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.

Communication and Relationships

I have been thinking about this picture lately... A while ago, when I first started college and I was just 17 years old I had to make a presentation for Speech class.  My presentation was about what made relationships work and last a long time.  Everyone was baffled when I said that it was not the amount of love that people had for each other but how well they worked on communicating with each other.  By this time I have seen relationships fail because of the lack of communication.  My biological father's first wife and him would always argue and throw things to each other, eventually they would physically fight and hurt each other.  During high school, I had had two different relationships.  The first one ended because he was jealous and instead of telling me how he felt he would just react.  I would try to talk about it without arguing but it was pointless.  I couldn't stand it, so I broke it off.  The second one ended up kissing someone else, talked to everyone about it except me... I remember not hearing from him for a few days until someone else told me what everyone was talking about.  I was more upset at the fact that he didn't come to talk to me first.  We used to talk for hours him and I  and in a way I expected to be told, not be kept in the dark.

Those were my high school relationship experiences, neither of them lasted too long.  I had tried it again with the second boyfriend, but it ended when there was an issue with mutual friends and instead of asking about my side of the story, I was told off.  On each instance, there was no effective communication.  It was either only one person talking or both not talking at all.  It didn't matter that I loved both of these guys, I truly did, because in the end love was not enough.  As I grew older and I kept seeing how my biological father behaved, this communication thing became of utmost importance to me.  You see, my biological father is an abuser (I think I gave that out earlier when I pointed out how he fought with his second wife); one of the things abusers do is that they will use words to hurt you, they will physically hurt you, and then they will gaslight you.  An abuser will hurt you one day and then come back the next day pretending nothing happened.  They will act completely different and not ever want to talk about what happened before.  Then later on IF you bring it up, they will either tell you that it never happened or they will blame you for it.  Back when I was younger and around this individual, I did not know that was it.  But still, I despised that he did that too many times and because of that, I made it a point that when I got into a relationship the person I was with would be someone with whom I could communicate effectively.  It could even be someone who didn't know how to communicate effectively but who was open to learning and growing with me in that regard. 

During the first serious relationship, we were great at communicating with each other at first and everything worked out great.  We would talk about what bothered each of us and we never really fought.  As the relationship progressed we started to not say to each other what was bothering us and so the communication stopped.  Instead of coming to each other to communicate what we needed from one another, he started to go to his parents and I would just keep it all to myself.  Until one day he was ready to leave and didn't tell me.  At that point we actually talked, but because he had spoken to his parents about what he didn't like about me, now his parents didn't think we should be together.  That put a strain in the relationship and after that it was just all downhill from there.  Once again, lack of effective communication ruined that one.  I loved him and we tried to work on it, but the communication factor was pretty much gone and that made things extremely difficult.  We ended up as good friends, who eventually drifted apart but I always left the door open if he ever needed someone to talk to.

Relationships, any kind of relationships, whether they are romantic relationships or friendships, require people to communicate.  There is no relationship, it does not matter how much love there is for one another, that will work without two people knowing how to effectively communicate with each other.  Today I was wondering why it is that we stop communicating effectively with another person.  I know in my experience it has been because I was hurt and couldn't find the right words to say to the other person in a way that I would not hurt them in return.  Sometimes it was fear of how they would react to what I said and that was just me remembering the relationship I had with my biological father, who would always lash out and get defensive when you told him you felt something he did was not right.  That ended up being the same with the guy I ended up marrying, he is also an abuser and while I had learned to communicate more effectively even without really having good role models, I took a few steps backwards with that marriage.  Of course, I knew that would end because there was a lot that was hidden and a lot that was never said. 

As far as other people go, I think it's similar reasons... Some of them feel like they would be ashamed of saying something they feel, or telling someone about an experience that might explain their reaction because someone else reacted back at them and so now they want to avoid it.  It is trying to avoid confrontation, avoiding a fight, avoiding doing things that might make things worse.  And so instead of communicating, they withdraw, they stay quiet and then all those feelings just get bottled up and shaken around like a soda bottle... until eventually someone opens the bottle up and everything comes out bursting...

So how is it that one can change this?  By being aware... In your relationships, any of the ones you have, you have to be aware of how you feel and you have to make time to speak about it.  Both people need to be receptive to the other, and not take things being said as an attack because as soon as you do that, you will stop being receptive and start being defensive.  Both have to be open to growing and set fear aside, and talk from a place of love.  It seems something that is very easy to do, but I have found many times it is not.  There can be an extreme amount of love between two people and instead of using that love as a driver to continue what made the love grow in the first place, they use that love as the only basis to the relationship and they forget that is not what made it work to begin with.  I have lost many relationships in the past, and they have all been lost because of that lack of communication, I know some of them could have been saved if communication was opened but I also found myself in a place where there was only one person willing to do so... And so I realized it would not work.  Some of them have hurt losing more than others but, in the end I think I have learned from each of them and I have taken comfort in that.  They have helped me grow in many different ways and understand myself a little better, and for that all I can do is say thanks.

Effective communication is to a relationship like a good balance between water and sunlight are to a plant.  They are needed in order fora plant to grow, just like it is needed in order for a relationship to flourish.