I’ve been writing a lot of poetry lately. I should probably post some. I’m not very good at finishing things, though. I get to a point, and I know I need to go on, but what I wanted to say is done. Or I get mad because it’s too cliche, too melodramatic.  I can be more original than that, I tell myself. I can be more like Sylvia Plath, because a lot of her poems don’t make sense! And then I re-read them.  What I get from a lot of her stuff is a basic flow, a sense of feeling about a particular topic, a long breath with extra words thrown in that are like a smack in the forehead or a sharp turn in the road. Things that make you go, “Huh? What was that about?”

Do artists have to be depressed to be creative? I know Kay Redfield Jamison wrote a couple of books on Manic-Depression (known as Bipolar Disorder nowadays) that talks about the relationship between creativitiy and mood disorders.  I admit I haven’t read them yet, but they are on my list.   In any case, I was recently diagnosed as bipolar.

No one knows, except my therapists, and one co-worker. I can’t bring myself to tell my family. It’s not something they would understand, I don’t think.  It’s too often used as a cop-out.  Or maybe, that’s just what I used to think.  I’ve always heard of bipolar, I’ve always known a little bit about it. When I took my abnormal psych class, they warn you not to self-diagnose, because some traits of the most insidious diseases are visible in everyone.  So, I had mood swings, so what? Everyone has peaks and valleys, right? And when A*** was diagnosed with it, I did research on it.  And I thought, well, if HE’S Bipolar, so am I, for goodness sakes.   Only, I REALLY am.

It’s interesting, accepting that label.  For me, it’s a breath of relief. Taking the medication is definitely a relief – I can feel it in my body. But knowing, finally knowing (and GETTING IT) that it’s NOT a character disorder, it’s not me being weak, it’s not something I can control.   It IS, however, something that can be treated, and worked with, and improved upon.

About the time I was dealing with finally being diagnosed correctly, my ex-husband got remarried. I don’t have anything to do with him, and I don’t particularly care, but certainly some unresolved feelings popped up.  And what I realized was this: the period in my life where I most vividly displayed the classic symptoms of bipolar disorder were while I was married to him.  I knew something was wrong with me, and spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure it out. He thought I was doing this to torture him. He also believed that whatever my issues were, they were MY issues, and mine alone to deal with.  So, the message was, don’t look to him for help to solve them. Just do what I’m supposed to do as a wife and mother.  He wasn’t a bad person, by any stretch of the imagination. And he was particularly sensitive to other people. I think I wore him thin – it couldn’t have been easy to live with me then. But still. As a loving husband, you should NEVER turn your back on your wife. He did suggest getting on anti-depressants, but never suggested counseling or marital therapy until I’d already cheated on him and he’d  moved out. (I was absolutely out of control.) Now, I see that as a symptom of my disorder. I remember feeling bewildered about why I would do such a thing, but still doing it. I loved my husband very much, and yet I was watching myself sabotage my marriage and my family.  I don’t want to use this disorder as an excuse for my behavior. But it did become clear to me why, even when I wanted to, I seemed to be unable to make better choices.

I remember our therapy sessions as being particularly damaging to me.  I couldn’t explain what was behind my actions, and he got to spend buttloads of time explaining how my actions made him feel.  I got all of the guilt and none of the healing. And then he left me. I was too damaged for him to put energy into. His focus was on him.

This was over five years ago, but I didn’t let myself feel angry until the past couple of weeks. And the anger’s fading fast, thank god. I don’t want to hold onto it forever, but I am glad I finally allowed myself to look at it rationally. There is nothing wrong with me needing a person to step in, and if you can’t trust your husband to tell you something’s wrong, that you need help, then who can you trust? I needed a man to stand beside me, and he didn’t step up.  After we had split up, he wrote me a letter saying he forgave me. Well, I’m almost to forgiving him for not hearing/seeing my crys for help. Almost. But first, I’m giving back his 50% of the blame.