support

A Funny Thing Happened

Mood : Elated!

Hubby is finally home!!! Thank goodness. However before he came home he talked to me a lot about what I was going through. He even suggested that I be my boldest and talk to my mom. So I paced around the house and built up my nerve and when she came home I asked if she could talk.

I asked her to just listen while I said my piece. I actually had made a note so I could read from it and keep on track. I thanked her for helping with the housework and told her that I hope she didn’t feel obligated to do it. I told her that if she wanted to help me with my bipolar, I didn’t need advice but just a ear to bend.  I even told her that this is not what I expected from the visit.

As the night went on I started feeling better, like a weight had been lifted off my chest. I was laughing and talking and feeling more comfortable. I am not sure if this was just the talk or the talk and the combination of hubby coming home but when I woke up this morning I felt even better, I woke smiling even with just 3 hours sleep!

I go to the doctors the day after my birthday, so I am excited about that, also a little nervous because I am afraid that I won’t be believed because my mood has no edge currently. I guess we’ll see..

Thank you for the comments, they have helped!!

My Strength

Mood : Stressed and Melancoly

I know I talk about my husband a lot. I know I am very fortunate to have someone who supports me. I am not a support group kind of person because I am very passionate about people not generalizing and therapy just doesn’t work for me. I tend to get over things that happened in the past. Do they affect who I am? Well probably but talking about them is not going to change the way I feel.

This morning my husband was reading this article.

Which I thought was wonderful. He tries very hard to understand everything he can about my illness.  I wish that he had an outlet but when he went to the spousal support boards he found them to be more negative then positive. I went to check it out because I thought maybe he was exaggerating because he didn’t want to use it, but it really was a bit of a downer.  It seemed every other post was about someone leaving their bipolar partner or having to deal with their infidelity.
For those people that kind of support may work, however for someone like my husband he needs a place where he can rant but not be told how much better his life would be without me.  So if anyone has any suggestions I would love to pass them on to him.  I know dealing with me is very hard on him as he is a fixer. I may have mentioned that before I think. He always wants to be able to make me feel better, when I am depressed it is really hard on him as well as me because there is really little he can do but occasionally make me laugh or smile. Which honestly is something wondrous in of itself.
I wish he could talk to me about me, but since I have such a fragile ego I don’t think it would be helpful to either of us. As it is my self esteem is pretty much non-existent no matter how many times he tells me how beautiful or smart or wonderful he finds me. Which also drives him bonkers and gets him frustrated.
Couples therapy obviously won’t work cause our relationship is strong but he already hears everything I think and feeling and I think he needs his own private time to deal with stuff.  Which honestly also scares the hell out of me. What if he sees someone who suggests he leaves me, what if he meets someone at an online support group and they fall madly in love and he leaves me.. ugh.. You see a theme here?  Ya and he even knows that I am writing that and says.. that’s your bipolar brain talking.. Which he is right he knows how it works.
So I need to think about this less selfishly and hopefully find him some kind of support..

Mommy Dearest

Mood: so-so

My mother and I always seemed to be on the outs. We got along better once I was a mature adult but my view of her was still skewed. I didn’t realize until very recently just how much I had put her through.

At 10 we started family counseling as my mother had no idea what to do with me, after the drugs that had been given to me everything about me had changed. Gone was the sweet happy girl, now I was moody and flippant. I was sleep walking almost nightly. My mom told me a story recently of her waking to check on me and not being able to find me anywhere and her fearing the worst as the doors to the apartment were locked. Luckily I was hidden deep in a closet sleeping, but I tried to do many different things while sleep walking including trying to crawl into a freezer.

At 12 I was out partying every night, sometimes didn’t come home for days and was extremely promiscuous. She’d ground me, I’d disappear or run to my father, who honestly was pretty damn useless. I remember one night in particular I had gone to a party and smoked some weed, apparently some asshole thought it was great to put some angel dust in it so most of the night is a blur. The only things I remember was being naked, trying to kill myself and my dad ricocheting my head off the walls of the hallway as he took me home. Of course there was another memory that I had forgotten until recently. My mom had stayed up with me all night until the effects had warn off. I thought at the time she was doing it to punish me, but honestly I was like a rabid animal. She feared for me.

At 12, I tried to kill myself intentionally for the first time. I took an entire bottle of some medication for migraines. My father didn’t believe my sister when she ran to tell him, but my mom knew it was true and made him take me to the hospital. Thanks mom! *this isn’t sarcasm*

Today her and I are on very different footing, she comes to visit me in California from Canada. In fact she is going to be coming for 6 months every year, I am very excited as I won’t be so lonely (sorry if I repeat something I have typed before). She calls me weekly to make sure I am okay and is researching my bipolarity so that she can be as understanding about it as possible. She is a remarkable woman and I am very proud to call her my mom.

