Bipolar

My current experience has given me a great deal of empathy for those who are living with Bipolar disorder. While I cannot know what it is like to be in that place, my mood swings of the last few months give me enough of an idea to know how difficult that must be.

Toward the latter part of last week I started to really struggle. By sunday afternoon, I was doing much better. By sunday night, I was euphoric. Near manic. I cleaned. I painted half of my bedroom. Did laundry. At 1am when I finally went to bed, I could not sleep.

Yesterday (monday), I was fine through the therapist visit. Around 5pm, a phone call with a friend triggered something. I hiked since my husband had the kids. By 7:30 I could not stop crying. At one point I texted my brother for positive reinforcement, asking him to please tell me there was a man out there for me. His answer had me laughing through my tears:

"There is a man out there for you," he said. "But he probably has shorter hair". My husband's hair is shoulder length.

Got home to the kids and had to communicate with my husband. I did a lot of crying. Telling him I was angry at him for putting me in this position. Having to think about how if I want a partner, I am going to have to go out and date. And that I don't want to be alone forever and that is mortifying to me. Because I want to be all independent. This is ruining my self image. I point out to him that he has never asked how I am doing with everything. He never asks how the kids are doing. He said something about feeling like he did not have the right to ask. Huh? It sort of feels like he either is not interested in the answer or does not want to deal with the answer. I bring up his inability to communicate. His not responding to my texts over the weekend. I talk about how I cannot trust him.

I cry. He cries. He leaves. This morning i was okay again. Tonight I am great. He was here and I handled it just fine. We had to call our oldest and I almost forgot what has been going on.

In the meantime I got a draft of the separation papers. I let him know that they are in process and he would get them soon. I asked if I should just divorce him and be done with it. He said that is not what he wanted. Ugh. Because when I am in this good place, I just want to be done.

Even the therapist pointed out that I seem to be doing much better since he has been out of the house. That I no longer seem so full of despair.

The therapist is right.

I told my husband that no matter what I want us to always be friends.