As Good As It Gets

19 August 2009

Before the diagnosis i spent many years trying everything i could think of to engineer circumstances and lifestyle choices, thinking our love would help cure his insecurities that were causing the drama and bad choices. I finally came to accept at the end of 2007 that perhaps, all he needed was me being affirming. That seemed to work best. And for a while.. it was really good because i had let go and accepted what was, and moved on to making magic from whatever we did have. A lot like playing when the sun shone and accepting that rainstorms were an eventual and inevitable part of life.

But when he got diagnosed, i had HOPE again of a cure to the drama and bad choices, and more importantly all the accompanying consequences. Of course BP has no cure but i thought maybe with meds and alternative healing, with better insight into his complex past that triggered the BP..he could really get 'better'. But today i accepted that 'better' is such a pressure for him, for me. What if this is as good as it gets? But most of all, what if trying to make him 'better' is perhaps what is keeping us a prisoner to the BP? After all, only the broken need 'fixing' and only what is substandard needs to be made better. I can imagine him daily, feeling a need to get 'better' and nurturing a sense of low self esteem with each passing day he stays acutely aware of the fact that he needs fixing. If this is as good as he gets, then i'm choosing today to be okay with that.

As my cousin, a beautiful doctor with a heart, said so clearly to me today- for BP, the best you can really do as a significant other is try and get relapses farther apart, reduce the intensity and damage during a relapse, and be there to accelerate recovery.

It totally freed me..to realise that i can't make him 'better', but that i can support him through relapses. I can't prevent rainstorms, but i can open umbrellas and prepare hot coco. That's the BEST i CAN do.

I have been living with guilt all these years that maybe if i had been more vigilant, more disciplined, more alert..maybe i could have circumvented some of his disastrous episodes; avoided the despair not to mention the financial damage. So that's what i have been like in the past years..ever vigilant, ever alert. I eventually progressed to living without fear of possible doom, but when he got diagnosed, i became obsessed instead on him getting better. But i have just pushed him away, pushed myself into a corner, made everyone a distant friend..because i have been living on a timeline hoping for a cure. Waiting for that breakthrough.. AND THEN i can finally LIVE.

But if this is as good as it gets.. then my waiting is over. I can start living RIGHT NOW. No more waiting means i can release the pressure on myself and on him to reach for 'better'. Better can just come if and when it's ready, and we can instead give our all to making life good as it is, with what we have right now..AS IS.

There will always be relapses around the corner. Like rainstorms, I need not feel bad when a relapse does become imminent, because it's not my lack of love or his lack of care that has caused it. If you live in the tropics, it WILL rain. No point dreading it, blaming it, or grumbling about it when a downpour does appear. But we CAN both try to minimise it affecting/damaging our lives and work at getting back on track as soon as possible. And for this, i also realise that it's okay for us to need special friends.. friends who realise along with us that relapses aren't a sign of failure, but a real fact of illness, and that we will need understanding/emotional support through such times and that we will possibly be less available in some/many ways until we are past the storm. Friends who know we have much to give, and who let us be our best..AS IS.

At least i now know..what to ask of myself, of him, and all the world.
And that means i can finally..freely live and love again :)