We Can Help Each Other

Wow! I am so overwhelmed at the responses to my first post yesterday. Here I was telling y'all that YOU are not alone, all the while hoping that *I* was not alone! Well, I sure did learn my lesson. But here's the thing. I received so many emails, so many of you sharing your stories and pain, current problems, some even sharing how you are at this moment even thinking of suicide. And my heart just broke for all of you, and I cried for you, for all of us. And I thought, there is only one of me--how am I going to respond to all these people, much less help them?

So here's the deal, y'all...the only way this is going to work is if we help each other. We share a common bond. We all have bipolar disorder. We may come from different backgrounds, be different ages, live in different states, even have different types of bipolar. But our similarities far surpass all that.

We all know what it's like to feel alone, to feel "different", to feel somehow like "damaged goods" or "broken" somehow. To feel like there isn't a single person out there who knows how we feel, or what we go through...who knows that terror we live with when we cycle into an episode, when our own mind turns against us, and we become our own worst enemy...when we watch our families turn away from us in hurt, in frustration, and sometimes turn away for good, when they just totally give up on us, and we are left alone to face this awful disorder ourselves.

We know what it's like to go so far down into the recesses of a living hell that suicide seems the only option left for us. And we know the fear of telling someone else, because they might call us crazy and lock us up, and we might never get out again. We know that insecurity of finally meeting someone we might actually be able to have a relationship with, but are scared to tell them we have bipolar disorder, because if they knew, they would become afraid of us, and/or reject us.

We know what it's like to be afraid of our own selves, our own minds, to not know from one day to the next whether we'll be happy, or sad, or manic, or depressed, or agitated and hostile, or suicidal or homicidal or crazy or maybe even sane! And even if we feel sane, there is always that question in the back of our minds, how long will it last this time?

We know the struggle with the medication merry-go-round, the struggle with finding the right professional who will stay with us long enough to actually help us on a long term basis, or fighting with insurance companies who arbitrarily cut off funding for our usually expensive medications.

We know what it's like to wonder what normal is, and if we will ever get there. We feel like we are the misfits of society...that there is no room for us in a "sane" world, that no one understands us, not even our loved ones... we live with our silent thoughts because they are so frightening even to us, much less to share them with our loved ones. We are lost, we are confused, we are alone, we are frightened, we cannot trust ourselves, we live in a world so different than others... and even the best of us, the lucky ones, who have been able to learn methods of coping, who function in society, even have good jobs, or good marriages, or are good parents, or go long periods without episodes, or have a good support system, or have good insurance so they don't go without their medication, or have a good therapist and a good psychiatrist...those lucky ones that have a relatively normal life...if you were to ask them to be honest...well, you might just find that they still live with the fear that at any time their little house of cards might come crashing down on them and they might find themselves in an episode.

Because we are not one of Jerry's children. There is no cure for what we have. And what we have can be fatal. Some days it is all we can do just to get out of bed, and that is the best we can do for that day. Some days we think we can run not only our lives, but yours as well! Maybe even the world itself! And we have great ideas. And we are very creative. And we are very outgoing people. But just as quickly we can crash and burn. And again, we wonder, would it be better if I just died? So I ask you, what other disease out there is like the one we suffer from? What antibiotic will cure our infection?

We have one hope. Our hope is each other. The silence must be broken. That's why this forum has been started. We don't have to suffer in silence any more, thinking that we are alone, that no one else thinks the crazy thoughts that we do... that if anyone found out we were thinking of killing ourselves, they would lock us up. Here, in this place, we are safe. We can talk about anything. And we will find others who know what we are going through. Maybe even have those very same thoughts! And we can help each other, encourage each other, share our stories with each other, share our pain, share our struggles, our victories, cry with each other, and yes, even laugh with each other. We can know that WE ARE NOT ALONE!

Let's do this. Let's make this work. Let's help each other deal with this thing. That's why this blog is called Bipolar Survivor. If you are reading this, YOU are a Bipolar Survivor. And every day that you wake up, you are a survivor.