Knowledge Is Power

I realized how much power knowledge can give an individual the day I found out my then husband was a drug addict.  I had missed all the signs because I was ignorant about drugs, their effects on people, and even drugs that people could get addicted to.  My ignorance was so big that I always passed the hydrocodone he had in a ziploc bag for aspirins that he was supposedly given by his orthodontist.   I laugh at that now because it sounds so silly and dumb, but that was my reality then.

After I left him, he would use my ignorance to scare me.  The torturous texts and calls about what he supposedly could do to me took a huge toll on me.  Eventually I learned that he could only scare me because I really didn't know whether or not what he was saying was true.  That is when I then decided to acquire knowledge of the law and that is when his words had less effect on me.  The more I learned, the more fears I conquered.

Today I was reminded of this again because I have shared a period of my life with someone who has bipolar disorder.  It is a disorder I had absolutely no knowledge of and something I did not know they had until things got too out of control for my taste.  When things had begun to spiral out of control I was scared, I was scared because I had no idea what was going on.  It had been in the past that I could sit down and talk things out with my partner and we were able to work things out, but when things were so out of control I felt so scared of saying something because I thought I would make it worse.  The truth is that looking back now, I know that if I would have remained calm like I usually did, I wouldn't have.

Bipolar disorder is one of the most misunderstood mental health disorders out there.  It is the toughest to diagnose because usually providers only see patients when they are depressed and they don't mention the times they are or were manic.   Anti-depressants can make bipolar disorder worse, they can send that mania into hyper drive.  Certain drugs and foods will do exactly the same, but I was not aware of this.  Now that I am, I look back at our lives and a lot makes sense to me.  I am writing this because it helps me and because I know that there are people out there who have a loved one diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  I know how crazy life can seem with their ups and downs, and I know how much it can affect you not only emotionally but physically.  I want you to know that you are not alone and that if the person is willing to learn to manage their illness, you can have a successful relationship with them.  You can communicate well with them and be able to get your needs and theirs met in a healthy manner.  If they don't want to work on learning to manage it though, or they don't want to talk about it with you openly, then there is not much you can do but walk away.  This illness is hard to manage on their own, and I have learned from speaking to many people who have bipolar and have learned to manage the illness that they could not have done it without the support of those who love them.  It requires a great deal of patience, understanding, and sacrifice but I feel that when there is love, the rest just falls into place.

He never told me he had this illness, and I understand why now.  There were a lot of things that did not make sense then, but in hindsight they make sense now.  A person with bipolar disorder does not want to have bipolar disorder, they don't really like the instability it brings.  When we moved in together, he made it a point that he wanted to ensure we only ate certain foods.  I didn't know why this was so important, it was too important to him... It seemed something trivial for me, because I am the type of person that says hey if you don't like certain foods then you don't eat them and if I don't like them then I don't eat them.  If I want fast food, I can get fast food and if you want something different we can go get that for you, come home and we each eat what we want.  I mean the point was that we each ate what we liked.  In looking back, I realize now that it was not about that.  It was not that he did not like the foods I ate, it was that he knew diet played an important role in managing his bipolar, more so when he was not medicated.  He was trying to manage it, he was trying to stay away from things he did like but that would make his mood swings worse.

I wish he would have told me though, because looking back now, the most stable periods of time he had were when we were eating at home.  I was the one cooking and making food in the most natural way possible.  During this time he was also sleeping well, which plays a huge role on managing bipolar disorder.  We hardly ever went out to eat and at times I missed that, but now I know that not only outside food would play a role on his mood but also the busyness and noise of a restaurant could have an effect on his mood swings.  It is amazing what I can see now that I look back and that I have more knowledge about the disorder.

Summer kicked in and I was not aware of what summer can do to a bipolar brain.  From reading hundreds of articles, it seems like summer is a trigger for mania.  I am a spiritual advisor and I read energies in order to help my clients, during the summer the energies are super high and daylight is longer.  Everyone is wanting to go out, be with friends and family, and all of it can be erratic.  There was an added twist to this, the work he did.  His work is the busiest during the summer and that alone can trigger manic episodes.  I didn't know this and thinking back I feel that was one of the reasons he wanted to leave that work behind.  He was looking for stability for himself and in a way at that point he was looking to remain stable.  Whether he did it consciously or unconsciously, wanting his stability is one of the main things he always looked for.  He knew what triggering a manic episode would do to him and the relationships he had.  He also knew that we needed to make some money, and because of this he decided to go into it full force.

It was also during the summer that I decided to get involved in his work and because of this I stopped cooking at home; we both started to eat out.  Not only that, but usually I would have left overs at home so he would always have food ready to just eat.  Work being so busy also made it impossible to keep a schedule where we were eating regularly.  Not eating regularly in turn made it impossible to sleep well at night.  All of it together made it impossible to prevent a manic episode.  My ignorance about his bipolar combined with my frustration of this new behavior that I did not understand did not allow me to take control of what was happening; instead it made me anxious too.

