurts.
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And every time she goes through this,
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you know, even though I know she\'s
better than she was before,
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at the back of your mind there\'s still that
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that gnawing feeling that it can
happen again. That something, someone
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can cause her... to go
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to that extreme. She\'s
vowed that she will never
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let anything, or anyone, but
in mental illness you never
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ever know.
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[music]
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It makes me feel really worried,
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because I don\'t know how extreme it will be.
.There are times when it is not extreme
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and you know, you catch it in time and
it\'s, you an get it under control, in
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no time. Whether it\'s with an
adjustment of medication or just, um,
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refocusing on, on, on, the life style. What
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she\'s doing, compared to
what she should do. Um,
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so it\'s, it\'s, it\'s unnerving. Um,
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it\'s worrisome, when you know
there is not much you can do.
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Except alert her to the fact
that, you know, slow down
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something is happening.
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Well I give it a day or two
because, if she doesn\'t get out of
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whatever state, uh, she\'s in.
In that time I feel
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it\'s serious enough to
warrant some extra, um,
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help. So I usually, um, intervene.
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You know, a day or two, two days max.
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All right, um, how was your, um, visited,
the doctor, the last visit? What, um,
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what was his suggestion? Doubled my
anti-depressant, as we had discussed before.
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Ok, um-hmm. Just to get me through June.
Yeah, yeah I know June is very bad
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month. And you will certainly work, uh,
every possible way to get you through.
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I\'ve noticed that, you know,
since the, the, the change
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in the medication, or decrease, or
increase of whatever your doing. There
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has been a change. Cause you certainly
have lifted from the, down in the dumps.
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How do I help pave the most as
part of her support team. Well,
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I listen to her. And not just listen I
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hear what she\'s saying. I talk about
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Paige\'s illness quite openly.
Um, it\'s not taboo, its not
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hush-hush. My family and friends,
all of them know. They all are
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very, very supportive. We,
we, we make the network
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huge. So that anyone who
talks to her realizes,
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that she is having a down period. They
can help her if I\'m not available.
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Don\'t be afraid. Don\'t
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be ashamed of the stigma.
That is attached to mental
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illness. Speak out, help
your loved one as much as
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you can, anyway you can. Um, fight
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the stigma. Do volunteer work. Get,
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be an advocate, for, mental,
the mentally ill people.
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Because that\'s the only way we
can help our ill relatives,
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is by being educated ourselves, and educating the
people at large. Penny\'s disease first manifested
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itself as depression. Uh, around 1990
or so she started to get depressed.
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At that point she was in private
practice as, uh, a psychiatrist. And
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as time went on, I had to more and more cancel patients, because she
wasn\'t well enough to see them. Then in 1994 she had to stop working.
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And, uh, she hasn\'t been able
to work since then. (inaudible)
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is the word I suppose, for someone
who is as competent, and as caring,
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and as effective in her job as she was.
To not be able to work anymore.
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So over the course of, uh, I guess beginning around this time
of year, throughout the summer, she became hypo manic. Then
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more and more up towards mania. Then eventually she had
a full blown psychotic episode. It was really bad, she
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almost died. Um, she was
convinced that she had, um,
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diabetes mellitus. Which is some sort of a
imbalance of, the, um, potassium in the body.
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And so she was taking, at the end she was taking,
uh, over the counter potassium in large doses.
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And when we finally did get her into the hospital into the
emergency department her potassium level was at, about 10
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apparently most, a lot of people are dead by the time their
potassium level gets to 10. They had to put her in the
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step down unit which is, uh, intensive care. And, sorta
do, dialysis. And spend three, three or four days trying
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to get her back to normal. And, uh, because I
work with some of the doctors down there, when
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I went in that night. And one of my friends, the physician
that, uh, was my boss in one of my jobs at that time.
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Took a look at what was going on, he turned and he looked
at me and he said, Lloyd how could you let this happen?
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And I, I had no answer for him. You
know, the, uh, she was convincing,
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she was very convincing that this is what she needed to
do. She, I just went along with what, what she wanted.
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To the point where she almost died.
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Give me a call when (inaudible)
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tomorrow this place to get the
phones set up (inaudible)
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(crosstalk) get in contact. Sure.
I was gonna do that tomorrow
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anyway. Uh-hmm, That\'s
pretty exciting (inaudible)
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in July. (inaudible)
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(inaudible)
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both (inaudible)
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Um-hmm.
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When she\'s been in hospital, um,
you know that particular time
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6 years ago, there was one period for about
3 weeks were she wouldn\'t let me come
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in to visit her. Uh, because she was convinced I
was on their side, because I sorta signed the, uh,
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for her to be treated against her will. And I was happy she
was in the hospital. But at the same time it was very, very
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difficult to, uh, to, uh, have the
person you feel closet to in the world
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rejecting you and thinking you, your part of the
enemy. After 3 ½ months in the hospital she came home
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for a few months and spiraled down
into depression reasonably quickly.
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And, uh, for a period of two to
three months she spent 20 to 22
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hours a day in bed. I\'d feed her; get
her up for short periods of time.
