Healthy Alone?

About 3 months ago, I broke off a six year relationship, including a two-year engagement.

He was a genuinely nice guy, caring, and generous in helping my kids through college. And yet, I was unhappy. We didn’t fight. We didn’t bicker. We lived in separate residences. The problem was, though, that I didn’t exist in the relationship. He liked golf, we played golf. He liked casinos, we went to casinos. He liked certain restaurants, we went to those restaurants. He didn’t want physical intimacy, so we were celibate in 4 of our 6 years together. My interests; bookstores, museums, dancing – nah. He volunteered for many veterans organizations. I tried to be supportive. I attended conventions – where I knew no one. I volunteered for a committee he chaired, got little acknowledgement for my efforts. I visited his elderly mom in a nursing home several times a week (what an amazing lady!), and spent the day with her as she was dying. And yet I was closed out of his grief, could not share mine when she passed.

His every day seemed a self-imposed challenge of micromanagement, routine, and perceived imposition. By the end, I was miserable every time I talked to him.

So, it was time to be healthy and happy – alone.

I will not marry again. I have no interest in getting into another doomed relationship, casual or otherwise. I’ve been divorced three times, followed by two failed 5+ year relationships.

So I will be alone. And I have written before about being “Alone, not lonely”. I have rewarding and fulfilling relationships at work, two fantastic young adult kids (ages 19 & 21). I have a brother, and a semi-relationship with my parents.

And for me, that will have to be enough.

Invisible Illness: BiPolar and Brain Aneurysm combined

I’ve been told that I’m a difficult patient. Hmmm. Not a shock.

Several months ago I suffered a cerebral aneurysm. It began in August with a trip to the emergency room, an excruciating headache and vomiting that made childbirth look like a walk in the park. (I can say that-I’ve got two kids.) It took several months of diagnostics; CT scans, CT scans with contrast, MRI’s, MRA’s, neurological workups, an angioscope, neurologists and neurosurgeons collaborating, to determine what and where the issue was. Part of the complication of diagnosis was the assumption that my bi-polar made me an unreliable reporter of my symptoms. Seriously. I was told more times than I care to remember that it was simply a stress-headache.

But the angioscope was objective enough to get noticed. A bubbled vein below my frontal lobe, sort of between and behind my eyes. Needed to be clipped. A six hour surgery with two operating neurosurgeons to, well, no details. Just know I have a seven inch scar on my scalp and screws in my skull.

What does this have to do with bipolar? Well, the neurosurgeon told my fiancee that they had no idea how lifting the brain to clip the aneurysm was going to affect the bipolar. They didn’t tell me this. Apparently, no one mentioned it to the ICU nursing staff. In the three days I spent there, I was apparently impatient and irritable. I don’t know if it was the surgery or the meds that keep me from remembering those three days.

When I came home after three days, my fiancee stayed with me for a week. I didn’t know how much he felt he was walking on eggshells. He didn’t know how often I was biting off the tip of my tongue to not be snippy.
I just kept hearing “you’re really not a good patient”. I probably wasn’t.

But here’s the invisible dilemma that both aneurysm and bipolar share. They are not visible. My head scar is covered by hair. And though the neurosurgeon explained the impact of surgery on the frontal lobe, the damage to executive function, the inability to plan and complete tasks, the loss of short term memory, and the ongoing fatigue…people forget. It looks like nothing is wrong, ergo everything should be back to normal.

But it’s not. Not only has fall come and gone, the Seasonal Affective Disorder has hit. Christmas is overwhelming. Bipolar depression has set in. And still the fatigue.

So, I push on to be ‘normal’. Forced smiles, accepting invitations through clenched teeth, and hiding the overwhelming exhaustion as much as possible.

Grinding on trying to make the internal behave as the external appears capable of.

Cognitively Bumbling Along…

Do you remember the year in Junior High School that you started to grow? Mine was actually freshman year. In September of that year, I was five feet tall. By April, I was five-foot-seven. Seriously. It was ridiculous. I remember shifting and stretching my legs under the desks in class. The aching leg muscles, and popping joints. But what I remember most was trying to walk.

