Bipolar Survivor

Today I have to admit, I have a bad bipolar attitude.  Maybe if I didn’t have bipolar disorder, my attitude would be better, but, I don’t know, today I feel more sensitive than usual, and something is going on in my life that I’m not happy with.  So I have two choices – 1. I can keep my feelings to myself and accept what’s going on, or 2. I can speak out about how I feel, consequences be damned.

Guess which I’m going to choose?  I can’t afford (literally) to speak my mind.  I used to do that when I would be in a manic episode, because I never cared what people thought of me, and I was on such a “high” that what they thought didn’t matter.

But I’m not that person any more.  I’m more mad at myself today than anyone else, because I feel I have compromised by being who I am now, worried about what other people might think of me – specifically, that they wouldn’t understand what I’m talking about because I’m so round-about about it, not being forthright.

I’m mad because after all this time I still keep my mouth shut when maybe I should be speaking out about injustices.  Is this what society’s stigma has done to me?  If so, I am ashamed.  We should be so much further along than we are.

Still, it is my choice whether I speak up or not, and I am trying to decide whether to talk to this person or not about the way I’m feeling.  In AA we have a saying about “someone taking up space in your head without paying rent.”  Well, that’s what’s happening here – they don’t even know that I have a problem, but I’m obsessing over it.

On the other hand, we can’t keep our emotions bottled up all the time, especially not out of fear of what other people will think of us.  I guess I just started taking things for granted.  Now I feel like I’m being taken for granted.  Or at least my friendship is.  I would hope that we would be good enough friends that I could just speak my mind without recourse, but I’m just not sure of that.  Maybe at one point, but now I think I may have missed the opportunity.

I heard that depression is anger turned inward.  That would make sense today.  I am angry at myself for letting things go on this long, feeling like I’m being taken for granted.  I don’t want to lose the friendship, which is why I haven’t said anything so far, but now I don’t know what to do.

I advocate for mental health in the work I do for NAMI, and I speak out against injustices against the mentally ill.  So why can’t I do it on a smaller scale and be honest when I don’t think this person is treating me unfairly?  I need to follow my own advice, what I’ve told y’all so many times, about not letting others take advantage of you and to speak up.  But I just don’t know what to say, and I feel like the friendship is being taken for granted.

Oh well, I still have the AA paragraph to fall back on: “…unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy.  I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.

That’s the answer – accept this, and change my attitude back to a positive one.  Everything else will work itself out.  Anyway, thanks for letting me dump!

Any advice?

Wishing you peace and serenity,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele

Related posts:

1. Change Your Attitude, Change Your Day
2. Things Have a Way of Working Themselves Out

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Opening Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.