Mood – contemplative with a touch of happy.
I was reading some wonderful blogs today about various different things and I noticed one common thread. That when we are down we tend to ignore people. Pulling away into ourselves. I myself am certainly guilty of it. I don’t have any friends IRL at all. I know people from gaming. They treat me wonderfully and I am completely upfront with who I am. I think that it works because it’s online. There is one person I would call my best friend because we have known each other a good 10 years. She is also a bipolar. So when we both disappear for months at a time when we reconnect and talk like we were never gone.
Most of the people in my life are not as understanding. I tried making friends when I was un-medicated and because of my overtly over sexualized behavior it was like they were drawn to me more than wanting me to be a normal friend. Flirty and outgoing I seemed to have the choice of who I would choose to befriend and I always chose poorly. I’m fortunate enough that I got medicated before I ended up doing something stupid and ruining my marriage.
So now I just choose to keep it between my husband and myself. He is a very tolerant man and a homebody so this works for us for the most part. Though I do miss the contact with human beings, I don’t think that I am a very good friend. I’m never un-kind, in fact I am generous to fault, but I have no idea how to act around people. Being outspoken and honest just doesn’t fly in a casual atmosphere and I am horrible at hiding who I really am.
When I work, I work from home at a job that really just makes me hate people in general. So most of the time I don’t work either The most exposure I get to people is at the dog walk or when my mom comes to visit from Canada. She plans on coming down for 6 months out of the year and I’m thrilled. I get so damned lonely. It’s almost painful. I have no idea how to makes friends even if I wanted to anyhow.
Do you think bipolars can have lasting friendships? How long have your friendships lasted?
A Bipolars Reality 
I can relate to your loneliness. It’s hard for me to maintain my friendships because of how my mood fluctuates.
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I’m not bipolar, so I didn’t take your poll, but I suffer from quite severe depression. My best friendship last lasted about 9 years – it began during a relatively healthy phase in my life, and has weathered doom and disaster on both sides, sometimes simultaneous! My oldest friendship is actually a friend I share with my mum, who I’ve known since I was about 2yo, so that’s decades long.
Most other friendships come and go. I moved around a lot in my 20s so lost touch with a lot of people then. I moved to a new city in 2011, and then was working very hard, so not making many friends – and only a few stuck with me through 2013, when I spent a lot of time in hospital.
So my barriers to friendship are different to yours, but the story is the same: mental health issues make friendships harder to establish and keep. It’s just the cherry on the icecream, isn’t it?
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