My Reflections On Being Diagnosed With Bipolar Disorder

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.""Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

-- by Margery Williams, from The Velveteen Rabbit --

I've always loved The Velveteen Rabbit, ever since I first heard it as a small child. As I've grown, the message of course, is more profound.

I know I wrote in a previous blog that I had been misdiagnosed as having bipolar disorder. Turns out, it wasn't a misdiagnosis. After a lot of pain, a couple of break downs, and the evaluations of five different doctors, I do, indeed have bipolar II disorder.

What does this mean? Nothing. I think it means I'm still becoming real. It does take a long time. It does hurt. I don't break easily. I think I've proved that time and again. I'm still here, still going - if not strong - then at a steady pace anyway. I will now have some sharp edges, but not enough to keep from being loved entirely. I just know that it's easy to want to shake someone like me and say, "BE NORMAL."

I would love to, please. I didn't ask for this. As a matter of fact, I have fought this for the past six months. But I'm not getting better. In fact, I'm getting worse, having not been treated.

Stressful events are triggers for episodes. For example, my husband telling me he didn't think he loved me anymore on Mother's Day. That was my latest trigger. I've been trying to cope, but it hasn't been working.

I feel like a failure. I know I let my husband down - he honestly wanted me to fight this disorder, didn't want it to be a part of HIS life. He is worried about himself now - how he will cope.

I guess I won't get my fur loved off by him. But whether he decides to stay with me or leave me (a decision he has been trying to make for a few months now), I know that there are people out there who will love me enough so that my eyes will drop out, my joints will become loose, my fur will be LOVED off, and I will become very shabby.

Dealing with all that life throws at you (curve balls and all) is what makes one "real." I won't mope around, feeling sorry for myself. I won't talk about having bipolar disorder - and I won't say, "being bipolar" because this is not something that I AM.

I am so much more. I just happen to have a very "talented" personality. I'll live my life, love my children, my husband, family, and friends. I can't worry about whether the "in sickness and in health...for better or for worse..." part of our wedding vows really meant something to my husband or not. If I were in his shoes, I would like to think I would stay, be supportive, and be loved (something he is resisting now, my love). In my heart, I know I would stay. Because that's what women do. We stay.

I have a friend who was engaged to a man who, before they could begin their life together, got into a horrible car accident. He has no short-term memory. I have to introduce myself to him several times in one visit. He lives his life in a wheelchair, confined inside his brain. He is very intelligent, but is hampered by his now lack of social skills.

My friend stayed with him. One time she was really struggling with it; people kept "advising" her to put him in a home. I asked her, "If the situation were reversed, and it were you in that chair, stuck inside your own mind, what would you hope he would do for you?" And in all honesty, she said she would want him to do what she was doing. Letting him live in a home, around the one person he remembers ALL the time, in the place he's most familiar with, and being secure.

That's for better or for worse - in sickness and in health. Barry (that's his name) is real. And so is Wendy.

My life's goal is to be "real." It will hurt, and it won't happen all at once. And I may have to become real without my life partner of 16 years. But I won't let this break me, because it's not who I am. It's just going to help me become real.

My friend Sandra said to me two days ago, "You can't rub off crazy. It just don't work that way." Then she gave me a big hug as I cried - and I felt some of my fur start to come loose.