Living With Bipolar

I’ve been reading a new blog lately. It is The Shape of Days and the article that touched me enough to make me want to read further was For Those of You Living With Someone With Personality Disorder . I am Bipolar having just been diagnosed a couple of weeks ago. This writer was able to put into words feelings and thoughts I have had my entire life.

Several readers had asked this writer if he had advice for living with people with this disorder after he had written an article letting his readers know he had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. His answers, including how his mind works and how he thinks, were eerily familiar to me.

Here is an example of what he said:
People like me live in constant fear of abandonment. We are deeply distrustful. We don’t think you love us, or care about us, or even enjoy our company on a superficial level because we know how we are. We’re aware of it. We know we’re manipulative. We know we’re selfish. We know we’re mean and rude and all those things.

That just blew my mind. I don’t think I have ever trusted anyone. I am on my second marriage at 46 and my biggest fear with both husbands is (or has been) that one day they just plain wouldn’t come home. When they do come home, I am thinking of all the reasons why they did because I KNOW it cannot be because they love me or enjoy my company, hell who could once they really know me?

When people are nice to me, I wonder whats “really” behind their actions. What is it they are wanting? What have they done behind my back that they think I am about to find out about? Anytime someone in my office is speaking low and close their office door in order to have privacy I am CONVINCED they are talking about me.

Another point he made was this:
We start out by becoming swiftly and overwhelmingly attached to you. Maybe romantically, maybe platonically. We entrust you with our secrets, which are legion since we have so much to be ashamed of. We want you to entrust us with your secrets. We get close, fast.

I have always been that way. Be it a new friend, a new work associate or a new lover, I think I must tell them everything, at once. All the dirt, all the past, everything. I can feel myself telling too much too soon and just have this compelling urge to forge ahead.

Maybe, at least in my case, it is to be sure this person knows the smut, knows how really stupid and bad a person I am so they can really know what they are getting into. I am much better about this now than I was a couple of years back though – it has taken a conscious effort – but I am better in this area.

I encourage you to visit this blog and read this article, especially if your someone you love has BPD or Bipolar disorder.

Peace ya'll !