Quote reblogged from river trash with 36 notes
Living with a mental illness is a study in survival. Every day, every emotion is questioned. What is this? Am I happy or am I starting to head towards mania? Is this an honest sadness or is my brain breaking again? Why is it breaking now? What is so different now than yesterday? Why me? Why this?
To say it’s frustrating is to minimize how paralyzing it can be. And then there’s the shame. Having to decide who to reveal to and when. If I meet someone I’m interested in, do I tell them that sometimes I shrink away or do I wait until it happens? Revealing too much too soon can end it before it begins. Waiting too long results in confusing behaviour that ends things as well. No matter how you play, someone isn’t going to understand.
I’ve had legitimate concerns in a relationship and have been dismissed as “getting bipolar again.” I’ve entered 99% of my relationships while in hypomania. I don’t even know what it would feel like to enter one healthy. I wouldn’t know how to act. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like for “normal” people.
Source: rivertrash
