Why Living With Bipolar Disorder Is Exhausting

Editor’s note: If you experience suicidal thoughts, the following post could be potentially triggering. You can contact the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741-741.

Bipolar disorder is exhausting. Asking for help is worse. I hear a little voice in the back of my head as I tell a loved one I don’t feel well: “Here we go again…”

• What is Bipolar disorder?

I don’t even know what type of help I’m asking for. Fortunately and unfortunately, my sense of humor typically gets in the way, laughter prevails and I move on with a false sense of self, leaving my own emotional wake on those I love.

Right now, noises are louder, smells are stronger, lights are brighter. Everything is an irritant.

I’m looking through my list of family and friends who I can reach out to, who won’t be tired of hearing from me. I feel as though everyone is tired of my shit. I start thinking about my kids and I can’t control my tears.

I begin to withdraw from my support system for fear of their rejection of me. I don’t know how serious my thoughts are. I don’t want them to worry about me and I want them to reassure me everything is going to be all right. I always receive such amazing feedback and it makes me feel weak that I have to fish for compliments. Why am I so insecure right now?

It is day four of this feeling.  I am sitting at my usual breakfast spot, staring out the window, waiting for inspiration.

Depression can feel emasculating when you are going through the experience. It doesn’t feel like being humble. It feels like total collapse and an inability to handle the basics of life.  I am feeling ungrateful for my life and everything I have accomplished. I am taking for granted everything I have as if everyone has it and I’m really nothing special. I am constantly choking back tears that begin welling up in my chest before they make it to the surface.

As I look around at the world, I feel as though I wouldn’t be missed. I feel as though I am bringing greater harm to my loved ones by dragging out my illness and the constant pain I am putting them through by not being able to fully participate in life.

I am trying to negotiate with myself that what I am experiencing is only thoughts and emotions which aren’t me. The internal fight going on between my emotional and intellectual halves of my brain is epic.

Depressive episodes are comparable to the world swallowing you whole and closing your ability to see around you. It’s as if my support system is growing smaller — the people who care about me and love me are growing smaller and I’m just sitting here alone, trying to figure out when this mood is going to pass.

It’s really hard to explain but it’s as if nothing matters.

This is the closest I have felt for wanting to get on an off-ramp and see what happens. My kids, my wife and my family are saving me right now.

I don’t know how to ask for help or even what kind of help I would be asking for. Do I really want people to just come over and sit in a room with me and stare at me? And then I would feel like a fraud, making people laugh and telling stories and jokes.

When am I going to laugh again? When is everything going to be OK? When will this desire to die go away? When will I see my future the way everyone else does?

I find myself falling into fake conversations and my humor begins to take over the much-needed care my soul needs. It blankets me and tries to protect me from the “insanity” of my thoughts.

Intellectually I know this will pass. Emotionally I don’t.

If you or someone you know needs help, visit our suicide prevention resources page.

If you need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.

Unsplash photo via Jim Jackson