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And, um, she was seeing a psychiatrist again.
An outside psychiatrist, and that person had
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her on some anti-depressants
which began to lift the, uh,
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the depression. But what happens in a case like
that, usually that the energy comes back before
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the depressive thoughts and the suicidal
ideation and all that stuff starts to,
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to go away. And so one day when she was starting to feel a little
better physically, she caught a taxi and went down to the lake
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to drown herself. Uh, she was
fortunately able to, not
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do that. She came back home she told me what she had
done. I got a hold of that psychiatrist, and, uh,
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within a half an hour he was up his paper in case he
needed it. And we had her back in the hospital. This was a
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three month stay this time. They
determined that she needed, uh,
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ECT to get her out of the depression
again, because they had the, um, the, um,
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power of attorney. I was able to agree that this
needed to be done. It\'s a very difficult decision
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to have to make to decide that, um,
someone you love is going to be
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shocked until they convulse. And there gonna
be done, it\'s gonna be done repeatedly. Um,
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but a series of about 14 shock
treatments over about a month
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or five weeks or so did seem to turn the
trick. So I would say most of the time
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we have a partnership again. If Penny gets really,
really ill, just as if I got really, really ill
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with some sort of serious illness, um, then of course
things change. And then it becomes much more priority
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to just, dolt as much time and effort as
possible to, uh, first of just preserve
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the other person\'s life. And in mental illnesses that\'s
always the problem because about 15% of people with
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bi-polar illness will eventually commit suicide. About
10% of people with schizophrenia will commit suicide. So
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there is a genuine need there to
make sure the person stays alive.
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Get them some help, help them to
get better. Take care of yourself.
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I don\'t know if we can get it in.
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Oh yeah, just erase this. I was telling
a friend that I was having trouble
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deciding how to pack. And she was mentally ill too and she said,
you just pack your medication. Anything else you can buy.
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I\'d say, um, make sure you know who your relative\'s doctor
is. What they are being treated with, the medications
00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.999
et cetera. Find out what you need to do to get
them help, if they are having an episode.
00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.999
Uh, get your relative to give you
power of attorney if at all possible
00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:19.999
for medical treatment for sure, for financial,
things like that, as possible as well.
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.999
Um, build up your own support network to take care of yourself,
and realize that you know, no matter how sick the other
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person is you still have to live your life. If you, if we allow[00;11:30]someone
with a major illness whether it\'s again, cancer, or heart disease or mental illness
00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:39.999
to uh, to take all the joy out of
our lives, then what\'s the point.
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Because all we have is now. I
need a hug kiddo. Ok dear.
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I love you Penney. I love you too Lloyd.
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I think anyone who sticks with a person
with mental illness is heroic. Uh,
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they show an awful lot of courage. An awful lot of
tenacity, and awful lot of stamina. And awful lot of, um,
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uh, empathy. An awful lot
of, um, responsibility.
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You a reasonable responsible adult human beings who
are trying there, uh, best to help another person.
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Well Eleanor was a real special
person to me. I had never met anyone
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like her. Uh, when I told her, (inaudible)
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you know,
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when I told her about myself
she was open and she,
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she was listening and she was, I, she came across
to me as a person who was really grounded,
00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:34.999
really well. And, I could talk to her.
I could actually talk to her,
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and she listened. And she, she
made comments and stuff like that.
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She\'s a great listener,
and, uh, and also she was a
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soul mate because, uh, you know I was
in this situation where I denying that
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I had anything wrong with me. And I couldn\'t
figure out how I could get a partner because I
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wouldn\'t know what I\'d do with my medication. Where would I
hide all of the medication. How would I explain the medication?
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I was so out of touch with, you know, myself
that I, I, I, couldn\'t imagine living
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with a person. But, but, but,
Eleanor not only, you know was a
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.999
soul mate. She also accepted the
fact that I needed medication,
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and she did too. So there
was nothing to hide.
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We didn\'t have any secrets. We, we could tell each other
stories to each other and we could talk and talk on end.
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My turn to roll, that goes up here right?
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Ok... Three,
00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.999
uh, blue.
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.999
What\'s the most famous restaurant
in Stock Bridge, Massachusetts?
00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:49.999
Oh no... And I know it right? I\'ve... I
don\'t know. I\'ve head of it though, eh?
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:54.999
Maybe? Could you give me a hint?
I don\'t know, Guthrie(ph)
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That\'s his? His restaurant? No
(crosstalk) that\'s the hint.
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Oh, I give up. Alice\'s Restaurant. Oh my.
00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:09.999
Yeah. Like for a couple of years there I,
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:14.999
I was under the delusion that the, the
radio was doing something to me. Like I,
00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.999
like someone at the radio station knew me or
something like that. And I would put ads in
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:25.999
the newspaper and Eleanor would help me. She would pay for them, and
I would put ads in the newspaper. And it was a total, a total trip.
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:29.999
You know it had this whole sense
of reality it was, it was skewed.
00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:34.999
Eleanor couldn\'t understand it. And I\'d talk to my sisters
about it, and they said nobody would ever understand that.
