I want this blog to be a very real look inside of my head. It won't always be pretty in fact it can get down right ugly and embarrassing. I feel though I can't help others to come forward and reach out to their love ones, their friends, if I am not honest, if I don't show them that hiding hurts them and those around them.
People need to see how ugly this illness can be. They also need to see how beautiful it can be. It is a contradiction, a blessing, a curse. We hate it and at the same time we love it. Our manics make us on top of the world and we want to fly among the clouds but eventually we are like Icarus and we fly to high just to crash into the ground in pain and misery and what feels like ultimate failure. Failure as a friend, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a wife, a husband, a mother, a father, but mostly just a failure as a person.
To start I always felt I could control my bipolar, crazy I know. But that is just it, I was and am crazy. Some of you won't like that word, won't like that I used it to describe myself or my illness. I don't care, if you want to be coddled, find another blog, another page. You won't get that here.
This is dictionary.com's definition of CRAZY:
cra·zy
[krey-zee] Show IPA adjective, cra·zi·er, cra·zi·est, noun, plural cra·zies.
1.mentally deranged; demented; insane.
2.senseless; impractical; totally unsound: a crazy scheme.
3.Informal. intensely enthusiastic; passionately excited: crazy about baseball.
4.Informal. very enamored or infatuated (usually followed by about ): He was crazy about her.
5.Informal. intensely anxious or eager; impatient: I'm crazy to try those new skis.
Hell I am all of those crazies. Seriously though in my mind I knew I -got- out of control, but I thought I could handle it, I could deal with it. I didn't want meds (still don't) and was willing to suffer to not be put on them. What I didn't realize is I wasn't the only one suffering at that time.
Mind you when I got with my husband I told him I was unstable, mentally and emotionally. That I was sure I was bipolar though I admitted I had not got diagnosed. I warned him of my outbursts and that I was bat shit crazy at times. I want this known so that no one gets the idea he went into this relationship without any knowledge of what he was getting into. Sadly rose colored glasses abound for some.
I recently found out my husband of 9 years and partner for 14 never -got- my sickness. That the truth is for about 6 years he thought that because I didn't get formally diagnosed that I wasn't sick at all. He excused my earlier outbursts with the stress I had due to my first husband, of leaving him and not being able to see my kids. He then thought that my outbursts were his fault, that he brought them on himself. Finally when he ran out of excuses for me he just thought I was purposely trying to hurt him, a bitch taking my anger and frustration out out on him.
I am saddened by this, more than any words could ever convey. What I must have seemed like to him, I can't imagine to be honest. How I must have looked in his eyes, this woman he loved who one minute acted like he was the most amazing man in the world to her and the next was cussing and accusing him of whatever her imagination could feed her into thinking he was doing to hurt her.I also feel betrayed. The one person I thought would be honest with me..never was.
I sit with this new information and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it all. I ask him and myself why didn't he just tell me? Why didn't he just ask me to go get help? Though I suppose if he thought I wasn't sick, he thought I didn't need help. That I was just this out of control bitch that when I couldn't take the stress used him as my emotional target practice. To a degree this is true but it was not done in the malicious purposeful manner in which he perceived it. He was my world, my leaning post, and this put a bull's eye on him.
Don't get me wrong I knew I hurt my husband (boyfriend at the time) when I had the outbursts but I would apologize and he would always say it was okay and I thought he understood that I was sick and that it wasn't personal. I thought even though I would lose control from time to time, that he understood that I would never hurt him on purpose. So many times I had said I am sorry, that I wasn't in control, that I felt justified at the time and for those first few years he always told me he knew and that it was okay. So I thought it was..it wasn't!
After almost 6 years into our relationship, after the birth of our second child, I finally got severe enough in my sickness even I knew I could no longer go it alone and I finally gave in and went to seek help. Six months after my daughter was born I was diagnosed with Postpartum Depression and allowed my caregiver to make a appointment with a Psychologist to seek professional advice.
A few visits later and I was officially diagnosed as Bipolar. I tried to be put on medication. I didn't want to but I was willing to do anything to get better, to stop the feelings and thoughts I had, to stop my destructive behavior. Unfortunately I got worse instead of better, I fell into a deep depression. I went from my destructive thoughts to not caring at all. All I wanted to do was sleep and cry and for the first time in my life I thought about killing myself. Up to this point I unlike a majority of bipolar patients I had not wanted to kill myself. With my meds though I felt alone, isolated, unloved, unwanted and I wanted nothing to do with my children or my husband. I was thankful to be living my my parents who helped with the kids because I admit I just wasn't capable. Finally I stopped the medication and called my Psychologist up and told him that I did, and why and that I wouldn't go on any more.
Soon after we moved into our own place but by this time my marriage was falling apart. It didn't happen over night and for years I did everything to get his attention, as woman I pulled out all the stops. I seriously thought at times he was cheating on me (he wasn't), that maybe it was my weight or I wasn't being sexy enough, or the thousands of reason a woman comes up with to explain why her husband isn't paying her attention or wants nothing to do with her. Nothing worked and it got worse until finally I gave up. By this time we didn't even argue, hell that in some ways would have been better. We didn't even speak some days more than a few words, necessary words to be honest. Things about the kids, the bills, etc. My husband had over the years pulled away from me and now there was a grand canyon between us. We were practically like strangers living in the same house, raising children together.
What bothers me the most about this slow decent into nothing is that I asked over and over did he think I needed help, did he think I should be on meds. I asked him was I the problem and over and over and over and over he said NO, it wasn't me.
Now I know it WAS ME! He was so busy trying -not- to hurt me that he hurt us. I explained to him that he fed into my delusion that I was okay, that I could handle it myself by not telling me. I am having a hard time understanding how he could go 14 years and never say a word about not understanding, never tell me he believed all those years I wasn't sick, that he would suffer in silence and watch our relationship dwindle away into barely a speck of what it started out.
Don't get me wrong, I understand he suffered. I know he could have left at anytime and he didn't and for that I give him all the credit and kudos in the universe. I know I made his life a living hell and yet he is still here. That being said I still feel I have a right to be upset that the man I put my confidence in, the man I was honest with..was never honest with me. That he let me believe for 14 years that he understood me and he didn't, still doesn't. He admits even now knowing I was right that I am sick, he still can't wrap his mind around the whole thing. He is though at least trying now and I am trying to educate him.
My advice to those out there: Don't let this happen to you. If you are bipolar, get help, take those important with you to counseling. Educate them. Don't just accept they understand -just- because they say they do, just because they forgive you over and over, or tell you its okay. It is never truely okay and they will never truly understand. It's not their fault. Unless they are also bipolar or have a similar sickness, their mind just can't comprehend what someone who does, goes through. But at least you can try to educate them so they will know you are sick, know that you would never hurt them on purpose, and maybe they can see it more objectively if they realize you have a REAL problem. Education is important for both yourself and those who love you.
NOW is the time to heal.
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