So, my divorce is official, and has been for about 2 months. You would think I would feel relief at being out of a situation so negative and hurtful that I barely survived at times. I do feel relief that I am not being disrespected and degraded by some one who “claimed” he loved me and that he could handle the Bipolar part; he had dated two other women with Bipolar in the past, and in fact, his most recent breakup was with one of those women, they both walked out on him, not the other way around. I find that interesting. All of his longish term relationships have ended with the woman leaving the relationship. Hmmm.
At any rate, I am finding that I am slowly almost imperceptibly becoming very depressed. I am still at the point where I can hide from people who do not know me well. I am on a fucking roller coaster. One minute I am crying like I lost the last pet on the earth, the next I am thinking ‘hmmm, the kitchen needs cleaning,’ and no more crying for a while. I know that I am still on the okay side of this mood swing because I still care about what I look like, engage in personal hygiene, that sort of thing. The very fact that I do not out the kitchen off until tomorrow tells me I have not fallen………yet. I may still be on the okay side of this particular piece of the sine wave, but that doesn’t mean I won’t slip off.
I know there are many ways that people with manic-depression have devised for themselves when they feel an episode coming on. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, and hooray for them, but what do you do when it blindsides you and cold-cocks you in the face? What are you supposed to do when you both belong to the same religious organization, and you see each other at community events? How the hell are you supposed to heal from everything he put you through and everything you did to him? It’s not like you can decide to be a Zen Buddhist (I am a Buddhist, as an aside), and go climb a mountain and empty your life of all desires both material and those that are more fleeting, and come back enlightened. I mean, hello, most people have some sort of life including myself as unhappy as it has been for a time now. We don’t have time to climb mountains seeking the “way.”
Besides the only thing I can see coming out of that is a lot more money in the savings account due to one’s lack of desire for earthly things. (Sorry to the Zen Buddhists, no offense meant). Then I stop and think about one of the key concepts of my sect of Buddhism, and that is to make a plan then take action on it. Making a plan is great, but what will it accomplish, what will it get you if you do not take action? Nothing.
So, my ex-husband and I had the mother of all of our fights about first week in June. It was one of those fights where you are yelling but then get quiet because you have become so angry, you are afraid to speak. I sat there and let him yell, and I yelled back, until he said “You’re lucky there are no lethal weapons in this house.” I got quiet real fast and kept my butt glued to the couch because within my immediate sight I could see about 5 lethal objects. The next words out of my mouth were calm and modulated. I stated that I had enough of this discussion, and I was going to bed, and he could do whatever he wanted.
That night I curled up around my teddy bear (yes, I still have one), and I thought very hard about something I had mentioned before in passing fits of temper: Divorce. This time he had not just crossed the line, he jumped over it like he was an Olympic athlete. You do not threaten people with bodily harm. Especially those of us who have PTSD and a very strong fight mechanism. So, that night at about 3 am, I decided that come hell or high water, I was filing by Friday of that week. And, that’s what I told when he woke up the next day, and that is exactly what I did by that Friday.
I said all of that to say this: one can never be prepared for what is going to come unhinged in your mind that will set you up to break. I had been so unhappy in that marriage for two years, and I honestly thought I had worked through all the emotions. I was so wrong. I have been awful. I have been up for a few days then crashing out of the sky for a few more. I feel like the boy, Icarus, in the Greek legend who flew too close to the sun with wings of wax. I feel like I am hanging on to my sanity by the most light and gossamer of threads. I have become the dark side of the moon.
A Bipolar Journey Through The Rabbit Hole 