I don't know when it was exactly that I started to feel very alone because of my mental illness. I did notice however that invitations to life events stopped happening, whether it be a wedding invite, baby shower, or birthday...these weren't the types of things I got to see on my Facebook feed. All my life I have entered friendships and groups of people, just to find them later dissolved for one reason or another. I know that I take up alot of energy and wear people out, but rejection after rejection has left me pointing to myself as to blame and I know alot of it is because of my illness.
People just don't understand. Or they don't take the time to understand, because it is not normal, the things I go through. When I try to explain, I get shifted eyes, little questions and the sense that I just don't belong. Even as far as mental illnesses go, bipolar with psychosis is hard to make sense of, or find a basis on which to connect to others. Sometimes I feel like a silo in my little town, like a beacon that shies people away from me, with the thought that I am "drama" or "unhealthy." Even though my illness is not my doing, others think that "why wouldn't I have more control over it?' Just as easily as I can appear well enough to drive a car and function, I can be completely in a different realm. Its just like that. It happens swiftly and my mind is carried away to another place, much like in a dream.
I often feel alone and forgotten in this rat race we call life. I go to self help and therapy groups to try and find a connection, and often leave with the same feeling that I came with...that I am different and "far out" and unacceptable in some way. I fight these stigmas all the time, but really alot of it is my own insecurity. I had been blinded for years in my drinking to my social awkwardness, which left me feeling raw and vulnerable in early sobriety. I was very open, and with my changing moods I have struggled with my identity. I've also become accustomed to being alone, and that is an independence I never really felt before recovery. Before I had always needed someone or something to validate my self worth, and I no longer have that as a negative coping skill. The feeling of being "alone" or "different" is a very common theme, I have found among other recovering alcoholics. We are to look for the similarities not the differences.
To be continued...
People just don't understand. Or they don't take the time to understand, because it is not normal, the things I go through. When I try to explain, I get shifted eyes, little questions and the sense that I just don't belong. Even as far as mental illnesses go, bipolar with psychosis is hard to make sense of, or find a basis on which to connect to others. Sometimes I feel like a silo in my little town, like a beacon that shies people away from me, with the thought that I am "drama" or "unhealthy." Even though my illness is not my doing, others think that "why wouldn't I have more control over it?' Just as easily as I can appear well enough to drive a car and function, I can be completely in a different realm. Its just like that. It happens swiftly and my mind is carried away to another place, much like in a dream.
I often feel alone and forgotten in this rat race we call life. I go to self help and therapy groups to try and find a connection, and often leave with the same feeling that I came with...that I am different and "far out" and unacceptable in some way. I fight these stigmas all the time, but really alot of it is my own insecurity. I had been blinded for years in my drinking to my social awkwardness, which left me feeling raw and vulnerable in early sobriety. I was very open, and with my changing moods I have struggled with my identity. I've also become accustomed to being alone, and that is an independence I never really felt before recovery. Before I had always needed someone or something to validate my self worth, and I no longer have that as a negative coping skill. The feeling of being "alone" or "different" is a very common theme, I have found among other recovering alcoholics. We are to look for the similarities not the differences.
To be continued...