Life Used To Be Simpler

My life used to be simple. I woke up, had some coffee then grabbed my bike and headed off for school. During the time when only my fiancé was working and I

mountain bike in downhill race in forest ski trail (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

was going to school, I used to mountain bike every morning without fail. I always went out between 9 am and 11 am (I am fair skinned, and the sun is still low enough in the sky that you won’t get burned as badly). Nothing beats the thrill of coming down that bitch of a hill that killed your legs going up. Especially if it is winding. It seems that I have always felt better on a bike.

I remember one ride where I actually hit the “zone” that athletes are always talking about. My then fiancé and I were up in the mountains and it started to storm quite seriously. I am talking about lightning and thunder at the same time. That’s how close the lightning was to us, and all I could think about was getting the heck out of there because my bike is made of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is an electrical super conductor. So, I just started to haul ass out of there. I wasn’t into getting fried that day. It was the most amazing ride. I was one with the bike (which never happened),  I was not thinking about how I was going to make a turn or over a log, I just found a way, and it worked. All I was really thinking about was, OMG mountain storm! Get out now! I think it was my favorite ride ever. I wish it were possible to use words to describe the experience of riding your bike through the mountains with all this lightning and thunder and hail and rain. It is one of the most exhilarating thing ever, And yes, it even beat sex.

Life was just so much simpler in those times. I was happy, I was in school and doing well, I was in love, and I had a great best friend that I used to go to the mountains with after school was out. He and I were like little kids, we explored everything that looked like it might be a trail. We were joined at the hip. If one of us showed up somewhere, it was a safe bet the other was not far behind. The sun is coming up, and the sky is turning pink. It is beautiful.

Anyway, this was long before the “diagnosis” and the medication-go-round that I ended up on. This was long before I got married which I am still trying to decide if that was big mistake or not. I love my husband, please do not get me wrong, it is just sometimes he can be incredibly difficult to deal with. He doesn’t seem to want to learn about what bipolar really is; he’d prefer to rely on his past 2 experiences with bipolar women, and both were total tramps. One was a “I’ll try anything once” type, the other one just cheated on him a lot. And neither one of them would stay on their medication so they were constantly going up and down. I, on the other hand, am medication compliant, and actually start to freak out when I have run out of medication because I know what happens when I do. It is simple, take your meds, and the mood swings will be closer to those that normal people have. It really isn’t rocket science nor does it require an advanced degree in physics.

What I think is that he cannot face his own depression. He has never received treatment for it until now when we finally reach a point where marriage counseling has become necessary, and they have a treatment plan that has us doing marriage counseling every two weeks and him doing one on one therapy every two weeks. He says that he has looked at himself and knows who and what he is. Therapy will fix that. Therapy forces you to look at yourself in a new light. He is going to finally have to confront the ugly in his nature. At least he will if he is honest with himself and the therapist. If he isn’t then therapy will do him no good. Therapy can be very scary. You will have to talk about things that you have buried so deeply it can take years to work your way through the maze of emotions surrounding the issue. I do not think he gets that. I have been in therapy for about 8 1/2 years, but I had some very dark things I had to take care of. I remember one session where I spent the entire session in a fetal ball (this was a few years ago). Something had triggered me. That’s another thing he needs to learn about: triggers. Once you can recognize them, you can control how you react to them, or at the very least manage not to let them set you off.

I swear life used to be so simple.