I did not have a physical disability or limitation that inhibited my ability to walk. But my body no longer made sense to me. I was all legs and elbows. I walked into shelves that hadn’t been a problem the day before. It took all of my concentration to get my body parts moving in the same direction to carry me down the hallways without crashing into an upperclassman. And stairs? Forget it. My particular talent was not falling down the stairs, but rather UP the stairs. The toes of my bigger feet would catch on the tread and upward I sprawled, books, pencil and notebooks flying every which way.

The greatest challenge I faced freshman year was the ‘Freshman Frolic’, our first semi-formal dance. I got my dress, bought my heels, did my hair, and walked into the decorated cafeteria like I was going before a firing squad. And then, it happened. My stylish 3 inch heels hit the polished tile. I was a baby giraffe on an ice rink. Arms windmilling, legs flailing – you get the picture.

These days I can walk with a fair degree of confidence. My brain, however, has reverted to those days of adolescent in-coordination. While I compensate for some of the impacts of bipolar with technical tools (lists, calendars), there are days that I can’t seem to get my brain moving – in any direction. I start, stop, forget what I was doing, rack my addled brain trying to remember some thought, like a word on the tip of the tongue. Foggy days.

Easy solution? Nope. I just try to remind myself that I survived the baby giraffe days, and figure my brain will resume functioning sometime in the future. Meanwhile, I’ll just have another cup of coffee. (Has anyone seen my coffee cup?)

Enforcing Detachment

Somehow, March has turned into August. Days have become weeks, and weeks became months; spring has become summer, and now it is time to order firewood again. A challenging summer for my bipolar symptoms – I’ll leave it at that. But a recent dilemma has brought me back to ‘the blog’, and I am grateful.

I’ve written about toxic people before, in my “Face Value and Zero Expectations” post. I have worked hard to detach from some people, and to limit my expectations from others. With a HUGE Irish Catholic family from South Boston; aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, spouses, children of cousins…. I have no idea. Easily over 100 people. They’re not bad people. Many of them are wonderful people. But with that many, there seems to be a constant stream of reunions, weddings, and funerals. Especially funerals. We Irish Catholics are GREAT at funerals.

Facebook is a great media, but it’s not always beneficial. There are recent studies that people artificially inflate the pleasure and joy in their lives in their posts on facebook, which leads readers to feel discouraged about the lack of pleasure and joy in their own lives. A Gordian knot. So, I check in on facebook from time to time, but not regularly. My mother, however, in her mid-60’s, is an avid fan of facebook. And she feels it necessary to tag me in everything, including photos of people I don’t know, and events I don’t care about. Multiple times. Daily. Ugh.

With all due respect to my mother, we were not ever close. We have never had a warm, loving relationship for a gazillion reasons that don’t really matter here. But, over time, I have learned to detach. I have learned to not need anything from her, especially emotionally. We rarely spend time together for more than a few hours monthly, and I have not traveled to her home in over three years. We speak on the phone rarely, mostly about the weather. And I am quite comfortable with where things stand.

So, to the point. At a cousin’s recent wedding (which I did not attend), a sort-of relative (whom we had not seen in thirty years), commented to my mother that she should spend more time with me. She lost it. Tears, Angst, Drama. She had to leave the wedding early, sent me a long message (on facebook, of course) about all the reasons she is busy and doing her best, and called me to tell me about it and her message on facebook. I read the message. And I was angry. Not that the person said anything wrong. If anything, that person was more right about my mothers and my relationship than they had any idea. I was angry because the person had made an off-the-cuff comment to my mother, and I was being left holding the bag of putting her back together. My main thought was “Dear God, she is going to want to spend the weekend here…” Nope. Not gonna happen.

I said something noncommittal and platonic to my mother, and she seemed to calm down. Then I sent a note to the instigator, telling them that my relationship with her was none of their business, and to keep their opinion to themselves.

