What really happens when living with a bipolar...

Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The following are my opinions feelings and my reality...


I am really frustrated! It seems like the internet was created by bipolar individuals. If you look up information about living with someone who is bipolar, you find a vast amount of information about the subject and it tells you exactly how you need to "make life easier for the bipolar individual". What you can't find, is the actual day to day information about what it is like for the "normal" individuals to live with someone who is bipolar. How do we make it easier on ourselves?  Terms like Jealousy, Rage, Ego are all general terms and none of them tell you exactly what to expect.

This is a little bit about what I have come to expect when living with a bipolar individual.

First of all, and most important... You are never right, forget about it, no matter how long you talk, no matter how much scientific proof you bring to validate your point, you will never be right. Don't waste your time trying to prove yourself. This isn't Narcissistic Personality Disorder I know someone with this (NPD) and it can be quite similar at times it is in fact different . Stop wasting time trying to be right, once you learn this, you can avoid a lot of potential problems.

Once in a while your bipolar individual will come home with this really wonderful insight about the world and their illness. They will talk for hours about how this new piece of information is going to open up the world to them. You will most likely not be listening, but instead sitting there thinking about how he/she didn't hear you say the same thing just a week ago. You have told them the exact thing, is this possible? How do they listen to a perfect stranger but not you? You are frustrated but you are happy they have decided to listen to someone even if it isn't you. However, you have been down this road before, so you know this new bit of information and excitement will be short lived. Next week they will have forgotten all about it and be caught up in the next new idea.


Your attempts at having friends will be very difficult for both you and the bipolar individual. Hold on for the bumpy ride and NEVER expect the friend to do the same. In the beginning, your bipolar individual will want to be a part of this friendship, their jealousy is unbearable at best. If you decide to not allow them to share your friends, expect backlash. The bipolar will cleverly attack you and your new friend - you might even start to question your own judgment in choosing that friend.

 If you and your friend survive all of the arrows, you will have to deal with your new friend not understanding why you question every single thing they do or say. You see, you have forgotten that not everyone is like the bipolar in your life. You forget that you don't need to be holding up your shield and ready for an attack. In most cases at this point, the new friend is frustrated and the bipolar individual has won. Lucky are the few who find friends who understand and are willing to stick around while you learn to put down your shield. 


Don't expect the bipolar in your life to understand consequences. Whether it is not feeding the animals or driving erratically, usually the consequences are not thought of until they are felt. Driving while the bipolar is manic can be a white knuckle experience. Those OMG handles were designed for the families of bipolar drivers! Use them! 


Forget rational, if it doesn't make sense to you, just pretend it does. If your bipolar individual says that God gave them the secret combination to a locker under your house... just go with it. Try to justify a good reason not to dig under the house.  Living with a bipolar can make your mind race sometimes trying to avoid triggers. It gets really overwhelming. This month alone I have seen and dealt with both the mania which brought on OCD symptoms as well as the depression which brought thoughts of death. It can be exhausting to watch. 


Unless you are feeling a bit sadistic and are well prepared that day don't ever tell a bipolar who has accepted the illness, that they are not bipolar. In fact, avoid telling them anything similar to "you need to take responsibility for your actions and stop blaming the illness" or "grow up". Oh and while we are talking about forbidden phrases... "you're crazy" has got to be avoided.


Rage, when this happens, and it will, your first instinct is to get it to stop. Since this is all about control most of the time, you are just giving them what they want. So I have learned to sit there (with my mouth open) or just look away and avoid eye contact. These are the OMG what am I doing here moments. What usually happens when they flip a switch is, just like a child having a temper tantrum. Sometimes the rage can be directed at you and you can become the target for flying objects... if this is the case GET HELP!

Lies, Lies and more Lies. The list is long as to the reasons why a bipolar will lie. You will get used to the deer in the headlights look when you catch a lie. Most of the time they are creating lies out of fear. No matter how irrational the fear is, they want to avoid it, so they create lies. They will lie about symptoms or lack of symptoms, they may lie about putting gas in the car, how much they spent at the bakery, if they paid a bill or why they were late. They don't understand how exhausting the lies are for you and never see the consequences of those lies. You will then find yourself analyzing everything that comes out of their mouth, in anticipation that it is a lie. Don't bother arguing about the lies, they won't stop, they are inevitable. This is another one of those pitfalls when you get friends, you can't forget that most healthy people don't do this, so stop looking for the lies!

As a consequence to the ducking, dodging, bobbing and weaving you do with the bipolar in your life, you will notice that you are treating other healthy individuals as if they are bipolar. You will exhaust yourself and those around you if you don't learn how to separate your behavior towards the bipolar and the rest of your contacts. Don't expect anybody to understand your situation nor to sympathize with it. Very few are the people who actually understand and sympathize with what you are going through. Maybe that is why the internet is so full of ideas about what I can do to help the bipolar feel better and limited as to how I can avoid feeling so frustrated.

Once again... These are my opinions, feelings and my reality... 

Gary Clark Jr. - "Bright Lights" (Live at WFUV)

This guy is Amazing. I saw a tweet about him today and decided to take a look, he is really good!
Gary Clark Jr. "Bright Lights" (live)

Burning Bridges

Burning bridges isn’t always a bad thing. If you find yourself with a bridge to nowhere, what do you do with it? What about a bridge to a serial killers house? Or even a bridge to vices? Sometimes the best thing is to take a wrecking ball and slam it upside the bridge. I have one of those bridges! Yup, built the dang thing right outside my front door, so close I don’t even need to travel to reach it. I won't tell you where the bridge leads, since the only important thing is that it leads to someone/something not good for me.  I was thinking about skipping all the manual labor myself and just hire someone to blow it up. Kabooooooooom!I can’t wait to see that bridge in a gazillion little pieces! Oh, and I won't be sweeping it up either!

