Two doctors have told me that I have bipolar. In the five weeks since then I've been on medication, and everything is pretty much exactly the same level of horribleness and ups and downs. Had a good week, had a crappy week, had an absolutely horrendous week. My husband-like boyfriend and I are 'taking a break' AKA breaking up and my job is going to shit. He doesn't want me to come to his college graduation dinner or even his graduation (been looking forward to it for 4 years of our relationship). I'm devastated. He says he loves me and wants to be friends. Fuck that. I believe he's rejecting me because I'm bipolar and he is sick of dealing with how horribly I'm treating him. I don't deserve anyone, and I will never be with anyone ever again. I will certainly never tell anyone. It was a mistake telling the few people that I have told.
I have been trying to look up "bipolar success stories." Guess what? There are none. There's only stories of 5, 10, 15 years of different combinations of medications up to 30 or 35 different meds, years of ups and downs, nearly every person has lost their job, lost their marriage and/or their kids, been hospitalized multiple times.
I have found a few stories of people who are in their 50s, and have "finally" found a good combination of meds and have a somewhat stable life with bipolar. Guess what again? If it takes a person that long to get to a point where they can begin to "tolerate" their existence, then IT'S NOT WORTH IT. Kind of sounds like anyone wiht I've already alienated most of the people who have been closest to me, including the most important person in my life. What will another 25 years to do to the things i have accomplished.
I am thinking about rejecting my diagnosis. It has already caused me so much damage, I'll never be able to have a great job or a great lover or a great life if I accept that I'm inherently fucked up. I'm going to think about it until Monday, when I have therapy with my doctor. If I still feel the same way, I'm going to cancel my appt. and go about my life as it was before. Yeah, it was tough, but at least there was hope then that I could get better instead of now, when I basically have a life sentence.
fuck, there needs to be an "it gets better" campaign for bipolar disorder. i don't know if you want advice or if it would piss you off, but i have some experience with this--one of my ex-significant others has both bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. i started studying to be a psychologist because i was determined to help him. we were on-and-off for two years and he could be the sweetest person, but he could also be extremely emotionally abusive, self-injuring and controlling and often threatening suicide. i could never get him to seek help from a professional.
ReplyDeletea while after we broke up for the final time, he called me from the hospital after slitting his wrist in front of his new girlfriend. he was put on suicide watch, and finally his family saw that he had serious problems. he went to a doctor who gave him a formal diagnosis, then he started taking meds. for weeks he thought the pills weren't helping at all, he thought he was un-fixable and wanted to give up (a lot of the same kind of stuff you wrote in this post.) after a long time the meds did start working and they made him much more stable--it sounded like he was really getting his life together. unfortunately the drugs also affected his sex drive and somehow that was more important than his mental health, so he quit taking them and tried to self-medicate with heroin and whatnot. i haven't spoken to him in years, but i can't imagine that's going very well.
as far as i know he never looked into alternative treatments besides street drugs, but i'm sure there are options out there that don't involve taking prescriptions with side effects. or maybe the prescriptions will eventually kick in for you like they did for him, but without intolerable adverse effects. this is going to sound stupidly (maybe offensively) simple but the right nutrition, sleep and exercise can sometimes help alleviate symptoms--maybe try looking into a holistic health plan for bipolar disorder?
i totally respect not wanting to label yourself with a condition like bipolar. especially when you tell people and suddenly that's all they see, your "bipolar" behavior, and everything you do becomes all about the disorder. but you aren't bipolar, you're a complicated and interesting person who has bipolar disorder.
take care of yourself. i don't pray but you're in my thoughts, and honestly i'm here if you need someone to talk to.