My therapists are not talking to each other, this is the shortcoming of my stay-at-home treatment plan. I am the go-between. I know it’s not ideal, but I also can see progress being made so am willing to accept that shortcoming. They may talk to each other periodically though.

I agree that I have a lot of anger, and I don’t seem to be able to let go of it. I want to forgive people, especially myself, and move on with my life, but I am stuck. As you know, anger that gets held onto runs in my family. I am sure some of that anger is directed towards my son. I don’t want it to be there, I totally see that it is not his fault. I hate that I resent him, but I know that I do. I have done some good work around this in therapy. I badly want to repair the relationship with my son.

The manic phase was good in that I wasn’t in pain, but bad in that it represents instability. Deep down I find manic phases fun and exciting, and they’re way better than depression. But they come with poor decision making, which often has negative consequences for my life. They almost inevitably lead to a crash afterwards. What I want is to be stable.

The issue with my husband on the emotional support thing is that he is deeply disconnected from his own emotions. He maintains that he doesn’t actually have emotional needs. He doesn’t understand what they are, how they work, or how to address them in him or anyone else. This leads him to behave really coldly towards me without realizing it. For example, when I get really depressed, I go to bed during the day and watch TV. When I told him that it would make me feel loved if he came to see if I was ok, he said, “But I know you’re not ok. Why would I ask?”. He genuinely doesn’t get that people talking to one another has a purpose besides transmission of information. It has occurred to me (and him) that he might be on the autism spectrum.

I told my husband last night that if we don’t start making real progress in the next 6 months – a year, we need to split up for everyone’s well-being. I wasn’t going to come out and say it so straightforwardly, but when I was more subtle about it, he was distracted and not fully listening to me. I realized in family therapy yesterday that he doesn’t even get how bad things are. When asked what his low point of the last two weeks was, a two weeks in which we have almost not talked at all, he said it was getting stuck in traffic on the way to the appointment. That really shocked me. I know he’s not depressed the way that I am, but for the worst thing about his last two weeks to be traffic when our relationship is in crisis and I am falling apart – it just astonished me.

The more I think about leaving, the better I feel. We have been waiting for ten years to go back to a happy place we were in for only 3 years. Those are terrible odds, and I fear that the model we’re showing our son of a relationship is toxic. I don’t want him to struggle with relationships the way that I do.

We’ll see what happens. Maybe our conversation from last night will be a catalyst for real growth. That would be nice. But I don’t think that’s how it’s going to go down. I think we’re too incompatible – I’m way too emotional for him, he must constantly feel like a failure because he can’t support me, and I constantly feel alone and abandoned. I think we could actually do divorce and co-parenting well together, and I think our son would benefit so much from having happier parents. I think we could even be friends.

I don’t know. I know for now that the best thing I can do is work on myself and encourage him to do the same. It’s not time to pack my bags yet, but I do hear a clock ticking in a way I haven’t before. I don’t want to assume that ending my marriage will solve all my problems, and I know it will create many new ones. I worry about the impact it will have on my already struggling son. But I feel that it will be very hard to learn to accept myself from within a relationship in which I feel constantly rejected and isolated.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Ilyana

I have had an eventful few weeks.

I decided not to go into residential treatment. My sister is funding a variety of therapists I am seeing at home. It turns out it was a good thing I made that decision, because the place I was looking at can help with trauma and depression, but only if my bipolar was stable. Last week, I realized I was having a manic phase. I think it was building for a few weeks, but I can’t be sure.

When I get manic, I usually develop a romantic obsession, and this time was no different. I started talking several times a day to an ex boyfriend of mine for whom I have always had feelings. We talked a lot, and expressed a lot of affection for one another. We never acknowledged anything was going on, just talked a lot. He lives in another country very far away, so it felt harmless – there was no risk of anything inappropriate happening. What I didn’t see at the time is that the correspondence itself was inappropriate. Now he has stopped answering my messages. At the same time as I see it’s probably best we not be in constant contact, I miss him. I miss feeling seen and valued and like someone actually has a bit of faith in me. I certainly don’t get that from my husband.

