Sometimes I feel as if I am hard to love.
The old adage goes that relationships are about compromise. But as someone who is bipolar, I often find compromise hard to find. There are times of stability, but underneath it all I am still bipolar, careening from edge to edge with no warning. It feels like I can either take a flying leap towards the sky or sink deep to the depths of the ocean.
The hypomanic highs make me the world’s best girlfriend. I send long, poetic “goodnight” messages, sharing my innermost feelings, and am unabashed in my declarations of love. I am full of ideas about the future, making up stories about where we’ll live and who we’ll be. I give and I give without asking much in return.
The depressive lows, though, make me a chore to be around. I am short in my responses and quick to upset, taking everything he says and twisting it so that I’m able to take offense. I lack inspiration and find myself questioning everything. I make myself believe that no one would want to be with me when I’m this low, and I ask for constant affection just to prove myself wrong. I take and I take and give barely anything in return.
It’s not one or the other: I’m on good medication that has saved my life and has kept my personality in tact. My quick wit and writing talent and easy conversational skills, the things he loves most about me, have not been lost to my illness. I am almost okay. Almost.
Except for when I’m not. Something bad will happen and I will spiral out of control. I’ll cycle rapidly between high and low or I’ll fall to rock bottom and the charade will be over. On the outside I am a “normal girl:” long hair, bright smile, light enough for him to pick up and small enough to tuck myself into his arms and feel safe. But on the inside I am a rain cloud, dark and heavy. I rarely have warning of when I’ll wake up and it will be storming in my mind.
This is my first serious relationship. I would be lying if I said it was anything less than terrifying. I felt like no one could love me until I was healed from my various illnesses, mental and physical, and yet he does. There are days I don’t doubt it at all and days I question why. Days I feel fueled by the love I have for him and days I resent its presence. There is everything in between. There is almost never compromise.
It is not for lack of trying. He talks to me patiently and assures me that a fight — it was just a discussion, he corrects me — is not the end of the world. He still loves me as much as he did 40 minutes ago, and in my heart I know that, but my broken brain will take a few hours to catch up with my heart. For most people, it is the opposite. Being in love is not as easy for someone who is mentally ill.
Sometimes I wish that I were different. I get in my head, cycling and recycling thoughts about how he deserves better than me, and how can he love someone so impossibly screwed up? I feel like everything I do is the final straw. As if he has a checklist of all possible flaws, and if he checks one more, I’m out. As if he is just waiting for that final thing that changes everything.
But the months trudge on, and nothing becomes that thing. Nothing — not hypomania, not depression, not my endless fears and doubts, not even the outside forces that enact themselves upon my brain — is big enough to drive him away. I send him paragraphs about my inadequacies that he just doesn’t seem to see. I take them back a few days later, with a quick, “Hey, about that? Never mind. I was depressed,” and he just nods his head and says that it’s okay.
I ask him if he’s still up for a lifetime of this, and he says yes. While it is impossible not to worry sometimes, I am calm about the present and the future. He is good to me, and good for me. I am still working on convincing myself that maybe I deserve that.
I was never the kind of person who thought that falling in love would change her life. I never depended on the attention of a boy to feel whole. I have enough supportive friends and family to last a lifetime, and I’ve been through enough to understand that random male attention is basically insignificant. And while that’s still true, being in love has made me more myself. It’s made me more comfortable being alone, staying in, taking a break. It’s made me realize I am worthy of that sort of affection from someone.
Sometimes I feel as if I am hard to love. And maybe I am. But he loves me anyway.