Does the instigator deserve to be shut down? Probably not, he was pretty accurate. Am I invested in developing a warm and fuzzy relationship with my mother based on her guilt from being called out? Nope. We’re just going to keep talking about the weather.

Coming to the Table

I have been working harder in being consistent at writing in my journal. My greatest fear is of one of my greatest weaknesses; consistency. I hesitate to take on volunteer opportunities, to engage in ongoing commitments, because of my fear that I will not follow through. This is a fairly new problem, since 2004, my second breakdown. I guess it’s not so new, but it’s still a problem.

One of the traps that I have consistently fallen into is commitment. I begin a simple task, like taking notes for a committee. Suddenly I find myself in a place of perfectionistic over achievement. Obsessing about details, checking, re-checking, and re-checking again. This is my neuro-chemical downfall symptom of bipolar. Or maybe its just a character flaw. I don’t know.

So, I hesitate. I deflect requests to become involved. I lead a fairly solitary life. But now, I have to face the fear. The coping tool of not getting involved, not getting invested, has left me feeling that I no longer have the discipline to complete any ongoing task. Even a recent bathroom remodel took me three times longer than expected, and was much more a mental drain than a physical one.

So I now I find it is time to challenge myself. Am I willing to come to the table? Am I willing to commit to writing? Every single day? EVERY SINGLE DAY? Not to write the great American novel in a month, or a year, or ever. But to show up at the table every day, for five minutes, or an hour. Just to get there, and as the books say, “get [my] butt in the chair.”

Can I let go of the fear of the crash and burns in the past, the fear of failing in the present? Can I try again?

Can I? Will I?

We’ll see.

From February’s Fury to March Madness

February is a difficult month. For many people, this year has been exceptionally difficult. Record cold temperatures, record snowfall…ergh. It has been physically difficult; at 43, the aches and pains of shoveling are harder to ignore then when in my 30’s. Financially challenging in keeping the oil tank full. Mentally challenging in keeping the woodstove full and the snowblower running. And, most difficult, emotionally challenging. Dark, short days. Long, frigid nights. I find Seasonal Affective Disorder to be nearly as detrimental as unmedicated BiPolar symptoms. Sleeping more, eating more, irritated more – oh my! Such a recipe for disaster. I spent much of this February vacillating between irritated, grumpy, and cranky.

But, now it is March. The maple syrup taps are out on the trees. We should be experiencing warmer days, and less frigid nights. The “spring ahead” time change is tomorrow, so the days will (technically) stay lighter longer. A good thing? I hope.

Unfortunately, the flip side of February’s depression ending is the very real possibility of tipping into spring mania. It is a pattern that I know well. That doesn’t mean I’m any better at managing it. I’ve scheduled my March med management with the psychiatrist, have my bi-weekly appointment with the psychologist, and all the meds refilled. Battening down the hatches. The energy of mania is a seductive thing, but I have grudgingly recognized that it rarely ends well.

Knowing what to expect on the road ahead is helpful. I just keep praying that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a train!

Holding the Door Open

“People come into our lives for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime.”  I don’t know who authored it, but it is so accurate.

My bipolar, my breakdowns, my inability to purse my career, and all the associated complications have tested the relationships in my life.  I have lost acquaintances and work friends after leaving my jobs. I have lost life-long friends, who have been unable to bear my continual ups and downs of the past ten years. I have lost lovers and husbands.  I have been distanced from family.

And some of those relationships are, quite simply, gone. There are people who I have loved and lost, and I have grieved that loss and then moved forward.

But for one – one very important person, I have waited.  There was no animosity in the decline of our relationship.  We just separated a very long time ago, and never learned to know one another.

I was not in a position to remove the physical distance between us.  There were reasons that I could not involve him or keep him informed about my own struggles.  And he had his own struggles to grow through.

