Sometimes Normies can help us-Friends Series Intro

I am aware that there can be a very “us and them” quality on this blog

that is purposefully and with reason

I mean this is BIPOLAR First correct?

And I feel confident that I have flogged the “they will never understand” horse

And we have talked about all nature of things about normies

And I know that so many Bipolars really do not have normies in their lives who are supportive and trying and compassionate

It is sad but true and it makes me slightly uncomfortable to show you how rich I am in this area….

Because I do have amazing normies in my life

Among them, a few beyond amazing friends

And right now I find it necessary to give some acknowledgment of the ways the normies can help us

Of the way it can be

And I’ve talked a lot about my Bipolar and my journey with Bipolar and I have mentioned these friends many times

They are really a part of the whole thing

I would be completely remiss to not acknowledge them

To not share the way they impact me and my Bipolar on a daily basis….and have for what feels like a million years.

We aren’t the only ones on a journey with Bipolar.

We are the ones on THE journey with Bipolar and yes it is nothing like what our loved ones go through.

But I find it necessary to acknowledge the journey that loved ones take as well.

They are also working through their own processes and feelings and thoughts and acceptances.

They are also learning about our own particular form of Bipolar…

Trying to figure out how to deal with and manage it…

How to help…

And many of them don’t or can’t or won’t.

And it is painful and damaging

But some rally

And are able provide invaluable love and support

In their own ways

It has helped me enormously to find the internet Bipolar tribe…to know others who go through it all… To realize that there are people out there who say “me too” when I pour it all out there…

And this has helped me to accept that my loved ones can’t know, can’t undestand…

And it is okay

And it is just the nature of the thing.

And it has helped bring into focus the ways in which they can and do support and help and love me.

And how much that matters.

 

I had solid well established relationships with all of them well before diagnosis

I’ve known them all a decade or longer

I told each one about the diagnosis as soon as it happened.

Each one was completely accepting and loving

And we are not a group of five.

Two were my college roommates and have their own relationship but other than that these women do not know eachother well.

 

I don’t know about other people but I am a whole lot of person…

I would be a lot for one friend…

So many facets…so many parts

And each of these relationships makes the others possible

They weave into eachother and hold eachother up

They are each astonishingly beautiful and important to me in their own right

 

So I will publish four posts…one for each

In absolutely no particular order

I am going to turn off comments and likes for these because…it just feels appropriate to me.

 

These four women make my world go around