It has come to my attention that after 37 years of my life and over half of that being bi-polar that even the people whom I have loved the most don't understand my sickness. I am deeply saddened by this but feel this is a opportunity to educate all those who think "she is just a bitch" or "if she doesn't want to do bad things, she wouldn't" or even worse "she isn't really sick, she just wants an excuse to do as she pleases". Sometimes as bad as those misunderstandings about me have been, I wish one or hell even all of them were true instead of the truth and that is I AM Bi-polar.
I also do not take meds. I tried once but I was worse on them and yes perhaps I should give them another chance but I have seen those on meds, seen friends walk around with lackluster stares not caring about anything. Not happy, not sad, not mad, emotionally closed off and empty inside. So yea blame me if you wish for not being medicated to the max but I rather live as the cold-hearted bitch you think I am then feel nothing at all.
I am also fairly certain I have Borderline Personality Disorder though I have not been officially diagnosed as I have not been to a doctor in some years. So yes that is a self diagnoses and you can believe it or you can use a phrase above and think I am just trying to make excuses.
I have come though to realize though that you are not in my head, so you will never know what I truly go through and unless you have either of these sicknesses or something similar, you can not and never will truly understand. To you it may always seem as a excuse, a cope out, a reason to do or say all the horrible things I do or say.
But you don't live with the self hate I have. You don't wake up and pray today will be one of the good days and you won't cry all day, or you won't be so irritable you are scared to be around your children. You don't think daily of all the pain you have caused those closest to you and know you will never truly be able to fix the damage you have done and hope they know how sorry you truly are. You don't look in the mirror and know that there is another you just waiting in the shadows to pounce, to take control and ruin everything you have worked so hard for and that even though you fight yourself with every once of strength that you have, there are days you lose and when you lose, so does everyone you love.
You don't feel out of control, hear yourself screaming at someone you love, accusing them of things, cussing them, defending yourself against a delusion created in your head that -they- are the enemy and have done something horrible to hurt you and you are just defending yourself, when in reality what they did was no big deal, but your mind has twisted a innocent word, or friendship, or action into a ugly distorted picture of lies and deceit making the person you loved just moments ago in your eyes the person who deserves to be punished for hurting you. And when you realize it, it is to late, you have said things you can never take back, words to cut that person to the core, because you know them so well, and they are looking at you heartbroken, shock in their eyes, or worse anger because they are tired, tired of you and your outbursts, tired of putting up with your emotional roller-coaster.
At that moment you would do anything to take away the pain you have caused and you cry and beg them to forgive you and tell them repeatedly you didn't mean it, and try hard to explain that you weren't in control, that for those moments you were lost in a mindset that your feelings of betrayal were justified and they say it is okay, but its not and it never will be and deep inside you know this and you hate yourself for it and you promise yourself it won't happen again but at some point it will happen again, it always does.
I once said that being bi-polar was like walking up a steep hill of sand with hurricane force winds pushing against you, no matter how hard you tried you keep slipping back down the hill.
I am not making excuses, no matter how many of you out there want to think that. I have done some horrible things. But I have also worked hard to become a better person. To balance myself as much as possible. I took my episodes that use to last hours even a day or two down to less than a hour. I usually recognize one in 20 minutes or less now. I went from having these episodes every day to having one every couple of weeks, til once a month and now the large outbursts are less than once a month. I worked hard to get where I am. A constant battle. I taught myself trigger words, actions so that when I am standing there screaming insanity my mind will pick up on these triggers and alert me that something isn't right, get me to question myself. I work at keeping my manics as low as possible so my depression states are high as possible and that I actually have normal days, well as normal as my days can get. I still go through a routine of self checks each day just to make sure. My normal day just means I am not overly sad or happy. For those few days I just am.
I am not perfect, I never will be, but for those of you who think you know, in reality you have no idea and sadly for most of you, you never will because in reality you rather think I am some bitch then believe I am really am sick and no matter what I say or do for some of you that will never change.
-Jenn
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