It is my ???-teenth entry into this blog that I call Bipolar & Motherhood and I have yet to talk about my actual Bipolar Disorder. I realize I am not very forthcoming about this mysterious illness in which I have defined myself but I am still in the process of understanding it – after all these years, I find, I can still bewilder myself at the naive way I approach my seemingly non-serious disorder.
I encounter moments of normalcy and take them for granted. Over time, I easily discount the amount of hard work it takes for me to remain sane. One time, while driving towards Cape Breton, I suddenly broke out in panic as I realized that I have not taken my meds.
“What? Meds?? For what?” My friend asked, incredulous. Despite having travelled across the east coast with her since 5 in the morning, and having worked with her since pre-pandemic, it struck me as ridiculous that this woman seemed to know so little about me, how, after all this time, I managed to hide this part of myself.
After I reminded her of my disorder, she seemed unconvinced. Not one to withhold, a trait I admire her for, she said bluntly, “Yeah, I know, you told me that before but like, you seemed so normal, so I didn’t believe you.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s because of the meds.”
“Yeah but–” she eyed me up and down, “I don’t know, I don’t think so.”
I laughed then, not taking her seriously. It’s the same cycle I go through with people who are just stating to get to know me. I wonder now, what she thinks, after hyping her up all week to a Halloween party I sincerely wanted to go to, to the point that she went to the Dollar Store this morning to buy a cape, only for me to text her a few hours before the party that I’m not feeling well.
I feel I don’t need to explain further. The silence in her non-reply tells me what I already know – that she is sitting in the office, furious, at having been let-down, and the bittersweet thing about this is that – somehow, inside her, she knew, that with every promise I make of showing up, no matter how vague or concrete I convince her of my appearance, that there is always a 50% chance I don’t show up at all, because I’ve done it to her before, so how could she have let herself believe me this time around, that I would actually follow through, when I have disappointed her so many times before?
I know this conflict – it has been expressed to me so many times before, through tense arguments, long e-mails, handwritten letters streaked with tears.
How could I, they say, paint dreams of adventures we could go through together, describe to them a steady friendship full of promises of always being there for each other, drive through the east coast and go to Puerto Plata with them, just to go silent out of the blue, and disappear completely? How are they supposed to reconcile moments of happiness when I am in their lives, with the months of absence that comes afterward? How can they keep forgiving me for abandoning them? Why did I not love them enough to show up?
And I don’t argue, I suppose, I can’t argue. Because inside I feel, that from the very beginning of this friendship I had emphasized that this wasn’t always going to be like this, that I ask for their patience and understanding every time I am not there, for them to know that every time I do show up, I have done everything within my control to be there for them – that these moments take intense amounts of energy from me, and on the days I am not there, for them to assume that I’m simply doing the best I can, given who I am and what I have been given, and that I am as disappointed in myself for not being there with them as they are with me – but somehow this explanation becomes not enough. After the thousandth cancellation, the times I am there gets discounted over time. They are forgotten. All of a sudden, I was never there for them. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done before – I am being judged for my incapabilities today.
A woman I called my best friend for decades once wrote to me and said, “Everyone gets the sads every once in a while”. The way she minimized and dismissed the seriousness of my disorder made me realize she never saw me for who I was. Somehow, along the way, she mistook my sobriety and health as my default state – I am so good at pretending to be sane that the hard work becomes invisible. Perhaps, that is my fault.
At the same time, I am grateful she never saw me at my worst. I do not wish that upon anyone.
Sometimes, I mourn these lost connections.
However, I understand that if it wasn’t for the loneliness that forced me to reach out afterwards, I would’ve never driven at 150 miles per hour on a dark Wednesday evening, singing at the top of my lungs, driving across Prince Edward Island to pick up a 22-year-old stranger I have met just the day before.
I would never have crossed the distance from Whitby to Kanata to have dinner by the Ottawa River, waving at tourists on their sightseeing cruise, while we talked about socialism and the absurdities of capitalism.
I would never have known what it’s like to sit in a Turkish cafe, eyeing the crowd, to have this seed of fear grow inside me momentarily – this ugly doubt of what I would do if no one shows up – and the utter disbelieving beauty of seeing strangers emerge from the crowd, meet my eye and see their faces shine in recognition and one by one, surround me, drenched in the same seed of fear I allowed to envelope me before and have that fear dissipate in the air, replaced by the loving scent of warm, foaming coffee and conversations and laughter that revolved around the common love for books and horror.
I realized from an early age, perhaps much younger than I should have, that the easiest way to feel powerful is to lord it over others, and that the young, disadvantaged through inexperience and lack of education for simply not having had enough time, become the natural target for these oppressors. And that this power comes from having others narrate your truth and dictate the meaning and purpose of your life so that you become servile, so that instead of learning who you are, you willingly choose, instead, to become mute.
I told myself then that I would never again be made into a foot soldier for the benefit of others.
I do apologize, for those I have disappointed.
But my love is unconditional. It does not materialize when you are healthy, present and mindful of my needs. It is constant. It is steady. My mind may get sick, and I, myself, may disappear – but my love does not. That is my simple truth. And I will stand by it, despite broken-hearted ex-friends severing their connections with me every time I become improper, or disappointing.
Perhaps one day you will understand what it means to love someone who has Bipolar Disorder, how it can feel like loving someone part-time – someone who is there, and not there – whom you can dream of a life together only half of the time. How to get used not to expect anything, to avoid getting disappointed. How to train yourself into imagining every event in the future as vague and borderline fictional, because you can’t know if it will actually happen until the day and time arrives. Perhaps in time, you will learn to commit to life in waves – waves of abundance, and waves of nothingness, for with Bipolar nothing is predictable – except the faith and the promise, that even at my most nonsensical, I still love you, just the same, and always.
for #NanoPoblano2025
NanoPoblano is the world’s least official November blog challenge. Participants and supporters are called Cheer Peppers. 🌶️🎉 The BIG goal is 30 posts in 30 days. You can share your goal and your progress and your posts on the Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1336744293025187/
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