So Do You Just Give Up On talking to Your Loved Ones…..?

So this whole thing about loved ones keeps swirling in my head and I was wondering to myself whether or not I should have been more sharing about it and opened up more about my personal feelings (haha no stay with me you’ll see what I mean).

Maybe experiences is what i should say.  And then more ideas started coming too so I was like okay fine whatever I guess I may have more to say on this here topic so I grabbed the old computer and here I am….rambling

Anyway.  Once again.  I don’t have advice for how to deal with loved ones BUT i have my own experiences and have heard a lot of others around the block.  And maybe it helps the newbies to hear it.

I will preface by saying that this does not apply to my husband…he is mostly a whole different thing.  I am referring to the ones closest to me beyond him.

I for one have already lived through and past the stage in my life where I tried to describe my Bipolar to my loved ones.

For the most part it always ended up making me feel worse.  More lonely.  More isolated….

less understood

kinda the same with therapists.

But yeah.  I just got burned one too many times and even lost a friendship for a time and yeah…I don’t share shit anymore.

.

It isn’t that they don’t believe that Bipolar is a real thing…well…it took sometime but yeah….it is just that they don’t know how much they don’t know and I WISH they WANTED to KNOW.

So if you are trying to describe your Bipolar to your nonBipolar loved ones.  Just try to accept what they are willing and able to give in return and know that they will never understand….

and that they may never realize that they should TRY to understand

And also…We could talk and talk and talk and write texts and emails about our Bipolar…but none of that means that they are interested…that they are going to be motivated to understand…to learn…to research read or try….

even if they say something sweet in response….if they then don’t then ask you questions or read the book you recommended and ask you how you feel about it etc etc etc….

then they haven’t gotten where you wanted them to get.

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That doesn’t mean they are not fantastic supportive wonderful people.

they still are….

Mine definitely are

My heart just still hurts in this way.

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Think about it like this….

Would we all be out in in the creepy public waters of the global internet sharing our most personal business if we could just talk to our best friends about it?

um no.

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We are like aliens….living amongst the “normies”…..

we spend awhile having our hearts broken trying to explain it to our loved ones

and then

we realize we need to take greater risks…..

so we open laptops and click on keyboards…

we create usernames and little pics and “sigs”…

all in an attempt to add some humanness to the internet…..

and we start to type and read and talk and listen and share and click and reply and read and read and read and read

and write

.

but we do it

just so

we can hear

those most

magical words

.

“me too”

.

“I know”

.

“I feel ya”

.

“ME TOO”

.

These are words we will NEVER hear from our non bipolar friends and family.

It just can’t happen.

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So the very nature of our everything forces us out into the public internet in order to find people “like us”…

who instead of saying

“um ok. thanks for sharing.” and/or thinking “holy shit”

will say

“me fucking too.”

“i KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN”

.

we love that shit

it means so much

that is why you are all here and you know it.

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Why can’t they bottle that stuff and prescribe that?!

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Imagine the Pdoc saying “Oh I see…hmm maybe if we add a little UNDERSTANDING to your depakote, zoloft, xanax combo we may see an improvement.

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Damn right

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It is hard to be alone amongst your loved ones.

It is hard to be on the other side of the river and they think you are right beside them

It is hard to hold something so enormous all by yourself.

.

Most of us do that though.

.

I love how I say “it is hard” like that even comes anywhere close to what it actually feels like.

Bipolar is like a pain cake with loneliness icing……i will stop the analogy there

.

It took me awhile and I fought it hard but I have finally resigned myself to the loneliness of it all.

To being alone with it…..

I feel like this now…“They Will Never Undertand Us”

and I feel burnt out.

But as with life….

Sometimes loss leads to freedom…

I don’t know

.

If I had cancer or Parkinson’s or something not a mental illness….

would they read the books I shyly suggested?

Would I not be shy?

Would they look for information and help and answers on their own?

I really don’t actually know.

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But I think we ALL know though that none of us (us or them) treat our diagnosis like it is cancer or Parkinson’s or something like that?

They don’t treat us that way and we don’t feel like we are deserving of being treated like that…after all

we are just

crazy

not

dying………………..

.

until we are…

.

but then still…it doesn’t come…..

what you wish for from them…..

.

What would I do if one of these people I love received some horrible diagnosis?

What would I do if I was “normal” and one of them was diagnosed with Bipolar?

.

I would like to think that I would do what I wish that they would do now….

but perhaps I only know what to do

because I’ve been on

this side

.

It’s just lonely you guys.

You all get it

you all know it

You are on the internet reading about Bipolar disorder.

I bet you feel alone.

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Maybe I should change the wording from

“You Are Not Alone”

to

“We are all Alone TOGETHER”

Bipolar Together

.

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loved ones