I have been a survivor of Bipolar Disorder for over twenty years. I call myself a survivor because there have been many times that I allowed this disease to come close to killing me.
In hindsight, it was always there, slowly building, until it turned me into a self-medicating, selfish, wallowing hot mess. It wasn’t until I was in my early 20′s that I was ready to admit that something was seriously wrong. Even though I spent a year institutionalized as a teen (I call it my Girl, Interrupted phase) and told I was very sick, I kept my head in the sand about it for a long time.
When the suicide attempts and month-long meltdowns started coming more frequently, I had to admit that I needed help.
I have tried so many medications, I can’t even name them all. In fact, much of 2008 is a blur because I was so medicated.
What actually saved me was getting sober and realizing that I was not so much addicted to alcohol and drugs. Instead, I was addicted to myself and my disease. I am Bipolar II, which means that manic episodes are not as frequent, but they do happen and let me tell you, there isn’t a high that can make you feel so good. And for free. Hell, sign me up!
I know now that I had learned how to prolong the episodes by forcing myself to stay awake for days on end, drinking, not eating..you name it. It took a lot to admit to myself that if only I had realized this a long time ago, I may not have lost jobs, relationships and other material things.
Where would I be now? is something I had to stop asking because the guilt would eat me alive.
I am happy now; in love, and sober. It isn’t always easy, but I am learning to protect me from myself. It’s working and that is the best I can do.
Fourteen years ago, I was a carefree college student. I was content with life, was climbing the proverbial ladder as if there were no obstacles in my way, but I longed to be in a relationship. I spent much of my time kissing frogs and drinking far more than my share of tequila. Six months later, I found you.
I should have seen the warning signs early on in the relationship, but I forged ahead. Six months turned into a year. One year turned into five. And by our seventh year together, we had a child, a mortgage and a blended family of sorts. A yours & ours. I was happy, the kids were happy. You were not, and you had an affair.
Again, I should have seen the signs. We argued, I fought for the relationship, you blamed me for the affair. We worked through “our” issues, I thought.
We added a child, lost family members, added a house and then the ugly monster reared it’s head. You were not happy again. And again it was my fault. There was no affair – just a threat of suicide. I talked you out of it. I thought we worked through “our” issues and we forged ahead.
Eight months later, you were unhappy again, you were suicidal again.
And again you felt it was my fault.
You came home because you had no where else to go, but you tricked me into thinking that you wanted to be here. You insisted you wanted a “normal family”. But when push came to shove, you finally admitted that you really never wanted to come home, never wanted to be with me, you just had no where else to go, no job, and no family.
So you have decided that you are done with me, you don’t want to have the “stress” of owning a house (or two). You say you want nothing, but refuse to leave until your “name is off the house”. You say you need no one, and that you can do it all on your own. Yet we all know you are wrong. You know you are wrong.
Your anger and your blame has nothing to do with me. It has to do with whatever it is that you are hiding from. You need to find help, we need you to find help.
Help doesn’t mean you have to stay with me and your family. Help means fixing you, and whatever it is that is making you unhappy. Because fixing you is fixing our children. Because when you are broken, it breaks them.
You deciding that we are not going to be “us” anymore is probably the best decision you have made for all of us. Because I can no longer take the blame for your shortcomings and insecurities. I have my own, and I need to be the best example I can be for our children. I know I am not strong enough to leave you on my own and I still want to “fix” you/us.
So while you waver in the wind and deny you need help, I’m going to get help for myself, my children and my own well being. I will seek out legal advise and I will seek out counseling for me and for our children. I will find my way from here.
But, I hope someday you will realize how much you are loved, how much you have hurt us and how badly you need to be fixed. I hope that you make the choice of life and that you realize your kids need you, not a “replacement daddy”, as you like to say. I hope you that you make the choice to fix you, so that they too can be fixed.
Fourteen years ago, I was a carefree college student. I was content with life, was climbing the proverbial ladder as if there were no obstacles in my way, but I longed to be in a relationship. I spent much of my time kissing frogs and drinking far more than my share of tequila. Six months later, I found you.