Eventually, not only was I anxious but I was also scared.  The fear of not knowing what the hell was going on made things worse.  His anxiety due to him having to be the sole provider for the household (because now I was working more with him and not working on my own business) pushed him to smoke weed.  The weed made things worse, not better.  It made it so bad that he had hardly slept.  One morning he woke me up with this surge of energy.  He couldn't understand that I had only slept for a couple of hours because I had been working on a report all night and I was exhausted.  I needed to sleep!  Later that day, we got invited to go camping... this was the first time I was going to go and I was exhausted and frustrated.  All I really wanted was to sleep, we didn't really have time to get ready for an overnight camping trip.  I really had no energy to even begin putting things together to go anywhere other than back to bed.  The drive to the campsite was going well until we hit the mountains.  When we hit the mountains, he got even more manic.  I asked to drive the truck but he wouldn't allow it.  He didn't see himself and didn't see the look he had in his eyes as he was driving, it was very scary.  At some point I thought he would not realize that there was a turn and we would end up getting into a bad accident.  I know his intention was not to scare me, I know his intention was not to put me in danger, but at that moment it was not him in control; it was the mania.

By the time we arrived at the campsite, I was crying and he was frustrated.  He was frustrated because he was expecting me to enjoy the crazy ride just as much as he did.  The thing is that I was not manic, he was!  He didn't see what I was seeing, all he saw was "this is fun."  I know that if he would have seen it from my eyes, he would have stopped himself and allowed me to drive.  That was my first camping experience, to me it was absolutely ruined, I just hated it all.  Even when I asked for a moment to get myself together, he was frustrated because he didn't understand.  I didn't understand either and couldn't explain what was happening to anyone which didn't make it any easier.  But now that I do, it all makes sense.

The next morning things were more settled, I had slept and felt a lot better.  That day we actually had fun, but for him the bitter taste of the night before never really went away.  I would have wanted to have another go at it, without the mania at full blast, with more time to prepare.  To tell you the truth being in nature is so grounding and peaceful.  In the mountains of Colorado even during the hottest summer nights, it is never uncomfortable hot, so it is even more perfect.  Eventually I will go ahead and get my chance, on my own more than likely but I will do it.  Years ago one of my moms taught me that even when someone ruins an experience for you, you can find a way to re-do that experience and make the experience a positive one.  You can do it again together, on your own, or with someone new.

For many years my biological father had ruined my experience of going to the beach, then other people added to it.  There was always discord, there was always an argument, and it had stopped being fun.  So, I hated it! I couldn't stand it!!! I have an aversion to conflict and I feel that people should try to listen to each other rather than yell at each other.  But when my mommy told me she wanted to go to the beach with us and that it would be fun, I gave it a try.  She told me at what time she would stop by to pick us up and to be ready then, and so we did.  We got to the beach prepared, not rushing, and when we got there the beach was pretty much empty.  We were talking and building castles on the beach, the kids were having fun, there were no arguments, no conflict, no discord.  It was fun!  That is how she taught me that sometimes you can change things for the better and that previous experiences are just that, an experience that you can learn from.  Once you learn from an experience you can make the next one even better.

As humans we tend to hold on to the bad though, we do it because it keeps us from getting hurt again.  Instead of focusing on what we can change we focus on the things that went wrong and we carry that with us for so long that we end up missing out on great experiences.  I know this now, and because I know this, I have made it a point to not allow that to happen again to me.  I won't allow it to happen to me because if I do, then I will definitely miss out on amazing opportunities that life will send my way.  I won't allow it to happen because knowledge is power, and once you know about something, your fear about it goes away.   It is less scary, it is more manageable.  I wish I had known about bipolar disorder, I wish I had known that he had it, but I also know that I can't change the past.

We went through what we went through for a reason, and now that I know about it, it will help me in the future.  It will help me because I am not scared, because I now understand a lot more than I did before and because of that it won't affect me the way it did before.  Just like when I gained knowledge of the law and of drugs, same way here.  It will help me because now I have friends and clients who have bipolar disorder or have someone they love with bipolar.  Knowing about it helps me help them and guide them the best way I can, so I continue to learn.

The more we know, the more we can be in control, the more we know the better we become.  I guess that is the reason why there is this saying that "readers are leaders" because the more you read, the more you learn.  The more you learn, the more power you gain and the less fear you have.  A leader might have fears, but they know how to overcome them.  A leader knows that whatever they are afraid of, they must learn about it in order to conquer it.  I am glad I learned and I am glad that I appreciate each of my experiences.  Without my experiences I would not be the person I am today and would not be able to become the person I will become in the future.

