Just when I thought things were awesome...

[Hedgie]

Part of me wants to write a really cool and witty intro and the other part of me just wants to scream for the first few lines or so because my anxiety levels are off the damn chart today.

Short version about me:

1. Crappy childhood.
2. Adopted by grandparents. Have one older sister raised with my birth father. Birth mother MIA for a long time; birth father detached from me. Whatevs.
3. Grandma that adopted me had undiagnosed BPD.
4. I have Bipolar Type II, predominately depression, hypomania manifests as anxiety. Whoo!
5. Work for a boss who reminds me of grandma in a bad way. Trigger-fest!
6. Lots of therapy, reasonable amount of meds.

Long version about me:

- I was adopted by my paternal grandparents because my birth parents are f-ck ups and couldn't figure out that you actually had to feed and change and pay attention to a baby. They managed to figure this out with my older sister, born a year and few months before me, but I guess they lost their copy of "Childcare for the Uninterested"?
- I was born in April; by December they were separated and living in different states. Birth parents kept me for about 3 months.
- The grandmother who raised most likely had BPD. She was physically abusive and emotionally abusive.
- I saw my sister every once in a while, not really regularly. I was about 6 or 7 when I met my birth mother. Well, not so much met but was there when she came to see my sister. I didn't realize that my sister's mother would be my mother too. No one bothered to tell me either.
- Growing up I was constantly reminded that my parents wanted to keep my sister and not me. I still can't figure out where I fit into the family since my grandmother and sister have a relationship to birth father that I don't.
- I grew up in a very small Baptist church in rural Florida. That was screwed up on a different level. I'm still a Christian, but not with any denomination.
- The first time I experienced depression was in the 6th grade, and it wasn't until last year that I finally learned that I had bipolar type II, and got stabilized.
- I've been with an awesome therapist since 2010. I'm really thankful this.
- I started going to therapy because my boss started triggering bad memories and reactions from my abusive childhood.
- My boss most likely has undiagnosed BPD; at the very least she is tightly wound, verbally abusive, rude, exasperating, capricious, unpredictable, but occasionally likable. She has an amazing way of making me feel like an incompetent idiot. I also can't help the automatic feeling that I'm about to get hit.
- I have put up with this longer than I should have because I love what I do more than I dislike working for her (so win-ish?).

I found the podcast completely by accident a few weeks ago. It was validating to hear others talk about experiences similar to mine, to express emotions and reactions that I related to in way, but also to hear about successes—people who learned to make boundaries and positive changes. I'd spent so much of my life inside my own head, unable to put names on feelings or trust memories that came to me.

Which was just in time because I started feeling body memories that were hard to shake. Other memories started coming back that I hadn't thought of in a long time, some of which I don't want to put on a name on just yet. I'm glad that I'm uncovering this stuff to a certain extent, but I know it's going to be hard. I think of this process like uncovering one of those people they find in peat bogs (red head of Irish descent so it made sense). I'm uncovering that person in layers and her story is coming together in pieces. It can take time between finishing the excavation of one layer and the next.

So—if you got the end of this post, God bless. Bonus tidbit: My user name is short for hedgehog because I'm prickly on the outside but have a soft and squishy underbelly.

[oak]

Hello and thanks for posting. Though there is a lot of painful events in your post, I am glad you can use your words.

I must say: that was awesomely-bad when they did not inform you that your birth mother was in the same room. One would assume that would be fairly high priority information to get across. Or maybe they were just super chill people

Great post! Thanks.

[HowDidIGetHere]

Welcome to the monkey house.

Side question: do you ever feel cheated by having BP2 instead of the apparently way-more-fun-and-exciting BP1? I've known a few BP people over the years, but they were always the "fun, creative" Type 1 manics, not the "barely keeping our shite together" Type 2 hypomanics. In fact, I recently read an article by someone with BP2 who said that part of the reason she wrote a memoir is that all the books that were out there were about people with BP1 and she just didn't relate.

All of which is a long way of saying "me too. You're not alone here."

[Hedgie]

@oak:

I must say: that was awesomely-bad when they did not inform you that your birth mother was in the same room. One would assume that would be fairly high priority information to get across. Or maybe they were just super chill people

My grandmother loathed my birth mother with a passion that would fuel a thousand fiery suns. I think she was relying on the fact that, while smart, I was not the swiftest of children ever born. It took me until age 13 to grasp that my full-blooded sister's mother would also be mine as well. Gran had me down cold.

@HowDidIGetHere:

Side question: do you ever feel cheated by having BP2 instead of the apparently way-more-fun-and-exciting BP1? I've known a few BP people over the years, but they were always the "fun, creative" Type 1 manics, not the "barely keeping our shite together" Type 2 hypomanics. In fact, I recently read an article by someone with BP2 who said that part of the reason she wrote a memoir is that all the books that were out there were about people with BP1 and she just didn't relate.

Responsible Adult Me: "Oh my goodness! No!" (imagine pearl clutching and prim/proper voice)
Actual Me: "Fuck yeah."

It's like all the fun of depression and none of the energy of mania. I think that's why it took so long for me to get the right diagnosis; I had all of the signs of major depressive disorder and anxiety, but none of the treatments were working. I never thought to mention to them the racing thoughts and annoying chorus of voices telling me exactly what I was doing wrong, or the 8 million projects that I've started and stopped, or the days when I was so wound up that I couldn't focus for shit. Times like that might last a couple of days to a week at least; then I would crash HARD into depression for longer and longer periods.

BP1 stories always seem to have those people who notice something is not right, usually with the out-of-control mania. To the outside world, BP2 probably just looks like lazy with a side of occasional motivation (at least it did to my grandma and teachers! ). It is very hard to relate to the picture of BP that you find in a lot of the literature out there—which in turns makes me always doubt my diagnosis.

[HowDidIGetHere]

Exactly! It's even worse because my partner is always saying things like "I've known lots of bipolar people and they never did [whatever thing I did that pissed her off]." It never occurs to me to ask her "yeah, but weren't they all BP1? Like, the kind that winds up naked in public fountains claiming to be Jesus?" (as one of her previous lovers did).

Yeah, that's not me.

Well, at least there are two of us now. *high five*