Sliding Doors

One of my favourite movies is Sliding Doors- the concept of what would happen if one little thing in your life changed is fascinating.

I wonder what my life would be like if I had been diagnosed as bipolar at an earlier age.

I would have been more confident in high school... or would I? The people who seemed really confident are the ones that I run into in Wal-Mart with three kids when I return home.

I would have been more balanced whilst at University...how would that have affected my college sweetheart and I? There was one period of time after we had been dating for a year where he wanted to date other people but chickened out on breaking up with me (I found this out years later) for more than a week or so. I was an emotional mess, catapulted into depression, which (I think) guilted him into re-starting our relationship. He was the man I married. Then Divorced.

If I had been on meds earlier I would have remained in my marriage. IMAGINE! I simply cannot. No London? NO A----? No way!

To get remarried in the UK I have to prove that I am divorced so I've been searching for my divorce papers. This has led to an online search for my ex as I may have to contact him. I found out some very interesting things:

Whilst we separated in November of 2002, the divorce was final in January of 2004...

He remarried in 2005.
His wife graduated from University in 2007.
(Most people graduate at the age of 22).
Sidenote: He and I graduated in 1999.
Hmmm.
He and his wife teach a Sunday School class for young adults.
He is teaching history at a middle school
(What happened to his dream of pursuing law? Even when we were separating he was saying he still wanted to escape teaching. )

What I found really interesting about this is the parallels to when he and I were together:
We worked with the young people at church.
He taught history at a middle school.

So, four years after our divorce, it appears as if his life is pretty much the same. My life has changed dramatically. I have changed dramatically and for the better!

Thank God the door of Bipolar opened when it did.

I know I took my meds so why is this happening?

When I was diagnosed with having bipolar disorder, the doctor reassured me about taking medicine by using the diabetes angle..."It's just as if you had diabetes. You would take insulin, wouldn't you?" I confess I've used the comparison to reassure family members.

What the dr didn't clarify was that the medicine doesn't make it go away or relieve all of the symptoms.

I'm a bit manic today- about an 8. I felt its onset this morning as I felt very shaky (you could see my hands shaking) but I thought it was because I hadn't had coffee yet or breakfast. But after a trip to the gym and running some errands, I felt worse. I had the shakes from head to toe- not visible ones, but inside ones. Worse than that though was that the airplanes were back.

Having manic thoughts is like this: Imagine standing in a room with four white walls and no windows. A paper airplane flies in and you reach up to catch it. Just as you are unfolding it to read the message written on the inside it flies off and begins circling around your head before flying off to the unknown. Whilst it is circling another airplane flies in and the process is repeated. At any moment in time you may have 5-10 airplanes in the room.

I was trying to explain what I was thinking to A and I couldn't speak fast enough. Bless him. He just came upstairs with me and held me like the anchor he is.

One method of coping is sleep so that's what I've done for the last few hours. The thoughts have calmed (there's no way I could type this if they hadn't) but I'm still a bit shaky.

What I have to fight off the hardest are the feelings of inadequacy. Because I was feeling like this today I could not attend a BBQ that I had planned on going to with A. I'm disappointed and frustrated that I don't have a "normal" brain like everyone else. But, I is who I is.