Monthly Archives: July 2020

Bipolar is a jerk.  Even in the times you are well and stable, you’re not normal.  But you get used to that normal.  You adjust your expectations, you learn your oddities and live.

I had a blip during our shelter in place because of medications getting messed up, but I knew what it was and why it was.  That made it easier to live with.  I cried a lot and got emotional, but that was part of a collective angst.  I was not alone.  That was not necessarily even the Bipolar.

But then I got tired.  If you ask my friends how I was doing, for weeks they would tell you I was tired.  No matter how much sleep I got, I was tired.  And that hasn’t changed, but the reality of Bipolar has made itself known.

Last week it messed me up good…making it so, so, so hard to leave the house.  Even when I knew I would enjoy where I was going the dread was devastating.  And Friday knocked me for a loop.  I had to go somewhere.  I had to talk to people.  And I talked to too much.

And I remembered what I forgot…

How much I hate myself.

A few years back we decided to get involved with a particular group of people in a particular life circumstance and see if we could help.

And I think we have.

But not nearly as much as they have helped my family, and me, especially.

A little over 3 years ago I went to a family’s house.  I didn’t know the family.  I didn’t know what to expect.  We met that day.  I helped with something and she sent food home with me.  For the first of what has literally become thousands of times.

God has used her to carry me many times.

Three, in particular, come to mind.

The first was a year ago.  Earlier in the spring, the doctors found a lump.  It wasn’t cancer but had to come out because it has such a high likelihood of becoming cancer.  A year ago, right now, they removed the lump.  The surgery went great. I had no pain.  That was a Monday.  I expected to go right back to my life on Tuesday.  But I didn’t.  I dropped my girls off at an activity and I went to her house.  And sat there.  I just sat.  I didn’t even hold her newborn daughter.  That’s what I did for the rest of the week.  She had a newborn baby but she was the one taking care of me.  She just sat with me and sent dinner home to my family every night.

Another time was a month or so ago.  The bipolar had been playing mean.  But I was okay, just a rough evening.  And she saw it.  She messaged me on my home and used our particular code to ask if I was really okay.  She saw it.  My hubby can see it sometimes.  And I have people who I can reach out to but they are not nearby so I have to tell them when I am struggling.  But. she. saw. it.

That brings us to today.  The last two weeks have been hard. I still do the things that need to be done but I really just want to hide.  I am always exhausted no matter how much I sleep.  I have seen her a few times this week but just for accomplishing a few things, not to visit.  I love being with her when I am there but it is just hard to be anywhere.  It took me until Friday to ask if it is the Bipolar.  And today I have just not done anything and have done little to connect.  But she did the work to connect with me.  A couple of hours ago my daughter yelled, “she’s here.”  And she was.  And again she knew just the right time to be here.

Funny, a few years ago I thought I would help her when I was the one that needed her help.