I should have seen the warning signs early on in the relationship, but I forged ahead. Six months turned into a year. One year turned into five. And by our seventh year together, we had a child, a mortgage and a blended family of sorts. A yours & ours. I was happy, the kids were happy. You were not, and you had an affair.
Again, I should have seen the signs. We argued, I fought for the relationship, you blamed me for the affair. We worked through “our” issues, I thought.
We added a child, lost family members, added a house and then the ugly monster reared it’s head. You were not happy again. And again it was my fault. There was no affair – just a threat of suicide. I talked you out of it. I thought we worked through “our” issues and we forged ahead.
Eight months later, you were unhappy again, you were suicidal again. And again you felt it was my fault.
You came home because you had no where else to go, but you tricked me into thinking that you wanted to be here. You insisted you wanted a “normal family”. But when push came to shove, you finally admitted that you really never wanted to come home, never wanted to be with me, you just had no where else to go, no job and no family.
So you have decided that you are done with me, you don’t want to have the “stress” of owning a house (or two). You say you want nothing, but refuse to leave until your “name is off the house”. You say you need no one, and that you can do it all on your own. Yet we all know you are wrong. You know you are wrong.
Your anger and your blame has nothing to do with me. It has to do with whatever it is that you are hiding from. You need to find help, we need you to find help.
Help doesn’t mean you have to stay with me and your family. Help means fixing you, and whatever it is that is making you unhappy. Because fixing you is fixing our children. Because when you are broken, it breaks them.
You deciding that we are not going to be “us” anymore is probably the best decision you have made for all of us. Because I can no longer take the blame for your shortcomings and insecurities. I have my own, and I need to be the best example I can be for our children. I know I am not strong enough to leave you on my own and I still want to “fix” you/us.
So while you waver in the wind and deny you need help, I’m going to get help for myself, my children and my own well being. I will seek out legal advise and I will seek out counseling for me and for our children. I will find my way from here.
But, I hope someday you will realize how much you are loved, how much you have hurt us and how badly you need to be fixed. I hope that you make the choice of life and that you realize your kids need you, not a “replacement daddy”, as you like to say. I hope you that you make the choice to fix you, so that they too can be fixed.
They say (and just who the hell are “they” anyway?) that the first year is the hardest. I keep waiting for this to be true, for it to get easier. Maybe no one dares tell the honest truth: that losing a loved one so unexpectedly, so needlessly, and so tragically never gets easier? I don’t know. I am still figuring it out.
All I can truthfully say is that September 9, 2009, marked the end of my carefully-constructed life. The walls of shelter I had built around my family – especially my boys – were instantly demolished, leaving no trace of the safety I believed they provided. After that day, I no longer understood anything. I didn’t view anything the same. Some things I became unable to appreciate, while other things that I had previously not noticed, I began to cherish. My days are still like this – full of the confusion and turmoil of what life means now that my brother is gone.
In some small ways, it does get easier. Rarely anymore is my first morning thought, “Jeff is gone.” I don’t cry during my morning showers anymore, or lock myself in the bathroom just for that purpose – in fact, I can’t remember the last time I did. I don’t feel that sense of impotent anger that I couldn’t stop his actions, and worse, that I wasn’t aware, didn’t notice, and/or missed the signs he was even considering such a drastic way to fix what he thought unfixable. I no longer hold myself responsible for not seeing what couldn’t, and wasn’t, seen by anyone, not even those closest to him.
The hard times come at unexpected moments, like when I am at the bedside of an elderly patient, dying due to incurable disease, for some reason being kept alive by every conceivable medical intervention. Usually I am involved with my team performing an intervention that will do nothing lifesaving or really even ease any suffering. I wonder if the patient truly is suffering, and if this moment in the future could have been foreseen, would choices have been made differently? Then I think of my brother – choice no longer applies to his mortality. And I think about the patient’s family; I re-experience how very painful it is to let go of someone you love, and whether or not I agree with their decisions to keep the patient alive. I empathize in my own way.