But I held the door open.  Cards and small gifts sent at the holidays.  The very rare e-mail and text, not asking, but presenting.  Presenting wishes of luck, reminding him of the presence of love, and reminders to be safe in his dangerous profession.  Not pushy, not mushy.  Just quietly being present for the day that he might reach out.

Words can not explain my absolute gratitude and joy the day that he agreed to come visit for an event involving my son.  In 26 years, it was the first offer to visit that he willingly accepted.

He came.  We talked.  We laughed.  No heavy-duty reminiscing, no assignations of blame.  We enjoyed being together in the now.

I promised him that I would not get mushy.  But when I hugged him tight at the end of the evening, he hugged me back.

I am so grateful.

Train of thought…derailed

I used to be smart.  Really.  I earned a Masters degree, held a position of authority at my workplace, enjoyed reading Plato, and had started on a Doctoral program.  Honest.

Someone once said that with each child a mother bears, she loses half of her brain capacity.  So, one child equals a 50% brain.  A second child brings her down to a 25% brain.  I used to scoff at that, until I met my ex-husbands mother.  She had eleven children.  Dear God, the woman could barely finish a sentence.

So, I had a masters degree, working on a doctorate, two children, and a demanding career.  Ergo, trouble.  Add on three breakdowns, and by now ten years of mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and beta blockers.  My brain is mush.

I used to love to read.  Now, three paragraphs in, I am lost.  I can’t remember the last time that I finished a book.

I love Bill Cosby’s assertion that his brain is in his behind.  Mine too!  It goes like this: sitting in the living room, I think of something I need to get in the other room.  I stand up, walk to the other room, and have NO IDEA what I am looking for.  I go back to the living room, sit back down, and immediately remember what I needed in the other room. My brain is in my behind.

If I pay close attention, and the person I am conversing with has a fairly direct point to make, I can carry on a conversation.  Walk into the grocery store?  Complete blank.  I can buy $200 worth of groceries, and still forget the one thing I needed to make dinner.

I could get frustrated, but it’s easier to laugh.  My two teenagers know I have no memory.  Could they exploit this?  Absolutely.  But I have great kids, so they don’t take advantage.  They patiently remind me of what they had asked, and what I had answered.  And they know that, if anything needs to get done, they MUST write it down, and put it next to the coffee pot.  Coffee is the one thing I always remember in the morning.

Notes and lists are my lifeline.  I make a list everyday.  Chores I want to get done, places I need to go, and what I need to do when I get to those places.  Every day has an index card, and the index card gives structure to my day.  And the calendar on the wall is my lifeline.  If I don’t write it on the calendar, I guarantee you that I won’t remember it.

Here’s my secret:  any old index card won’t do.  I use fluorescent yellow index cards.  Why?  So when I forget where I put my list, the color makes it easy to find.  🙂

Face Value and Zero Expectations

We all have toxic people in our lives.  In-laws, ex-es, family members, co-workers, and even some friends can bring a level of toxicity into our relationships.  People like this use strategies to take up our time, deplete our energy, and keep themselves as a focus by either seeking attention or seeking to engage us in conflict.

Snide comments, backhanded compliments that are actually insults, manipulation, unclear communication that deliberately leaves us unsure of their meaning, passive aggressive actions, or even deliberate meanness are some of the tools in their boxes.

The strategies that a toxic person utilizes can leave us, the recipient, emotionally activated.  They leave us wondering “what just happened?’  “What did that mean?” “Did I really hear what I thought I heard?”  Confusion can be the best result of an interaction with a toxic person.  Further results can be anger, resentment, feeling insulted, or feeling that we, as the recipient, have done something wrong.

A toxic person can drain us emotionally.  Trying to understand the meaning behind the words, the actual occurrence that led to us being blamed, attempting to develop strategies to deal with the person, gain their favor, or maintain a relationship, is exhausting.

Trying to deal rationally with an irrational person can be crazy-making.

