Accepting or tolerating a bipolar diagnosis

I wasn't diagnosed with bipolar until I was twenty-four. Generally, most people with bipolar don't even show symptoms until in their early twenties. But I had spent the previous few years misdiagnosed with depression and obviously mistreated. And that was after dealing with it in my childhood and teenage years. At the time of my correct diagnosis I knew nothing of bipolar so I had nothing to prejudge it by. That was in 1994.

Looking back I always get aggravated at the dr. who finally diagnosed me. She said it in a "matter of fact" tone and that was it. No explanation. Only minor basics. No descriptions. There was no "ah ha!" moment because I had no idea what she was talking about. A label means nothing without an explanation.

It wasn't until years later that I sought real treatment for "this diagnosis." That was in 2000 when I started going to our state mental health program.

I fought my treatment. I despised my pills. I hated the idea of having to take them. I either hated the side effects or the idea of knowing I'm going to have to take these handful of pills for the rest of my life.

At times I enjoyed the hypomania, the mania. I missed them when the meds worked.

The Incredible Shrinking Brain

Sometimes I think my 7yr old is wiser than he realizes. He says some off the wall things that I don't have any idea where he gets them from. The other day he made me laugh with the statement, "When you get mad, your brain shrinks." "Son, where did you hear that?" "I don't know, I just made it up." At first I blew it off as one of his silly sayings, but then it dawned me, there was more than just truth to what he was saying.

Want to make me angry? Make me have to repeat myself over and over. Don't even think about denying or pretending you didn't know you were or weren't supposed to do something. That's the quickest way to infuriate me.

"Go to your rooms!"..."What did I do?"..."You know exactly what you were doing!"..."No I don't. What were we doing?"..."Seriously? I heard you both wrestling on the couches. There's pillows all over the floor. The remotes are in the floor. Go to your rooms!!! How many times have you been told not to wrestle in the living room?"..."He made me. I kept telling him to stop."..."Don't start with me. I heard you laughing and giggling from the room!!!!!!!!!"..."GO TO YOUR ROOMS!!" By now I've lost my temper and at least one is crying.

I'm angry. I justify my anger with this act of blatant disobedience and lying. The kids are upset, frightened, and confused. In my mind I defend myself placing the blame firmly on the kids. After all, they were wrong. They had been told countless times not to wrestle in the living room. Besides, this wasn't the only incident where they had been told some over and over and they disobeyed. Not to mention, if they had just owned up to their fault and accepted the consequence my emotions wouldn't have sky rocketed. And hey, I'm the one trying to keep things from getting broke in the living room...AGAIN. Within seconds I walk away in guilt.