How One Event Can Change Our Lives

Through my recovery I've spent a lot of time walking back through the things that pushed friends and family away from me. Some of it came straight out of my bipolar chemistry. Some of it, if I had actually meant to do it, would fully justify the choices most of my friends and a few relatives made once they heard the truth. In the past three months something tore through my family. I didn't start it, a sibling did, and it really only sits between that one person and someone else. Yet every one of us got dragged in, and now I'm the one everybody calls 'the therapist.' Hooray. Not even a little.

Before I got sick, it was a running joke that I wanted to be a therapist. Now that I've been through therapy myself, the family has decided I'm overqualified for the role. None of them wants to see a real one. The strange part is that I actually do help some of them, and it works, but being good at it doesn't mean I should carry the title or the expectation.

Tonight, driving home after going out with my Mom, we drifted into the family mess and she began saying things about certain people, listing complaints. Earlier that same day I'd gotten an identical earful from other relatives. Today was the day it all tipped over for me. I found myself thinking about friends who aren't in my life anymore, like my friend Adaivet, who I would have given anything to call up and cry to about how lost and frustrated I feel.

We don't want to drag people into our problems, and still we need somewhere to put the weight. The only thing in my life I feel safe staying up late and crying to is my dog. That's part of why I'm afraid to call Adaivet, even though we haven't spoken in what feels like forever (closer to many, many months). I'm afraid because I'm not entirely sure why we stopped talking, though I'm fairly certain most of her silence traces back to the things I did to cope with being bipolar.

I'm also afraid because what's happening in my family keeps dragging me back to one of the reasons I once thought suicide was on the table for me. Everything in our family has slid downhill since my diagnosis, and it's hard not to believe that without any of it, we'd be happy again. And the moment I think that, I start reliving what I did to the people around me: Adaivet, Anne Marie, Joe, Laird, Louise, Aunt Mary, my cousins Amber, Ben, Colby, and Louis, plus David, Erin, Chris, Lauren, Miranda, Liz, Allie, Collin, Cody, Ricky, Martin, Joan, Mara, Maite, my three sisters (Christina, Jordonna, and Holly), my Dad, Bailey, Ellen, Grandma Ricky. The list keeps going.

I did things to a lot of people who came into my life while I was sick and didn't know I was sick. The part most of them can't grasp is this: I feel the hurt and the betrayal exactly the way they do, and I was also the one doing it, for years, and I knew what I was doing once I understood it was wrong, like the Facebook profiles. People don't see what it's like to live inside telling someone a lie, knowing the words should never have left your mouth, saying them anyway, simply because you wanted to stay alive. If you hadn't lied, the depression you were holding off would seep in, and that depression was trying to kill you. The feeling in your brain when you're suicidal is the most frightening thing a person can go through.

Watching people who love me unconditionally refuse to speak to each other for months at a stretch wrecks me, and it eats at the recovery I've been building. Every minute I let this get to me chips away at the work I've put in over the last few months. Family events in particular haul back the old memories, and the memories haul back the same emotions: sadness, disappointment, frustration. You end up right back at that spot where you feel you have to control it to control your own life, which is completely untrue.

You could argue there's no point in telling my readers what's going on with me. I'm willing to share it anyway, in case it reaches someone earlier in their own recovery who doesn't know where to turn and might at least take comfort from a stranger right now. There's a reason doctors and friends and family keep telling us to focus on getting ourselves strong again and to rebuild our own confidence before we pick up anyone else's problems. Ninety-nine percent of the time, people take on things they never should have touched in the first place. I hope that makes you feel a little better.

We have to let some things go, even the ones our heart insists are urgent. Sometimes you set aside what your mind is shouting and let your heart steer. Sometimes you have to let other people hurt so you can feel something you actually have a right to feel. Don't let one event knock you off your recovery. Recovery doesn't have to mean rescuing everyone else from their situations every single time. We have to sort out what truly matters from what doesn't.

Start tonight. Start today. Start this minute, and decide what you want out of tomorrow or the day after. Cancel a meeting and sleep in. Cancel plans with a friend so you can stay home with your dog and a book. Shut your eyes and take yourself somewhere else. Leave the chaos behind for good, and let self-improvement and self-love in. - Susan Page