How One Event Can Change Our Lives

Over my recovery I have basically relived what I think has moved both friends and family away from me. Things that happened because of my bipolar bio chemistry and things that if I really had meant to do them, would accurately deserve what most friends and some family have chosen to do after the truth was conveyed to them.

In the last three months something has happened in my family that was not done on my part but a siblings part that has broken our family apart. It is only between this person and another person but somehow all of us have been pulled into it and I have been the one who everyone now calls the 'therapist'. WHOHOO....NOT AT ALL. It was a joke among the family before I was sick that I wanted to be a therapist and now that I have experienced therapy they think I am more than qualified to be their therapists. They don't want to go to an actual therapist! The funny thing is that I am able to be some of our family therapists successfully but it doesn't mean I should feel qualified or feel an expectation to be their therapist.

Tonight as I drove back from going out with my Mom we started to talk about what was happening with our family and she started to say some things about certain people and complain and earlier in the day I got the same thing from other family members. Today was when the whole family thing got too much for me and I started to think about some friends that were no longer in my life like my friend Adaivet who I would have loved to call up tonight and cry to her about how frustrated and lost I am with what is happening. We do not want to pull people into our problems but we do need to find solace in someone and the only thing I have in my life that I feel comfortable staying up and crying to is my dog. Because of situations like this, I am scared to call my friend Adaivet even though we haven't talked for a million years (more like months and months). I am scared because I am not sure exactly why we aren't talking, but I am sure that most of why she isn't talking to me is because of what I did to cope with my bipolar. I am scared because situations that are happening in my family are making me remember one of the reasons why I thought suicide was a possibility for me. Everything in our family has gone down hill since I was diagnosed and it is hard not to think that if all of this didn't happen that my family would be happy once again. Then when I think of that I start to relive what I did to friends like Adaivet, Anne Marie, Joe, Laird, Louise, Aunt Mary, Cousins Amber, Ben, Colby, and Louis, David, Erin, Chris, Lauren, Miranda, Liz, Allie, Collin, Cody, Ricky, Martin, Joan, Mara, Maite, my three sisters (Christina, Jordonna, and Holly), my Dad, Bailey, Ellen, Grandma Ricky, and the list goes on. I basically did something to many people that have come into my life when I was sick and didn't know it and the hard part that many do not get is that just like them I can feel the hurt and betrayal but I also was the one who did it for years and knew what I was doing when I realized it was wrong like my Facebook profiles.

People do not see or know how it feels to live through telling people lies and knowing what you just did was not supposed to come out of your mouth or was told anyways just simply because you wanted to live and if you hadn't lied you would let the depression seep in that was out to kill you. That feeling in your brain that you get when you are suicidal is the scariest one can experience.

The event of having people that unconditionally love me fight over a months at a time and are not talking to each other ruins me and the positive recovery that I have been working towards. Every minute that I have let this event get to me is ruining the work that I have done for myself in the past few months. Events like family events bring back memories that trigger the same emotions such as sadness, disappointment, and frustration. We are found back at a place where we feel like we need to control it to control what is happening in our personal life and that is not the case AT ALL. We could say telling my readers what is happening in my life is purposeless, but I am willing to share what I am experiencing to help others who are not as far in their recovery than I am to seek solace in a stranger when they do not know where to take solace at this point in time.

There is a reason why our doctors and friends and family tell us to concentrate on making ourselves stronger once again and to find self confidence in ourselves before taking on others responsibilities or problems. 99% of the time, humans take on things that they should never have taken on in the first place. I hope that makes you feel better :) We have to pass on things that our heart may feel like needs to be a priority. Sometimes we need to pass on what our mind tells us and let our heart point us in the right direction.  Sometimes we have to let others hurt for us to feel an emotion that we truly deserve.

Do not let events set you back from your recovery. Recovery does not need to include recovering others from certain situations ALL the times. We have to triage what we think is important and what is not. Start tonight. Start today. Start this minute and decide what you want to get out of tomorrow or the next day. Cancel a meeting to sleep in. Cancel a date with a friend to have some R & R at home with your dog and a book. Close your eyes and go on a vacation.  Leave the chaos forever behind, and welcome in self-improvement and self-love.

- Susan Page