So, de-fuse their strategies.  Refuse to be engaged at a crazy-making level.  Keep it simple.  Hear only the actual words that come out of their mouth.  Take everything at face value, and stop trying to interpret and figure out the hidden meanings.  If what came out of their mouth was unclear but important, ask the clarifying questions without  getting sucked into an argument.  If what came out of their mouth was a loaded statement intended to create an argument, ignore it.  If what came out of their mouth was unclear and unimportant, forget about it.  Don’t bother.

Sounds easy, but it is hard.  It is a habit, and a habit needs to be developed over time. Toxic people in our lives have rubbed our emotional skin raw during the course of our relationships, and when they continue to poke at our raw skin, it is our instinct to react.  But don’t react.  Fake it until you make it.  Paste a smile on your face, let the words roll off your back, and act on only the actual words that come out of their mouths.

The second de-fusing tool that works in conjunction with face value is zero expectations.  The quickest way for someone to light our fuse and engage us in frustration, anger, and conflict is by them repeatedly not meeting our expectations.  We are not talking a one-time memory lapse.  We are talking about patterns, passive-aggressive patterns of people deliberately not meeting our stated needs.  Whether because they are teaching us that we are unimportant, that our needs have no value, or to engage us in conflict, their actions can be infuriating.  Paying the bills, following through on appointments, making plans and keeping them are reasonable expectations to have of a reasonable person.

Toxic people are not reasonable.  Missing appointments, losing checkbooks, changing plans, inappropriate social behaviors, and creating crises are methods  by which they can induce an emotional response from us.  We must remove ourselves from their power.  They can not create a response of anger, frustration, and disappointment from us if we have no expectations of them.  We create this by developing an attitude of Zero Expectations.   Now, if this is a spouse, there are additional problems.  But as far as in-laws, ex-es, and some friends, remove the expectations.  De-fuse our own responses of anger or disappointment by not relying on them.

When we have successfully learned the habit of taking things only at face value, and of having zero expectations, it will be much more difficult for a toxic person to push our buttons.  And, if we have developed the face value and zero expectation skills, it helps us to step back far enough from a toxic person to choose whether or not to continue our relationship with them.  We have taken our power out of their hands, and given it back to ourselves.

Regret, not resent

There have been many different periods of triumph, and tragedy, in the past twenty years of my life.  I have loved, and lost love.  I have achieved a graduate degree, and have had to leave a career.  I have been married, and been divorced.  And always, always, I have worked hard to make the right decisions, the ones that would cause me the least amount of regret in looking back.

BiPolar has played a part in many aspects of my life.  Diagnosed nearly ten years ago, with several breakdowns and two divorces under my belt, I hated my disorder.  I raged against it.  I did (and still sometimes do) hate the idea of having to take medications daily for the rest of my life.  I blamed it for the failure of a marriage, for the loss of a career that I loved, and for my inability to trust those close to me. I hated the depressive lows that diminished my ability to be an active part of my kids’ life. I hated the manic highs that brought about financial difficulty and unstable romantic relationships.

But anger and resentment did not help.  The anger did not resolve anything, did not make anything better. The anger kept me in a state of blaming, instead of a state of repairing.

Regret is unavoidable.  Though I have made the best decisions that I was capable of making, though I tried to avoid having regrets, I do, still, have regrets.  I have dozens of “I wish…”.  Dozens of “If only….” .

My regrets now, are gentle waves of sadness that come periodically.  There are things in my life that I regret.  There are behaviors in my past that I regret.  Decisions I made that I regret. There are people in my past, unable to cope with my mood swings, that I miss terribly.

I can repair only what is in my power.  I can only change the decisions I am making in my present.

Though I cannot avoid regret, I can choose not to resent.  Not to resent the loved ones who left me, whether due to my bipolar behavior, or due to their own limits.  Not to resent my illness for sabotaging my career, and destroying relationships.  To resent requires being angry, and being angry takes energy away from healing.  I will continue to make the decisions that I believe will cause the least amount of regrets for me and those who I love.  And when the regrets come, as they will, I will acknowledge them, miss what is gone, and continue moving in the present toward the future.