This is so, so frustrating. I have carried out this cycle so many times, and I never know I’m doing it at the time. It always feels different, healthy, important. Then when it’s over, I always feel stupid, like once again I’ve been shown what happiness with another person might look like, only to have it snatched away.

I have also come to a realization about my marriage. I can’t stay in it long term. I am going to give it at most a year, and if I don’t see improvement, I will leave. We are entangled in a relationship that is not healthy for us or for our son. I know the correspondence with my ex was wrong, but it also reminded me what it feels like when someone actually likes you and wants to talk to you. If I am going to be in a relationship, I need to feel that way sometimes, and I can see that that is not an unreasonable desire. My husband is a good person, and it’s not his fault he is so bad with emotions. But I am a very emotional person, and I cannot be with someone who can’t handle that.

I am feeling so low. Not suicidal at the moment, but very hopeless and alone. It feels like I am doomed to repeat these cycles forever.

Thanks for checking in,

Ilyana

Hi Teak and Anita,

I am feeling a little better. I have been reaching out for help a lot, and you are right. There are people who love and care about me and want to help me get better. I have spent a lot of time talking to friends the last few days, and it has helped immensly. I kind of forgot that I had such good friends because I have been isolating myself so much. But they are out there, and they have been nothing but supportive.

I am on a number of psychiatric medications, have been for many years now. I have tried many different medications, and maybe I would be in a much worse position now if I hadn’t. But the medication is clearly not enough to make me feel less depressed. I am lucky to have excellent psychiatric care though.

I had an intake interview yesterday with the residential care program I want to go to. It looks like it would be hard, but very helpful. And it is in an absolutely beautiful setting by the ocean with hiking trails and yoga and art therapy. It sounds just perfect for what I need right now. A break from my responsibilities and lots of qualified care. I am not sure if they are going to take me though. They are concerned about my bipolar disorder because they couldn’t handle a manic phase were I to have one. I haven’t had one in years though, so I’m hoping it will work out. If not, there’s another program in a different city that might also be good. My sister is committed to helping me financially to find some kind of solution. I have a small glimmer of hope again.

I am still feeling very down and not able to do very much, but my suicidal ideas have gone away for the moment. I was talking to someone last night who pointed out all the things I did to protect myself even when I was at my lowest. I called a suicide hotline, talked to my doctor, came up with a plan with my sister, reached out to friends and other sources of support (like the both of you). I even stopped drinking completely because it didn’t feel safe to increase my impulsivity. So I can see that even when I thought I wanted to die, I took actions to help myself, and that’s a very reassuring sign.

Thank you again,

Ilyana

Hi Teak and Anita,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I know I can’t expect progress to be linear, but it’s just so frustrating when I get bogged down like this. It’s like I’m moving through mud.

But I did some good things for myself today. I went for a walk and got some work out of the way that had been dragging me down. I am trying to have faith that things will get better over time, but it’s just been such a long time that I’ve been feeling down. It’s hard to believe I could ever be happy.

Anyway, thanks again.

Ilyana

Dear Anita,

Thank you for asking about me.

I am doing pretty well. I just taught a class, and I noticed that during both the prep and the teaching, my thoughts were more clear and my ability to speak was greater. I am still not where I used to be, and I have trouble focusing on what students are saying, but I am definitely seeing improvement in my cognitive abilities compared to a month ago.

One main thing has changed in that time period: I have hope now. My therapy is going well, I am journalling every day, I am speaking often to both my sister and my dad. Today when I was writing, I had a breakthrough. Just like I can visualize giving my inner child what she needs, I can also visualize my inner birthing mother and try to give her what she needs. I am hoping that working with my therapist I can do this and heal from some of the trauma surrounding my experience giving birth to my son.

