Acceptance

Living with a life changing illness does not rob us if we exchange the quality of one thing we value with another that works better now that change has come. It is the accepting that is the difficult dance step to learn. How much to accept, how much to fight? Or rather which to accept and which to fight?

Adapting to change isn't what's hard.

It's living through the experimenting and choosing which change we are best suited to that is the real climb.

Changing Seasons

It's a lot like the changing seasons.

Sometimes it's winter and i live on memories of what the flowers look like in spring and how much fun we had when we went camping in the summer. When i finally do realise it's winter and i can't change the weather, my acceptance means snow angels and roasted marshmallows by the fire. But it usually lasts a week because by the time i finally realise i can make winter work for us, it's spring.

I then find myself clearing out mush and preparing flowerbeds and planting seeds. In time there will be flowers but it's still, a lot of hard work to make sure we get a good harvest. If i am lucky, the scenery lasts for a long time and we don't get a frost or a rainstorm to ruin all my hard work in an unsuspecting flash. I can't help but resent these external forces that tamper with my hard work but again, acceptance usually accelerates healing.

Sometimes it's summer and we just have endless days of fun. These are my favourite times. I live for them. At times it seems that my whole life has been preparing me for these moments. All my hard work over 9 months for 3 months of pure amazing life lived to the fullest. But is 3 months too short compared to 9 months of labour and waiting? I try to live in the moment and in fact, find that selective memory works best. Or else i shorten even the mere 3 months and that leaves me cursing myself in bed at night when i realise what i have done. No, thank you.

Autumn days are when i cry a lot. I am tired from all the fun crammed into 3 months, on top of having worked all through the previous 9 months. So when winter rolls around i am usually quite ready for a quiet time of laying low and reconstructing myself. It's when i usually have my own nervous breakdowns and wonder whether i too, have acquired the same fate from mere association. But eventually the last leaf falls and i am done with my crying. And then i can be strong again. Resilient like the trees that look dead but are actually just asleep.

Know what though? Unlike the real seasons of life, the seasons of bipolar aren't as clear cut. The cycles change rapidly, interchange or stretch on..it's never a certainty what cycle or how long it will last. So i am always caught off guard.

Acceptance i find is a great friend of all seasons and can make each one a positive experience. But she is far easier mentioned than invited to stay, especially when fatigue from shouldering the daily responsibilities of life drains me and i become far more sense than sensibility.

My goal is to become an expert at recognising the signs of each season way before they hit. I'm going to work toward that with all my heart. I think it will help me gain acceptance faster so i can make these seasons work for us far more than against us.

A Reciprocal Love

I have spent days doing laundry and cooking and mending relationships and being supportive and selfless and making the best of what I have.

But this is not the life I want.
I was willing to wait all this out for a chance at real love and my lifelong dreams. But I have had to make them happen like Cinderella, from the availables in my life.

I want my happy ever after.
And I am no longer content to daily transform scraps into beautiful items. I want to know the feeling of beholding a beautiufl item that's been made by another's loving hands just for me.

I want the glass slipper to fit and to be taken away to the castle.
But I don’t want someone who has to try and love me once i'm there. I want to experience being loved from the heart with affirming words, expressions and actions.

I want someone to dance with. Not someone to dance for.
And certainly no more silences and mere recollections and imagination to fuel the days without music.

I was born with the ability to love compassionately. Yet I am genuinely grateful that i have had to learn to stop being a martyr and instead, build my self esteem and self worth through the power of self love. Still, i want to be loved by another and experience the compassion of a reciprocal love.

How do i get my happy ever after where i can be sure of being loved unconditionally by someone who struggles just to like himself daily?

In the Beginning

In the beginning there was just a guy and a girl. We were both 15.
We were both young, hopeful and waiting to get away from our limitations into great expectations and even greater dreams.

We had to get over family objections - like Romeo and Juliet.
We had to get over youth - we were minors.
We had to get over distance - we were laying foundations for a future.
We had to get over interference - parents who needed caring instead of giving care.

By then the bipolar had kicked in.
Only we didn't know. And we didn't know for a decade.
We thought we had finally gotten over everything.
We had only begun getting over the biggest hurdle we could ever have imagined.
Bipolar Disorder.

It's been slowly seeing the one i love disappear before my very eyes, stage by stage into someone i have had to fight to believe still loves me despite all the massive destruction left in place of caring for me.

The statistics are that 90% of marriages with Bipolar Disorder end in divorce. Only a mere 10% remain intact.
I'm still here and i live to tell.