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Bipolar depression is here, again, still.  I hate it.  I hate feeling this way, and more than that, I hate feeling this way for no actual reason I can pinpoint.  Nothing is wrong, in fact everything is going rather well.  But, every afternoon this week, I have felt that dip.  Today, the dip became a ditch and it started at dawn.

I knew it the second I woke up.  I felt the low.  You know the low that you can’t pretend you don’t feel?  That one.  I started to get up and hubby asked me where I was going.  I managed to say ‘to make the coffee’ without being overly snippy.  I mean, it’s where I go every morning!  Why do you have to ask?  But, he’s not being rude or mean, I am, bipolar is.

Therapy was slow to start today as I wasn’t really in the mood for talking.  But, and I don’t remember what, something go me going on the way I measure success in my life now vs the way I measured it “then”.

For example, last week the rod in our closet fell down and all of our clothes ended up on the floor.  So, while hubby fixed it, I went through every single item of clothing I own and tried everything on and sorted it into piles to keep in a drawer, re-hang, donate, or put in a tote in the garage.  While I was at it I ran across several pair of pants that fit, that didn’t have drawstrings.  And the very first thought was ‘ I should make a separate pile of these pants in case I have to be hospitalized again’.  But, I didn’t do it.  And that is considered a success in my life now.

I used to close real estate deals all day long.  I used to be well-known in my area for being able to take the toughest deals and make them work.  I had excellent problem solving abilities.  I liked doing it.  I managed two companies.  At the same time.  And then I went home and cleaned and did the laundry and cooked dinner and lived my life.  These successes were important to me.  I didn’t even have aspirations to do more.  I loved doing what I did.  I loved solving problems and getting people to understand what they needed to understand.  I loved helping people buy their new homes in which they could make their own lives.

I was successful at a high stress, fast paced job that I adored.  Now, I’m supposed to pat myself on the back because I got one load of laundry done.

I know that there are people out there who get diagnosed, get their meds worked out and go back to living fulfilling lives doing what they love.  I will never be one of those people.  Treatment resistant with co-occuring disorders, has crippled me.

Now my victories are small.  They are things I never would have thought about twice in my old life.  Made dinner – yeah so did every other person in the country – whoopee.  Did laundry – yeah so did every other person in the country – yay.  Didn’t organize my pants into which ones were suitable for the hospital and which ones weren’t.

The pants thing really bothers me.  I know that I should be happy that I haven’t tried to organize my life so a hospital stay is easier to prepare for.  But, I’m not.  I see where it’s a success, but I think it’s a pathetic excuse for a success.

And then the passive suicidal ideation train drove through.  I’ve taken to just calling it the “passive train”, because it tends to just drive by.  It might be a long freight train or a shorter passenger train, but it keeps moving.  Which is good, because if it stops, the only passenger is active ideation, and I don’t want that.

But, comparing these successes in my old life with the things I’m supposed to call success now, brought the passive train by.  I feel like the expectations I need to meet are those of a child and I didn’t live all this life to end up feeling like the most I can accomplish is the same as a tween.  And if that’s the best I can hope for, then what the heck is the point?

Thankfully, I’m not low enough yet that the point completely escapes me. The point, ultimately, is my family.  They don’t look at my successes the way that I do.  Hubby wants to know that I’m ok.  And, if I’m ok, then he’s ok.  He doesn’t look at me and think about what I used to do and accomplish and wish that was the way things are now.  He looks at me and wants me healthy, bipolar or not.