Other hard times come when I am with a newly-diagnosed cancer patients, in the prime of their lives, now with a disease that is quite possibly incurable – I sense their questions, sometimes before they even utter them, things like, “Will I see my son or daughter get married/have kids/graduate from college?” or “Will I be alive to see the birth of my next grandchild?” And questions like “What will be left of me as a functioning person after all the surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, etc….? Will the suffering be worth it?” To all of these questions, I do my best not to answer, as I simply don’t know. I try not to say much, if at all, and instead offer a hand to hold and a listening ear. I don’t want to influence other people’s personal dramas with my own loss. After such encounters I feel the whole cycle of emotions of losing Jeff again, from denial, to anger, to bargaining, to sadness, and to a sort of acceptance – not necessarily in that order.
Do I still have times when I burst into tears because of a song on the radio? Or when my youngest child brings me a book to read that Jeff and his lovely wife bought for him? When my oldest son says, “Remember when Jeff and I would have sleepovers, play video games, and eat Oreos?”….or at any of the thousand other Remember When’s he has about his uncle? Yes!! Absolutely yes!! And sometimes, for no discernible reason at all – I simply miss him so acutely that I feel a physical ache. I don’t expect that to ever go away.
At the same time, I want my boys to know what a kind, giving, loving person their uncle was. I want them to know what a fantastic sense of humor he had, and how he had a way of charming even the most cantankerous person. The way he was a fantastic dresser, had impeccable taste, and was generous almost to a fault. Those were some of his many gifts. The world is definitely poorer without him and his light. And that is the saddest part of all – not that I miss him, or that my boys miss him, but for all the people who now won’t have a chance to meet him and be touched by what made him someone we all loved so much.
I love you Jeff! My boys love you!! We miss you more than words can say, but I know we were blessed to know you for the time you were here! Thank you for your love, for making us laugh, for having the grossest feet of anyone in our family, for being most comfortable making us all uncomfortable, and for always being there with a big, reassuring hug. On some of my worst days, especially lately, I remember those hugs, and imagine your big, strong arms are still hugging me from wherever you are. Then I feel a little better, and I remember just how much strength you have given me through the years to keep on going. So I do.
My mom was 14 when she had my sister. Together, they struggled through life and became best friends. When my mother was 23, she met my father, 22 years her senior. After a whirlwind courtship, they married and divorced six months later when he announced that he was going back to his first wife.
A few weeks later she found out she was pregnant with me. She told no one that she was pregnant. She starved herself so that she didn’t gain weight. I was born full-term weighing a whopping 4 lbs 12 oz.
I don’t have many memories from childhood, except for being by myself. Starting in kindergarten, I walked home alone, where I stayed, alone, until my mom came home around 7 pm. What I do remember is being sad, lonely, and ANGRY. I had no idea who my father was, my mother was never around, and my sister resented me for being born and taking away her best friend.
The first time I tried to kill myself, I was only eight years old. I wrapped a phone cord around my neck until I passed out. My mom found me when it was time for dinner, but she never said anything. A teacher told a school counselor about the bruising on my neck and I was called into the office. I laid it all out. I told her about how sad I was because no one wanted me and I knew it would be better for everyone if I just wasn’t around.
That’s when I started therapy.
After a couple of months in therapy, my mom stopped taking me as the appointments greatly interfered with her work schedule. I got sad again. I learned that pricking myself with needles felt really really good! I would carry safety pins and sewing needles with me at all times. I got into sports, made a few friends and got to spend more and more time away from my house. I managed my depression, by myself, and kept my “pricking” private.
But just as things were turning around for me, my mom decided to move to Pennsylvania to be with some guy I’d never met before.
I was 11 and she moved me across the country to an alien nation. I was more alone than ever. Stranger in a strange land. People made fun of me for my “Texan accent.” I listened to classic rock and everyone there listened to Hip-hop. It was so hard.
I finally managed to make a couple of new friends but the depression grew worse. My safety pins no longer did the trick. I needed something else. I discovered cutting. It felt even better than pricking, and the euphoria lasted far longer. Unfortunately, it was harder to hide. The school nurse saw my cuts and called my mom who then had me committed to a psych ward.
I was 12.
