okay- so, how do you guys help those around you understand the hell you go through every day? i thought i had this deal under control with a friend of mine, only to realize she has no earthly idea of what i go through. even though she at one time tried to be sympathetic, she has now given up- basically blaming me for suicide attempts, disruptions in her life, and pulling back her friendship because of them. worst yet are the "just get over it"ers, "suck it up"ers,and "deal with the real world"ers (news flash:this is my world!), who have no idea and do not care to. stories, ideas?
Honey, those kinds of friends you don’t need any way!!! You need to protect your mental health yourself, and people that can’t, or don’t want to, understand, then you need to just move on from them. Find those that really do understand your feelings and “whys”. If they can’t understand that part of you, then they don’t understand you at all!!! This bipolar hell we live in is “us.” If not all of us, at least a part of us, and a part we can’t just ignore and hope it goes away on it’s own; or “pick yourself up by your boot straps” kind of thing. You and I have to accept that part of us in order to be healthy. If our friends can’t accept that “part” of us, then they really aren’t a friend. (and esp. when they start “blaming” you for their problems, it sounds like they are sicker then either one of us.)
nyteyes-
i've experienced exactly the same thing with friends. It does indeed hurt when people you thought loved you, and who you love dearly, back off because of the mood instability of BP.
I read something in Kay Jamison's book An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness.
Kay is writing specifically about her husband, Richard. However, her comments can be applied to anyone with Bipolar Disorder (what she prefers to call Manic-Depressive Illness) and her relationships with others, especially those who attempt to learn about the illness, and want to “stand-by” the ill person. i added the bold emphasis.
"But, as I well know, an understanding at an abstract level does not necessarily translate into an understanding at a day-to-day level. I have become fundamentally and deeply skeptical that anyone who does not have this illness can truly understand it. And, ultimately, it is probably unreasonable to expect the kind of acceptance of it that one so desperately desires. It is not an illness that lends itself to easy empathy. Once a restless or frayed mood has turned to anger, or violence, or psychosis, Richard, like most, finds it very difficult to see it as an illness, rather than as being willful, angry, irrational, or simply tiresome. What I experience as beyond my control can instead seem to him deliberate and frightening. It is, at these times, impossible for me convey my desperation and pain; it is harder still, afterward, to recover from the damaging acts and dreadful words. Those terrible black manias, with their agitated, ferocious, and savage sides are understandably difficult for Richard to understand and almost as difficult for me to explain."
I've had good friends accuse me of manipulating them when i get into my "please help me -- leave me alone" moods. Last September I called one of them when I had just started to make cuts in my wrist. When she answered and started asking questions, i hung up on her and refused to answer the phone. I didn't turn it off, i just let it repeatedly ring and ring and ring. she left messages to call her back. Finally i turned it off.
Was she upset over my behavior? Yep, and also very concerned. Had i done the same thing to her and her husband over and over? Yep, I had.
Good friends, even those who love me, sometimes just have too much going on in their lives to be able to handle the drama of mine.
In this case, my friend's brother had been falsely accused of inappropriate behaviour with 2 friends of his 13 year old daughter, and my friends were helping him, his daughter who had been taken away from him, and trying to work through the legal system, which certainly acted like he was "guilty until proven innocent." They were also starting to spend a lot of their money, because he had already spent his.
These friends loved me so much they were willing to sign my "treatment contract" which gave them the right to do whatever was necessary to keep me from harming myself in any way -- take away my car keys, my credit cards, even take me to the hospital against my will. They had no problem with taking on this very large responsibility.
But that time i called her, it was too much. It didn't that i was unable to call her and explain until I was out of the hospital, nearly 2 weeks later. Understandably, she was hurt and upset and we have not since gotten together or talked.
We BP's DO disrupt other people's lives to some degree or another. The broken plans. The unexplained no-shows. the unreturned emails, phone calls. Everyone has a breaking point. Some can take a lot before breaking, and those are the ones who can stay with us through anything.
And sometimes others, at some point, will be unable to deal with it anymore. After all, they are taking on our problems when they also have their own lives and own problems to face.
Sometimes people need to protect their own emotional integrity. Of course i get angry. I write long emails apologizing and trying to explain. I write long emails yelling at them. I call and leave long rambling messages.
Now, i'm trying to accept what has happened. I send an occassional short email. Sometimes with a subject line that reads "Thinking of You." In case they've blocked my emails, i try sending from another account. I'm hoping perhaps things can change down the line. And I know they may not.
I'v read in a couple of places that even if we did not choose to hurt or verbally abuse someone, we have. We must try to correct it or be willing to face the consequences, We still must accept responsibility for our own actions. If not us, who?
That's a hard lesson. Certainly some people back off as soon as they find out we're bipolar. Some are less forgiving than others. And some accept it and really want to help, but reach the tipping point and have to back off to protect themselves.
Sure it hurts. And the closest the person is to us,the more and more it hurts. We want people to accept us as we are. I think we too have to accept others as they are.
Of course, this isn't they way i always thing and act. But in my calm and reasonable states, i know this is true, for me anyway.
i still can’t get over the “why even bother getting close to anyone- they won’t understand and too soon i will be too much to handle.” everyone loves me when i’m up, and it just depresses me even more when i can’t make myself be that up-person, or exhausts me in trying to be when i don’t really feel it. i’ve read an unquiet mind. it was a good book, and a lot of it hit dead on, unfortunately i tend more toward depression than mania, and that tends to wear faster on people it seems. those who aren’t aware of my bp just assosciate my hypo-mania as me (i’ve never gone true manic,) but when i’m depressed they notice. i haven’t found a mood stabilizer yet that has really helped, i still roller coaster on them. i’m the one who tends to isolate myself after these incidences- i am damn prideful and stubborn, but i am also someone who cuts to the point and i don’t see continuing friendships when you have told the person what you need and how you feel and they still seem surprised or hurt when you follow through. i just want to smack them in the head and yell out a big “DUH.” i guess so many people are so used to couching their feelings and waiting for others to try and ferret them out that they do not recognize it when spoken with simplicity. i’m honest about what i’m feeling, i’ll tell you when i need help- even if it’s “i don’t know what’s wrong right now and i need time to figure it out,” or “i’m cranky- leave me alone please,” or “i just need a hug.” i don’t have time or energy to put into false fronts with those i am close to, and why would or should i? why can’t everyone cut the crap and tell the truth? why does everyone make it so much more difficult than it has to be?i’m ranting. i’ll stop now.