Dear Shannon:

You shared that you are 47, suffering from a bipolar disorder. You had an accident years ago, took pain meds and got addicted to them- that aggravated your bipolar disorder. You got off the pain meds four years ago, your bipolar condition has been “fairly well controlled these last 4 years”, and you lost a lot of weight, 101 lbs.

You’ve been together with your husband since you were 15, and married him when you were 20. You have two children, 19 and 24. Your 24 year old, also having been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder,  is now “the most even-tempered, hard working person”, but you still resent him for the “daily hell of an existence” that “nearly broke” you while raising him.  “He was one of those kids who did terrible things- cops were called when violence erupted, psychiatric hospital stays were normal, suspensions from school were common”.

Living in that hell of an existence, you were “high or sick for roughly 9 years”. You resent him also for having left a job you liked when getting pregnant with him, and becoming a SAHM (stay at home mom), “a SAHM that I never wanted to live”. “I know this isn’t the life I was meant to lead. I was supposed to have a career, not kids”.

Your 19 year old son is kind and generous, speaks 3 languages and plays 4 instruments and he is gay, living with his boyfriend 3 hours away from you, you enjoy spending time with him when you do, and you miss him.

Your husband, an executive vice president of a very large bank, works from home, does house chores, is “unfailingly thoughtful, romantic, understanding, appreciative and supportive.. a great dad, terrific lover and my staunchest ally… effusive with praise”, he tells you how proud he is of you for losing all that weight, for having a handle on your mental illness and for kicking a painkiller addiction. He also makes good money which made it possible for you to not work in 25 years, live in a large house in a very prestigious  neighborhood in the South (U.S), having travelled the world extensively, taking a cruise several times a year, having attended shows at least once a week, pre-Covid. Last Christmas he bought you a brand new car with a big red bow.

“I was supposed to have adventure and not security. I was supposed to be so much more than just a pampered ingrate in a gated neighborhood with a Big Red Bow car”.

You wrote about your husband: “He thinks I’m wonderful. I am not wonderful”:  you have very few friends because your “manic side kicks in around people”, people like your husband, they don’t like you; you start projects like cleaning the attic, get overwhelmed, and your husband quietly completes your projects, you are “bored, unsatisfied and almost incapable of processing gratitude.. lazy”. While he works from home, he is also the one to get up first and make coffee, changed the sheets, vacuum.. while you “read the news. Play a video game.. go to the grocery store more out of boredom than anything”.

“I think I might be angry that he just accepts this behavior from me. I throw him crumbs and he acts like it’s a feast… summary: I’m an indulged bipolar middle aged woman with no purpose and too much time, good fortune and money on her hands and I feel so marginalized in my own life”.

My input: you wrote that you feel “so marginalized” in your own life. To marginalize means (online dictionary) “to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group”. I can see how “a liberal, anti-trump atheist in the south” is marginalized. In the context of your family, I ask myself, how are you being marginalized and who is marginalizing you.

You described a difficult life and a difficult marriage, although affluent: suffering from a mental illness, having been addicted to pain killers, having been obese, suffering years of hell raising a bipolar son, and yet you say that you “have too much” (in the title of your thread), and that you are “whining about having too much. Too much of what? Well… everything”-

– but suffering from a mental illness, raising a son who also suffered from the same illness and who was violent, being addicted to drugs, being obese, then coming off drugs and losing 101 pounds, that’s too much of some bad things, not good things.

I remember a former friend years ago, a pharmacist who worked in Southern California, serving an affluent population, she told me how she fills in prescriptions of anti-depressants to so many wealthy women. And of course, there are so many examples of people wealthier than you, who traveled the world even more than you, etc., who chose death over that affluent life.

You described your husband as a saint, a saintly husband,  and being a fellow atheist, I do not believe in saints. The only exception to his sainthood, from your share, seems to be his lack of empathy for your older son, a lack of empathy that he shares with you, from what I gathered.

Back to the concept of you being marginalized in your own life, can you elaborate on that?

anita