Am I Still Ill?

I had a good day on the whole. Had a really good last session with my dual diagnosis worker. Met a good friend in the afternoon. But when I came home, there was some news awaiting me in my email inbox that saddened me. It was the end of the Polar Bear Community…an organisation started up by a local ex-teacher with bipolar disorder. His reasons for ending it were really positive ones…a reunion with his teenage daughter who he hadn’t seen since she was three.

Why do I feel so sad? Well, at least part of it is because his closeness to his daughter and the depth of his love for her which he had kept alive over so many years, forms a stark contrast with the terrible state of my own relationship with my son.

My meeting with my friend also raised some difficult feelings for me. She, also a bipolar sufferer, is extremely close to her daughter who is now 21. They are in constant contact. She sees her all the time. The daughter has a four year relationship with her boyfriend and is holding down a job.

My friend is basically a positive, upbeat person. I doubt that she would ever dream of posting or commenting on a suicide website. She has a long-standing relationship with a partner who is far from perfect, but is very sociable and well-liked, unlike my poor M. He does drink and do drugs and she does give him money, but not to the extent that I’ve given M money.

Poor M. He is currently out seeing a doctor about his toe, not the first visit that he’s made regarding said body part. I just can’t help thinking there is some other motive other than this troublesome toe that is causing him to go to all the trouble of visiting the doctor (not to mention – taking up the doctor’s valuable time). Does he just feel so uncomfortable in his own skin that he is going to our modern-day priest for some sort of reassurance/absolution?

Is he maybe troubled by his apparently long-dormant conscience, after taking me to Primark, choosing clothes and then revealing while standing in the queue that he had no cash to pay for his purchases?

Yesterday I had another blow to my peace of mind. I met an old friend for a coffee, and he told me that the reason I hadn’t seen him or heard from him for the last two years was because he was ‘very angry’ with me over the way I ‘treated’ my ex-friend A (of Equals fame).

I was flabbergasted, in disbelief over this…some of you may remember the Equals saga which I posted about very extensively here, having few other outlets. I was ignored, betrayed and dropped like a hot potato by my close friend of 11 years, after being forced to leave a course that her organisation was running. They were (are?) a social firm promoting social inclusion for those with disabilities whether mental or physical.

I’d thought I was pretty much over all of that. But my friend announcing that he basically saw me as the villain of the piece (based on almost total ignorance of the situation I might add) and had (also) ostracised me for two years because of it was REALLY hard to take. I pushed it aside and had a very pleasant chat with my friend, but my God. Talk about triggering.

Yet when I look back, my relationship with this friend who is also an ex-partner, going back 14 years, has been marked by long periods of no contact owing to some grievance on his part. I guess this is just what he does? Or at least does, in relation to me? Is he STILL aggrieved because I left him for R all those years ago? What’s it actually about?

So basically, the last two days would have been easier if I’d spent it lying down in a darkened room. People, so necessary a part of my life, can unwittingly and often quite innocently trigger all kinds of emotional reactions.

Envy. Grief. Post-traumatic stress. Anger. Betrayal. Frustration. Bewilderment. Disbelief. Plain old sadness. To name but a few…

Thanks for listening to my vent. If you did that is.

Zoe x