I wish I had of realized it sooner we could have had even more time together!! However there is always the here and now and she is only 64, so we have lots of time. My great-grandmother lived to 102. My mom has even more spunky.

How is your relationship with your mom?

Frikken Bipolars!

Mood: How about Meh.. with a touch of can’t sit still or find anything to do.

I was recently reading one of the many support boards and there were some suggested blogs.. It really just made me mad more than anything. We as bipolars are our best support system and our worst enemies.

A Rant

You know what I absolutely hate? When bipolars decide that their experiences pertain to everyone.

Examples:

We are unable to have relationships. (it’s hard but we can do it with an understanding supportive partner)

It’s not true that bipolars are violent. (some are/were) I tried to strangle my mother once in a fit of bipolar rage! I struck out at my husband with my fist and and severely hurtful words.

It’s not true that bipolars are promiscuous. (some are/were) this happens to be one of the reasons that many bipolar relationships end in divorce. ( as I said one)

It’s not true that we can’t be cured. (we can’t be cured just treated, there are medications and treatments that can assist people. Some people however never get the right treatment. Congratulations functioning bipolars!)

Movies don’t portray us correctly. (some movies don’t portray you correctly) A good example of this is Silver Linings Playbook. This movie cut me to the bone. I watched it with my husband and mother and father in law and couldn’t finish watching it because a great deal of it reminded me of myself. I felt ashamed and awed. However I have heard that some bipolars found it exaggerated. That’s because… wait for it… We are all different!

Admittedly a lot of movies don’t paint us in a favorable light but anything that get information out there is a good thing. It makes people curious. There will always be the ignorant few that don’t care to learn and that has nothing to do with the movie.

Sorry this is the one thing that really pissed me off today. All of our experiences are unique. We may share attributes with others but we are but one person in a sea of many and to say blatantly that your experience is the same as anyone else’s is well just selfish and thoughtless.

I cannot believe how fired up this got me. I try to read others messages/blogs with an open mind and when I speak I tell it from what has happened to me because I know it varies from person to person.

If someone has all the knowledge, they may know what to expect but when someone singles out certain behavior and refutes others it will alienate the very people who are reading what we write as a support system. No one wants to feel alone. No one is alone. What you are feeling others have felt. Others have also felt what you have not felt.

We as bipolars must stick together as a community because no one will ever understand us quite like one another.

As a little side note, thank you to the people who have commented and followed my blog. I appreciate it very much. I am horrible at responding to comments it makes me feel shy and I come up a blank most of the time but please know that it means a great deal to me.

Support Groups Depress Me

I’ve been reading a few bipolar support groups and honestly with how bad my depression is right now they just make me sad. The mania of the un-medicated people. The people who have virtually no depression.  the people considering suicide.. The spouses of the bipolars’ who are at their wits end. I don’t know how my husband puts up with me.  I can barely handle myself.

Going on 13 years together and sometimes I feel like the relationship is new and I am shy and fearful that he will leave me or cheat on me because he can get the emotional or physical support that he needs.  I wish I could just keep it to myself and let it eat me up inside instead of voicing my concerns to him.

My pills make it so that I don’t have much of a interest in sex, I am working on getting some medical marijuana since it brings it back and it doesn’t seem to mess my meds up, (which don’t seem to be doing much anyhow)

Right now though I am pretty depressed, not ready to kill myself depressed but lethargic and unable to find joy in anything. I am only posting today because I promised myself that I would force myself to do this, hoping it would be cathartic .. is it I don’t know.

I need to get my meds changed again, I’ve tried every antidepressant on the market, I thought I had finally found the one but it doesn’t seem to be working. I gets so tiring. I am so tired.. I just want to be normal and do normal things. Go out and walk in the sun, go to visit museums, theme parks, movies, dinners, feel the bare grass beneath my feet..  Ugh I think I am done for today this has gotten to sad……

Wow Taking Meds Works?

I am starting to feel a little better now. My body isn’t hurting as much as it was before and I can actually stand without falling over. Yay!

I wish I could remember to take my pills, you would think that it is so vital for my existence to take them that I would remember. Pain, nausea, faintness heart palpitation’s for missing a week of Lamictal. Wish they warned you about those side effects.

The my viibryd works better than anything else I have taken and I think I have pretty much taken them all. Kind of like a last chance and I still manage to mess it up.

I am hoping that writing this blog will help both me and others if someone decides to read it.

Unmedicated I was a hot mess. I was violent and impulsive and so much more.. I came so close to losing the man of my dreams by pushing him away.  You definitely do not want to lose someone who always treats you with kindness regardless of how batshit crazy you act. It’s always so hard for us to have relationships. I don’t even have any friends because I don’t have the ability to be a responsive person. I disappear into the cracks for months then show up again.

Ugh I got off on a rant..  That’s me lol