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A person asked me tonight if I had ever been in love. It was obviously a retorical question but it got me thinking. Since the answer would have to include bipolarism this seems like the spot to put it.
Just to be clear, we’re talking romatic love here. I mean I love a lot of people but when you are asked if you’ve been in love, they mean the Hallmark stuff.
My last boyfriend, let’s call him Petey ’cause it rhymes with needy, asked me if I felt that I could ever fall in love. Now I had recently had my Depakote level increased 500 mg and was having a hard time feeling anything but flat. Like table top flat. Like planes are falling out of the sky around me and I’m walking undisturbed flat. Explaining this turned out to be useless because I was “being distant” and “not caring”. He never really understood the whole bipolar thing. Anyhoo, I couldn’t say that I loved him so he broke up with me.
Affection and lust may be the pillars that you are building your relationship on but only time and trust will provide a solid foundation.
So no. I would have to say that I have felt a lot of affection (and lust) towards the people that I have dated but I have not been in love with any of them. It has been my experience that bipolarism and love take extra work and there are a lot of people who aren’t up to the challenge. Love is hard. I also know that there are a lot of happily coupled folks out there where one or both partners have mental illness.
I just haven’t met that guy yet.
The responsibility of the garden in the front of my co-op building has fallen unto me. In reality, until last year there was no garden at all, only a sad patchy hedge and two cyprus bushes that are technically trees now. Two of us started a boulevard garden which ended up being mostly annuals. My gardening partner as since moved and since I started it, it’s mine. (Unoffical co-op rule #1.)
This year the goal is to plant drought resistant local perennials. After spending two afternoons pulling out weeds and putting down mulch even I have to admit that it’s looking pretty good. I am worried though as there were almost no insects or bugs. Just me, ants, one lady bug, one tiny beetle and a small grub. Using a permaculture book as a guide, I am attempting to bring back a biosystem to the yard. The concept is pretty straight forward. It will be nice to have singing birds in the yard.
My therapist told me that he is happy that I am gardening. It’s suppose to be therapeutic or something. My brain chatters on the whole time and my jaw tends to be clenched so I question this wisdom. Maybe it should be approached like meditation rather than my usual mind set of trying to get it over with. Maybe if I didn’t get so exhausted I wouldn’t be so bothered. I have been sleeping excessively again (~14 hours a day) and feel like my life is slipping away.
synapses fire, a drug interferes
quieting the volume
but not the message itself
laced with explosives
the mind is shattered
thoughts fall like shards towards the feet
piercing the flesh
an unclean stigmata
air is inhaled
pain is intense
the body collapses in on itself
stunned and overwhelmed
Since starting Depakote 2-1/2 years ago the first thing that I lost was my creativity. This was a hard thing to lose. All passion for writing, painting and performance stopped immediately. It seemed that my world went from technicolor to beige. And not even that nice a shade.
The other day I took a traditional personality test as part of a work seminar and was stunned to see how high I scored in the sciences. I have always scored more or less in the right brain sections yet here I was scoring high on traditionally left brain skills. Is this an affect of the medication, the calming of the bipolar disorder, or a combination of them both? Maybe I have lost one creative outlet but it’s been replaced by another.
I have been thinking of going back to college and am thinking that a degree in psychology isn’t so out of the question anymore. I am not so interested in one-on-one counseling but would be interested in research. Or perhaps psychopharmacology. I already have more first hand experience with psych meds than most of my doctors.
I will have to give it more consideration.
Those who speak