00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:39.999
But it was, like I was posting messages.
Like you,
00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:44.999
like you would in a blurb, blog? A blog?
In the personals, you know.
00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:50.999
And then one day I just woke
up and I thought. Well no,
00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:54.999
that\'s not, that\'s not the way it is.
And I, it just went away. On its own.
00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:59.999
So I spend a lot of time in here reading
books about, such, such books that help
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me in, uh, coping. And, uh,
I, in here I have all my,
00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.999
a lot of my memories from when I was
an electrician and when I had hobbies.
00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.999
And, uh, you know its just
ah source of strength
00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:19.999
for me, uh, to be able
to have my own space.
00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.999
He, I don\'t react to him now. That\'s one thing the
psychiatrist taught me. Was... Yeah. you know,
00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:29.999
ok Don has this delusion,
and he really believes it.
00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:34.999
I mean he\'s right in the middle of it. But
the psychiatrist said, don\'t you react.
00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:39.999
Because it will go away. And it does.
Well when Eleanor\'s mother
00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.999
died, she went into a really
deep depression. And, uh,
00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:49.999
I had lost my father several years before.
And I knew how devastating it was.
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.999
I mean it was just totally devastating
for her. And I managed to try to
00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:59.999
cheer up, she didn\'t go into the hospital
or anything. I managed to keep her,
00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.999
keep her happy, keep her like we, busy.
We were busy. We\'d go out to play bingo,
00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:09.999
she doesn\'t like bingo, she I, she never did like
bingo, but I took her to play bingo anyway. And I,
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.999
I\'m not sure how much of a help
I was in making her happy.
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:19.999
But we\'d go dancing, and, like, you know,
like she had depression and it was,
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.999
you know, it was a tough time for her.
And, uh, to this day she attributes
00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.999
me, uh, trying to, uh, trying
to make her happy to, you know
00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.999
keeping her out of the hospital, right?
When I was really depressed.
00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.999
I don\'t think I appreciated it as much.
00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.999
But when I started to get better I
realized just how wonderful he had been,
00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.999
and how much he had put up with.
I can recognize when
00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.999
Don starts, uh, talking
00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:59.999
a lot, and he gets agitated, and he paces.
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.999
That something\'s really bothering him.
00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.999
He has a lot of anxiety. And he worries
a lot about what people think.
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.999
And, I try to talk to him about that,
00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:19.999
because I don\'t worry about what people
think. She\'s the reader and, uh,
00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.999
and, uh, you know I\'m a thinker. And,
00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.999
when she reads, I think and you know,
I mean, and, and we hold each other.
00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.999
And we, we, we truly care deeply
about one, how we are, together,
00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:39.999
you know. And, uh, if
Eleanor\'s not feeling well I,
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.999
I can tell and I ask her. And I try
to see if its, if it\'s something
00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:49.999
that can be done about it.
And what do you think El?
00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.999
Yeah, I mean I think we have
so much open communication.
00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:59.999
I\'m not afraid to say anything to Don and I
don\'t think he\'s afraid to say anything to me.
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.999
I think we can be honest
with each other. And
00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
that really, really doesn\'t
make it difficult. I,
00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
I take care of Don, and he takes care of
me. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. you know
00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
like he said, things he can do, I can\'t do.
00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
And things that I can do that he can\'t do.
Like I\'m really good at budgeting,
00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
and he goes through money
like water, so, I mean
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
we talk about anything we\'re gonna buy. Don
00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
doesn\'t go out and buy anything
without consulting with me.
00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
And we manage because of that, to do OK
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
financially.
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
One of the things I do for Eleanor, is
Eleanor can\'t drive. So she bought a car
00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
and I drive her, we drive together
everywhere. Like we, we go out for dinner.
00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
And so we\'re mobile, because she can
afford the car and I can drive.
00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
Is that honest? Is that honest
(crosstalk) to both of us? Yeah.
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
And it says like, first do this,
then do that, then do this
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
and how to fill out the form. And you
have to fill out the form really
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
carefully. And put everything down.
Like when I did CPP, I put
00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
everything down that I\'ve had since birth. Oh
well, I\'ll probably succeed with my disability,
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
if you help me fill out the form. Yeah. What,
what I want to say is, just because your,
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
you still have a life, we still
have a life just because we\'re, uh,
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
disabled in some way. Yeah, yeah. We can still be happy, and
we can... Oh yeah, yeah... still do things we want to do and
00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
everything. And as people tell us that,
you\'re so lucky to have each other, you know
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
to share your lives together. Like it makes such a
difference to have a partner, to have a wife! We\'re
00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
not just partners, we\'re... we\'re married.
Like, you know, so it\'s crazy
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
and, and, and, and the doctors will
say its quite unusual for two people
00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
who are mentally disabled to have a
really functional emotional relationship,
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
you know. So we\'re doing,
I think we\'re doing ok.
00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
I don\'t know. We have some
friends that have mental
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
illness and are desperately lonely.
You know, they
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
would give anything to have a partner
that understood them, and that they could
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
be with.
00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:40.000
[music]