“….Well, do you ever get the feeling that the story’s too damn real and in the present tense?
Or that everybody’s on the stage, and it seems like you’re the only person
Sitting in the audience?….” Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day ~ Jethro Tull
that I did not feel so alone while being with someone.
that I could have some support and a partner/significant other/spouse that would take the time to learn about my mental “interestingness” instead of relying on information that he gleaned from two previous relationships: one also had Borderline Personality disorder (I do not), the other promised him that she had it “under control” and that it would not be a problem. How can you make that kind of promise when you have an organic mental illness? I am not them, and they are not me. But, he assumes this vast knowledge and understanding of this sometimes life-threatening illness. He knows jack shit about the ways this disorder can manifest. He doesn’t understand how you can be fine one day and totally freaking out the next. But, that is due to his refusal to learn anything beyond his experience.
that this illness impacted only me. Then I wouldn’t have to risk hurting or disappointing people.
mostly for people to become educated about mental illness and mental health, in general. That way we won’t “scare” the so-called “normals”. I haven’t met any in my lifetime.
also for societal and systemic change of the view of the mentally “ill”. Not every mentally ill person is violent. A few are, but most of us really want to be left to just be.
to be allowed to be who I am without judgement and conditions and withholding of affection. I do not wish to be labeled mentally ill, and that’s all that I am to other people. I am not a person with a disease. I am the disease. Or that is how some people see it, and it upsets me because I value their opinion. What does it mean to value something anyway? I already know what it means to “devalue” something or some one.
Unfortunately if you are defined by your illness alone, you are already devalued as something imperfect in a world where the pursuit of perfection is the only pursuit worth anything. There’s that “value” concept again. Never have been able to figure out how people assign value to things, objects, other people……
This is so accurate. There can be no real peace if one person is disrupting another. World peace starts with one person.
I think anyone who has felt despair can relate to this one. Eventually, you have to learn to fly.
I tend to have better memories of my “formative” years before things got all weird in my family, and between me and my Dad through music and the lyrics. I am in a reminiscing mode. Sorry 🙂 My Dad loved the Beatles, and I happen to really like The White Album, so here we have “Dear Prudence”
Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It’s beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play
Dear Prudence open up your eyes
Dear Prudence see the sunny skies
The wind is low the birds will sing
That you are part of everything
Dear Prudence won’t you open up your eyes?
Look around round
Look around round round
Look around
Dear Prudence let me see you smile
Dear Prudence like a little child
The clouds will be a daisy chain
So let me see you smile again
Dear Prudence won’t you let me see you smile?
Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It’s beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play
Scarbough Fair/Canticle ~ Simon and Garfunkel
Sounds of Silence ~ Simon and Garfunkel
“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.”
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.”
And whisper’d in the sounds of silence.
So, here we go again. Another fateful trip on the counseling merry-go-round. I really hope that the Psychologist is bright enough to cut through the husband’s bullshit. He keeps telling the doctor that I was at an all time low when he met me. He makes it sound like he gave me a life that was not unfulfilling and dull.
I liked my life. I was up at 4 or 5 am, and by 8 am, I was on my bike, heading somewhere for two or three hours. I rode with a close friend (and his brother or nephew, sometimes) every Sunday morning. We’re talking 40 mile treks through the urban jungle complete with smoke belching dragons (aka cars). In the summer, after I got back from riding I would rinse off and go hang out by the pool at the apartments. I’d talk to people, some of us became friends. I dated, I went out with friends. But, somehow the egocentrism he is accusing me of (you only care about your illness, ummmmmm, correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn’t I be somewhat concerned about it, you only care about your cat, well, maybe if you hadn’t made me kill the other two, I wouldn‘t have such a clingy cat;the others were her brother, and surrogate mom, and the last thing I care about is myself).
Maybe if he were more affectionate and supportive instead of being “constructively” critical the majority of the time, I wouldn’t feel the need to be so vigilant about my own well-being. I would know someone was there to help me if I fell. He is not about that. I have to pick myself up and he calls it being egotistical. Maybe if he would actually bother to learn something scientifically researched and published by M.D.’s, P.hD’s, people who have spent their lives researching and treating Bipolar people, and not just relying on some rather unfortunate experiences he had with one who also was Boderline (bad combo), and one who promised him that she had it under control What a fallacy! Bipolar is never “under control”; it is managed with proper medication, seeing a therapist as often as needed and making regular appointments with you psychiatrist.
I told him when I found out what the one woman had told him that I was offering him no guarantees. My bipolar was managed, but that I would never promise that it was under control. And, I was right. I went through episodes of depression, mania, depression and mania, and outright violent moods. I just wish he would educate himself because that would take so much pressure off of me to be “normal” all the time. I can’t cry because that is showing weakness. I cannot be angry, happy, sad, joyous, any emotion because it isn’t “real”. It is the illness. It really does seem to me that that is the way he sees me: as nothing more than a mentally ill person who always needs help, and can’t see herself any other way. I know what I see in the mirror when I am looking: I see a determined person, I see a person who has goals and dreams and the ambition to realize them, I do NOT see a weakling (as he would have me be).
So, I have to question, if I am so many negative things, why’d he even bother looking for me last night? I am pretty good at handling myself, not to mention that I tend to wear Harley hard toed riding boots. That alone could break something if necessary. If I am to be so denigrated in the therapy sessions, why would want to go find that? Are you trying to say I Love You? Why can you not just tell me if you love me or if you don’t? If you don’t, let me go. Let me live. If you do love me, stop disparaging me, and let me live.
But then again, I am the one who could be filtering all of this through a “defective” mind……but I do not think so.
“……Making love to his ego, Ziggy sucked up into his mind…” ~ David Bowie
I wish that more people could remember this; myself included. Sometimes it pays to just keep your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself.
A Bipolar Journey Through The Rabbit Hole 