Bipolar: the beginning

    For as long as I can remember I've always felt off. From early childhood when you are learning about emotions. And boy were my emotions big. I believe my parents did the best they could with a child they didn't quite understand. That being said I was never taught how to safely feel my emotions or how to handle stress. Mainly because they didn't know how to do those skills. I grew up in the 80's and 90's where it was cry or I'll give you something to cry about, how many of us heard that from a family member? 

         In the 80's and 90's mental health was not something that was discussed openly. For me I just bottled it up until I would explode. It was word vomit, everything that others did to me came out, and it was loud. This only got worse when I was in my teens. A lot of anger was built up. From the outside everything looked normal, but it wasn't. I struggled. I didn't feel like I was enough, people would always tell me "I wish you were normal" "Why cant you be more like this person?" "you're being to loud" "Calm down". People seemed to feel it was ok to say these things to an teenager. I generally felt dread in everyday things and hated myself. 

    Little did I know that was Bipolar. It was always there, waiting, watching and developing. I wish I could say I got better as I grew up, but it didn't. 

    In my 20's, man were the early 2000's and the 2010's the best time to be in your 20's or what? Oh if the walls of America's pub could talk, But that is a story for another time. In my 20's I was free and learning who I was. I had a rough exterior, but the truth is I wanted to be liked and loved with all of my flaws. I worked at a college bookstore and loved it. I would spend 13 years of my life there and made the best friends anyone could ask for. I would meet my future husband and the world was so bright and shinny. But it was always there. Those thoughts of not being good enough to have the friends and the boyfriend. Sometimes even in my 40's I still question it. 

    The summer of 2008 is when life would fall apart. In one day, one second, I would lose one of the  only people who just let me be, the anger, the happiness, the mania, and would still love me even with those flaws, the same day would also start my mothers long battle with being diabetic. In one day all of my joy would dissipate.  

    Looking back, it still hurts. it feels like yesterday yet so far in the past. My grandfathers death is still hard for me to deal with, I avoid the topic every time my therapist wants to talk about it. I still cry, because I'm still mourning. 

    The months after were a blur, until my emotions just exploded, it became so dark in my world. Finally my mother would make me go see my doctor for depression medication. 

    And it helped and then it didn't. Next came my first therapist( I wasn't ready for that quite yet). Then a psychiatrist. and Finally a diagnosis. Little did I know that it would take 2 severe mental breakdowns,  1 hospitalization and 30 combinations of medication to get me to my forties.

    But here I am. Still fighting, still breathing.