The stigma of mental illness, it needs to stop.

A few days ago I found out that one of the people I love suffers from a serious mental illness.  It was amazing to me that until I learned some of their history from family members I would have never really known that they were suffering from this.
Everything they described to me points to bipolar disorder, so off I went and did research, looked back at past behavior I had observed.  Times when I said: "you have way too much energy today" or thought to myself: "they were so happy yesterday and today they won't get out of bed."  I was ignorant of it, just like many other people, so I didn't think much of it other than that maybe they were just going through a little funk.
It was not until the behavior started to seem more out of control than usual that I realized something was wrong but I didn't know what it was.  You see, people with bipolar disorder will seem pretty normal to you when they are manic and all you have ever seen is their mania.  They tend to hide away when they are depressed so that no one will see their low.  They can get irritable when something does not go how they planned it.
By the time I found out, the only people who knew about it were close family and that close family had gotten frustrated and tired because they didn't know how to help anymore.  What was sad though is how many people on my support system pretty much said that this was this person's problem and not mine.  I understand that they all love me, that they all want me to be ok, and that they all know how much this is affecting me.  But I found it cruel that people would just say "turn your back and walk away."
That is the problem we unfortunately face with mental illness these days... and then I wondered if they would have done the same if the person suffering from it was me.  Would they have said that it is my problem and I had to get out of it on my own?  Would they have just walked away and not help?
How bad does it have to get before someone actually takes the time to help out?  Why do we have to wait so long to figure it out?  Right now I am wondering myself why it is that I didn't see it before, I am wondering what I could have done differently because maybe a lot of what has happened could have been avoided.  I am now aware of how bad this is and I am scared to death that something worse could happen.
I am aware of how many people have committed suicide due to this illness, I am aware of how many people have committed suicide due to any mental illness out there, and now that it has been something close to me I wonder how much pain they must have felt.  I wonder how hopeless they were that they couldn't reach out.  I wonder how many of their families tried to help but because they were not aware of what was happening they couldn't get them the treatment necessary and felt like there was no other choice but to give up and so their loved one felt the same way.
I have read several articles so far, posts from people dealing with the disorder.  Most of them tried to keep it hidden, they hid their lows and only showed their highs.   They went through several different medications before they found the one that would work.  They went off their medication when they felt better, only to end up feeling worse.  They all had different ways in which the disease showed in their life, but they all agreed on one thing:  None of them would have been able to do it without people supporting them and that they would have gotten help sooner had they not felt so embarrassed about it, had there not had been stigma over it.
I wonder if they all would have suffered less if we were all more compassionate about this.  Trust me, I know that you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped, that is the first step, they need to want it.  But they also need to know that asking for help is not a bad thing.  That they are going to have people on their corner who know how frustrating and tiresome it can be to deal with the illness but that will have the patience to go through their recovery process.  If they don't have that, chances are they will never get help.
We need to back up just a little and stop this "it's their problem" crap.  The whole "until they are diagnosed, I am not going to excuse the behavior," it is not about excusing a behavior, it is about finding out how to help so that the behavior is not repeated.  It is about finding out what can be done because somewhere in there there's a person who is suffering and who is unable to cope with their disease, who has grown tired of their loved ones turning their backs on them because they don't know how to help anymore.  Who thinks that they are all alone in the world and no one will ever accept them the way they are, but who would fly so high if only they had a good support group.
I have always said that we should work not on preventing suicide but preventing depression, the world would be a much better place if we did that.  If we took the time to say: "hey, it is ok to ask for help, if there is something you are struggling with, please come and talk to me, I am here." or "if you are getting too overwhelmed please don't hesitate to call, I am a phone call away."  But we don't, instead we wait until they are so overwhelmed that they already have the suicidal thoughts.  Instead we wait until they are already hurting themselves before we open our eyes.  And yes, I do know that not all suicides could be prevented, some people go through life hiding their mental illness so well that it is hard to know they ever need help, but if we see it, if we find out that there is something wrong and that maybe there is something, maybe just one more thing we could do about it... Why not do it? Why judge them?  Why not come to them from a place of love and compassion?  Imagine how many more people would come out and ask for help if we didn't have that stigma, how many lives would be saved and how many less people would suffer.
My prayers are with all those who have or have had a loved one go through the battle that mental illness is.  I now understand a little of what you go through.  I understand the stress and the frustration.  I understand the hopelessness that can arise from it.  I say hang in there, make sure you have a good support group of your own and until you feel like you have done everything you can to help, don't give up on them.  I can tell you that they often feel more like a burden to those around them, so in a way they are also feeling your pain.  Talk to them from a place of love and compassion, communicate in that manner and let them always know that they matter, that you always want them around.  Sometimes it might not help, but at the end of the day it is all about you being able to say: I tried and I am glad I did, regardless of the outcome.