All my life I’ve heard, “You’re just like your Momo,” (my paternal grandmother). Growing up I didn’t know exactly what that meant I just knew it wasn’t a good thing, that it wasn’t a compliment. My mother said it often enough for me to understand that being like my daddy’s family and especially like my Momo, wasn’t a good thing at all.
My Momo had manic-depression, now called bipolar. She suffered from mood swings, was a recovering alcoholic, took Xanex and other medications her whole life, and was sometimes a real bitch. She told it like it was, whether it hurt your feelings or not, and she didn’t care what others thought of her. I know that she loved me. I know that she loved her children. But there’s no doubt in my mind that she had favorites. I was one of her favorites, perhaps because my daddy, her oldest child, died when he was only 31, and he was the only normal one of her children. He helped his parents out when he was in the Army by sending money home. He was the peacemaker of his family. He was the adviser, the helper, the source of strength, and their rock. When he died a part of my Momo (and Granddaddy Gus) died with him. He was the light of their life.
He was also the light of my life. I was a daddy’s girl. He was my world. When he died I was 7 years old, 3 months away from being 8 years old. I was beyond grief stricken. I crawled into a self imposed cage and stayed there for many many years. My whole personality changed. I went from being a happy go lucky, laid back child to a defiant, quiet, almost silent, reclusive, angry, and melancholy child. I was smart and books became my refuge. I lost myself in books. I imagined I was one of the characters in the book, that it was my life, my world, and pretended that everything in my world was once again right.
The school guidance counselor and the principal told my mom that she should take me to see a Psychiatrist, because of an episode at school, but my maternal grandmother and a few other family members said I didn’t need a shrink that it was just grief and I would get over it. But I did not get over it. It plagued me all through school, and into adulthood. I developed severe issues with abandonment and rejection, became insecure, moody, unstable, and had trust issues, as well as anger issues.
By the time I was in high school I refused to belong to any of the cliques, didn’t care if I was popular, only had a few close friends but a wide circle of acquaintances. I was a good student because I loved to learn, but I did not do as well as I could have. I was in Honor’s classes (back then they were called AP classes) and preferred to be any where but home.
When I fell in love with Candy I was amazed, confused, overwhelmed, unsure, and afraid. She was a girl. I was supposed to like boys. I wasn’t supposed to want to kiss and touch girls. My mind raced with questions and confusion. I knew I was different, knew that to my family and friends that being different would cause problems. That I would be made fun of, harassed, perhaps disowned by my family. But I loved her. Being with her made me happy. So I kept quiet.
There were times in high school when I was so depressed I felt as if I wanted to die. By the time I got out of high school and moved out on my own I had been dating this guy for 4 years, through most of high school and 2 years after. He was a liar and a cheat. Romantic and charming, but so full of bullshit. After we broke up I wondered if there was something majorly wrong with me, but knew I didn’t deserve to be lied to, cheated on, and treated the way he’d treated me.
More abandonment and rejection issues.
When I met my ex husband and fell in love with him it was one of those whirlwind things. We were so young, so in love, and so naive. I wanted normal, I wanted to be a family and to have some security and stability in my life, but most of all I wanted to be loved for the long haul. However, I was glutton for punishment. I walked into marriage with rose colored glasses. I’d told him I thought I was bisexual. He was okay with that as long as I was monogamous. As long as I didn’t cheat on him, regardless of whether it was a woman or a man. But he didn’t hold to his word, he cheated, he lied.
More abandonment and rejection issues.
After my divorce I lost an immense amount of weight, became extremely depressed, angry, bitter, and a bit lost. I went through stages of extreme moodiness. I had no idea that something other than grief was going on.
Year passed, I dated but no one serious for years. When I finally did it didn’t work. Then I met the woman I fell in love with. She was amazing. Intelligent, sensitive, talented, passionate, laid back, generous, sweet, and beautiful. I could have gotten lost in her eyes. I didn’t mean to fall in love with her. It just happened. I wasn’t sure I could handle a relationship with a woman because of the issues with society, my family, my children…I was a bit overwhelmed but none of it stopped me from wanting to be with her, from loving her.
I went to the doctor because I was having anxiety really bad, before I actually started dating her. I was in college full time, working at the college in their work study program, a single parent with two children, and I was stressed the hell out. I was put on Paxcil. That made things worse, but I didn’t know it was making things worse to begin with. It caused personality changes, and more irritability.
After being with her for a year we split up. I was heartbroken, devastated, and became more than extremely depressed. I was bordering on suicidal. I refused to die, refused to give up though and went to the doctor-I had children to think about, family, friends, and I couldn’t do that to HER. I wanted to live I just didn’t know how to live.
I was diagnosed with bipolar type II and general anxiety disorder. Something real was wrong with me and it had a name. I was so relieved. I had no idea of what bipolar was and I didn’t understand at the time that it was something that was not fixable, not curable. I would have it for the rest of my life.
The symptoms and episodes were much more complicated than I have written about in this post. The racing thoughts, the fear, the confusion, the depression, the hypomania, the insomnia and the need to sleep all the time, it was like I was a walking contradiction. One minute I was depressed, the next minute I was high and could do anything. One minute I couldn’t sleep the next all I wanted to do was sleep. My mind was either racing or numb.
For years after the diagnosis I fought with denial. I went on and off meds. I went back and forth to therapy. I wasn’t consistent. I lashed out at having a mental illness. I heard family members and others call me crazy, irresponsible, lazy, moody, angry, etc. I fought with my self over all of it, it was a constant battle to try to be better or to deny it all together. All I wanted was to be normal.
Acceptance was a process and came degree by degree. I remember an argument with a close friend, she called me a fucking crazy bitch and I thought at the time that that was a low blow. A below the belt blow. But it was the truth. I could be a crazy bitch. My thoughts were tangled up in each other, but one of the main thoughts was, “Okay, just call me crazy. It doesn’t change who I am, what I am, or how I am. Those are merely words. The words themselves can’t hurt me unless I allow them to. It’s not my fault I have bipolar. I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want it. But it doesn’t mean I have to take the labels and let it rule my life.”
So what if people think I’m crazy. So what if I am a bit crazy sometimes. We’re all fucked up in various ways. We all have issues. We’re all a bit dysfunctional. At least mine is more or less caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain. And I thought the next time I heard someone call me something like that I should reply, “I have a mental illness, what’s your excuse?” So far I’ve never used it though.
A cousin told me that I was one of the most normal people she knows. What does that say about her I wonder. It’s easier to appear normal to someone who doesn’t live with you, to someone who only spends limited amounts of time with you. It is much harder to be around someone you live with and who sees the real you and for them not to know you’re different, not exactly normal, a bit off, even a bit crazy.
Now I could care less about the labels, they are just words. If someone wants to call me names let them. I am not the words, I am just me.