I have had some setbacks too. I went two days without smoking cigarettes and then picked them back up again yesterday. I really want to stop, but I am struggling with it so much. I have started to tell myself over and over that I deserve a healthy body and to not feel like I am poisoning myself all day, but it hasn’t been enough. I am trying to have faith that as I start to feel better in other areas, dealing with all my various addictions will be a bit easier. I have more or less cut my alcohol consumption in half, though, so that’s progress. Eventually I’d like to reduce it by much more than that, but one step at a time.

I feel that I am making progress in a way I never have before. As I said to you earlier, I think that the depression attacking my cognition was really the only way to get my attention and force me to make real changes.

I am still waiting for MRI results. If there’s nothing catastrophic in them, I will hear from my doctor about the results on May 6 (if there is, I will hear earlier). It feels like a long ways away, but I am managing the uncertainty. The depression explanation is so much more likely than anything else. Unlikely things happen all the time, and I have had unlikely medical problems before. But the philosopher in me looks for the simplest explanation that explains the most about a phenomenon, and that’s that depression caused cognitive decline.

So things are going more or less well in a very weird and uncertain time.

Thanks again for checking in.

Ilyana

I want to share again.

I had therapy today. During my session, we did a visualization in which I held little girl me in my arms, told her what she needed to hear, and flew around our history and future together. When I was done, I wrote her a short letter telling her that it wasn’t her fault, and that her daddy did love her. It was very powerful.

I am feeling optimistic today. I have so many steps to take, but the journey has started. Big and little me will travel together to the mountain, and we will get over it to a happier life. I feel like I can sustain belief in this image if I keep taking steps.

I want to keep reaching out to the people around me, and I want to be able to sit with the discomfort of having my marriage be a question mark. My instinct is just to leave, but I know that the way to manage future regret is to see how a happier me feels in the relationship. If future me doesn’t think she can stay and be happy, she will leave. But present me just can’t know.

I am feeling almost grateful for the cognitive problems I am having, even if they are not reversible. The only thing I valued about myself was my intellect. The only way to get through to me and push me to make changes was to threaten it. Of course it might be that something more serious is going on than I understand. Maybe it is even something that will kill me. But even if that’s the case, maybe especially if that’s the case, my new goal of a contented life is worth pursuing.

Thank you both again for your support. It is very meaningful to me.

Ilyana

Dear Teak,

Yes, if we try to change from the position of the judgmental inner voice who says “look at yourself, you’re horrible, be ashamed of yourself, you need to change ASAP!”, it never lasts for a long time, because in order to truly change, we need love and acceptance, rather than judgment and condemnation. The strict disciplinarian voice that pushes us to exercise or quit smoking is a part of the inner critic, and the inner critic is the opposite of loving and compassionate! That’s why after a while, we rebel against this strict disciplinarian (which often sounds like our strict mother, btw), and we go back to soothing and numbing our pain with substances and addictive behaviors. Until the change comes from the place of love for ourselves, it can’t be long-lasting.

This describes my experience exactly. I make changes from a place of shame and self-judgment, and eventually I get sick of it and give up. It’s like I just run out of steam on self-control.

I have a very critical inner voice, have had for as long as I can remember. I beat myself up for beating myself up. My inner voice is always harsh, always judgmental, never compassionate. I am finding little glimmers of compassion lately, but it is very recent. I would really love to find a way to be nicer to myself. It just hurts so much to be always finding fault with myself.

I have a new, trauma-focused therapist, and although I have only had three sessions, I can feel that she is a good match, and I believe that she will be able to help me with developing self-love and self-acceptance. I badly need the help. I have had lots of therapy before, but this therapist seems to have a very different approach, which is more focused on healing than insight. Of course I need insight into my past and my thought patterns, what I really want is to feel better in myself, better enough to not turn to so many substances.

Thank you again. This is so helpful.

Ilyana