After my release things got even worse. My mom’s new boyfriend was drinking more than ever and he started getting physical with me. In a 6 month period, he broke four of my bones, and fractured two ribs. The school nurse called the authorities. After an “investigation” it was dropped, because I was a “clumsy” child and hurt myself. I started cutting again, this time on my legs, because it was harder to see that way.
From 1998-2000, I tried four more times to kill myself. Finally one of my friends’ mothers (after seeing bruises from my mom’s boyfriend) marched into my house and packed me a bag. She told my mom that until she was ready to be a real mom, I’d be staying with them.
I lived with them for three months. During that time, they paid for my therapy and my medications. She took me shopping and we had girl time. I wasn’t so alone anymore! Then they moved… Her husband’s company was relocated to Florida, and of course I couldn’t go.
My mom finally got her shit together and we moved into a small cottage. She still worked all the time, and I was alone. I did drugs, primarily heroin. I became angry and defiant. I was expelled from three different schools. My cutting got worse.
I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
I met my first husband when I was fifteen and a few months before my seventeenth birthday I found out I was pregnant. By that time I was on a LOT of heavy duty meds. I was drugged constantly, either by pills prescribed to me, or the drugs that I chose to take. I quit everything, cold turkey. No more anti-psychotics, antidepressants, pot, heroin, cocaine, not even a cigarette.
My daughter gave me a reason to live. She saved me.
It’s hard for me now (nine years later) to wear shorts or short sleeved shirts, because my scars are still very visible. My kids haven’t really asked me about them yet, but I’m preparing for the day. I don’t know how to tell them about what I went through. I do know that I can tell them that they have saved me, in so many ways.
I can’t say that I haven’t been through some rough patches. And honestly cutting and suicide still weigh on my mind, but I fight the good battle every day and I will continue to do so. Borderline Personality Disorder doesn’t just go away, so the only thing I can do is work on myself every day. But coming here, and seeing what EVERY ONE OF US goes through, gives me hope.
Every amazing person that posts on this site is my hero, THANK YOU.
Thank you for giving the misfits a place to lay our weary heads.
I’ve battled depression since I was a teen. I didn’t know what it was until late into my twenties. I just felt as if something was wrong with me or like I was a bad person.
I’ve been on medication for the last year. It was working. Working really well. My mood had greatly improved. I was no longer hearing a baby cry random times of the day. My anxiety had lessened. But the last couple of months it’s stopped working. I thought I was just in a funk. It happens from time to time. When I’m in a funk, I feel down and I lose all interest in housework, my kids, my husband, and my life in general. The one thing that keeps me going is school. I love going to school. I love doing the homework. It gives me purpose.
I started to feel down this summer.
I don’t have any friends. People say “you must have some friends,” but the truth is: I haven’t had a friend in over 10 years. When I met my husband it was wonderful. He was my friend and that was all I needed. Truthfully, I think I need more friends. I need someone to connect with. Someone to talk to besides him. I hate this feeling of being alone. I know my anxiety keeps me from talking to people and I need to work on it.
I was in therapy the first seven months that I was taking my medication. My counselor thought I was doing wonderfully. I wanted to be doing wonderfully. But the truth is, I was still having anxiety. Anxiety about leaving the house. About meeting new people. About about being a good enough parent or spouse.
I’m back to the dark place. I’m having thoughts of suicide again. Sometimes, I think sometimes everyone would be better off without me. I’ll think of how easy it would be to wreck my car while I’m driving to school so everyone would just think it was an accident.
I know I need to change my meds again. I need to call and set an appointment up. But I have anxiety about that, too. I don’t want to admit I am a failure. That once again I am not okay. And I worry, what if they don’t believe me?What if I am just overreacting?
What if I get in to see the doctor and I don’t have enough courage to say what I’ve said here?
(ed note: why don’t you bring this post in with you if you’re afraid you can’t talk about it? Any doctor will take you seriously.
Much, much love. Please remember that suicide is never, ever the answer. The Dark Place is a place that many of us have been before. There is hope.
If you are seriously considering suicide, this is the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline:
1-800-273-8255
Please know that you are loved. And you are never alone.)
I have been a survivor of Bipolar Disorder for over twenty years. I call myself a survivor because there have been many times that I allowed this disease to come close to killing me.