The Phenomenon

I have this... "thing" that happens to me when I first meet people. I get a feeling, usually something I can feel with my skin and sometimes it is a feeling in the chest. For some freaky reason I am able to feel when someone is "heavy" (negative energy) or "light" (positive energy). Over the years I have learned to pay attention to these feelings and I generally try and avoid contact when the energy is heavy. If the energy is heavy I tend to be really quiet and lack energy myself. I don't really know why this happens but it has happened enough that I can't deny the existence of this "phenomenon".

I remember over the years telling certain people, hey so and so has a very heavy energy, keep an eye on them. Without fail I have always been right. An undeniable instinct that tells me when someone is good and someone isn't, you would think it would be a good thing to have! The problem is, when I feel the energy I want to get as far away as possible.  This becomes a problem when it happens at the place you work or the place you live or even a place you must frequent. There is no place to go when you are in those situations. 

I am in one of those situations right now. I knew the person had really heavy energy when I met them, and it didn't take long for me to confirm that they were a tyrant and a liar. Like a vampire they just sucked any positive energy I had out of me. I am telling myself "I told you so".  I am crazy for not listening to myself!  I found out this week that this person is actively attacking me behind my back and I was told this by more than one person... once again this person is proving to be exactly what my instincts told me.

So this is the point of my post. What good is this phenomenon if it doesn't help me and I end up stuck in a situation where I have to feel it all the time? It can get really tiresome! I would rather be oblivious than have to feel this heavy energy all the time!

CONNECTION and the FEAR that unravels it.

Something really interesting happened last night. A good friend of mine sent me a link to a speech given by Ph.D research professor Brené Brown. I was totally surprised by what she said.

At first I was surprised to hear that Brené Brown has spent 6 years researching vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. What a cool profession! She mentions in her speech The idea that CONNECTION is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, neuro-biologically we are wired for it. Through her research she discovered that SHAME and FEAR are what unravel connection. Fear of losing connection causes us to question if there is something about ourselves that people won’t like and will cause people to not see us as worthy of connection. Besides the fact that this is exactly what I have been trying to show to people, what else caught my attention and got me a bit excited is when she mentioned vulnerability.  She mentions that there are those who can take the risk and allow themselves to be vulnerable and those who can’t. How society says that VULNERABILITY is a weakness and that by doing this we are dangerously creating a society that can't connect. 

I thought about myself and what side of the vulnerability fence I live on. I am sure if you ask my friends you would get your answer right away. I am someone who wholeheartedly believes that vulnerability is a key part of our lives. I accept it and allow myself to be vulnerable. I can’t tell you how many times people have perceived that as a weakness . I believe that it is exactly the opposite, it is the person who has the fear and wont allow themselves to be vulnerable who is weak and who is risking superficial connections instead of real concrete ones.  I wonder if people living over there on the other side of the fence realize just how deep and rich their lives could be if they allowed themselves to be vulnerable.

 I realized that this past year I was very vulnerable and allowed myself to make moves and friendships that I knew could potentially hurt me if things went wrong, but I also know how rewarding things could be if I took that risk. So I did risk it, as I always do when I find someone or something worth risking it for. Some of those risks turned out to be enriching but some turned out to be risks that hurt me in the end.  I can’t blame myself though for being vulnerable and taking a risk.

 

If I just went back into a shell and didn’t allow myself to be vulnerable again in the future for fear of the disconnection, my life would not be as deep and rich as it could be.  I believe this is the right way to deal with the consequences of "being the real me".

 

So please take the time to watch these videos, who knows, maybe they will help you understand more about yourself.  What side of the fence do you stand on? I am surrounded by people living on the other side, where risking and being vulnerable is something they can’t do, where the fear of not being acceptable is too great. It is kinda lonely over here guys! 

Be who you are.

I want to start this blog out the right way and do exactly what the blog says... "The Real Me Writes". I want to step out of the expectations of my peers and write without limitations. I want to write about life though my eyes and convey my feelings without the constraints of society and others ideas of what I should be.  Intuition has always been my sixth sense and it is leading me to open up this door.

I have spent so long trying to prove that I was good and someone likeable. I have forgotten about how important it is to just be me. The real me isn't someone that I need to make excuses for, because the real me isn't bad. The real me is someone who people enjoy being around and the real me makes friends with very little effort. My real heart isn't really my own at all, I divide it with those I come in contact with. The real me can be easily hurt but just as easily I forgive and forget. The real me believes in forgiveness and believes that one of the most important aspects of forgiving is forgetting. The real me isn't all good, there are parts of me that are still learning and still growing... That is the REAL ME.

I am truly all of these things I have been trying to prove for so long. So, why not just be me and forget about what people think? I truly believe that this is a process that sooner or later everyone needs to go through.

You don't need to give me a reason to like you, I will decide that on my own. I don't need to look up to you to feel inspired by you, nor do I need to look down on you to feel that I can help you. I will spend time with you because I love you, not because I need to prove something to you. I will continue to move forward with or without you. I don't need to be approved by you, I alone am capable of approving what I am to you. THAT IS THE REAL ME.

I remember something my Mom said to me several years ago. She had turned 50 and she told me how she had lived her life worrying about what others thought and worried about stepping on toes and being everything that everyone wanted... but now that she was older she wanted to forget about all of that and focus on herself and making herself happy. That she was not here to prove to anyone how good she is. I couldn't agree more, and I can only hope that I can put this into practice and gain those precious years of peace that come with "being me".

This video may be very dramatic for some... but it expresses EXACTLY what I want to get across.