Unreliable Narrator

Living with someone with Bipolar Disorder (2) is a little bit like living in a book with an unreliable narrator. There's Gideon. Sweet, normal, fun, affection, passionate, brilliant, creative Gideon. He likes writing, he likes basketball, he doesn't mind his job.

Then there's manic Gideon, who wants to run away to California and publish his novel in two weeks and quit his job to write full time and play twelve different sports and drink and flip his truck. Manic Gideon wants to get married next week and start a family, buy a house in the country and raise goats and have his own garden and fuck and fuck and fuck. He wants to go back to college for a degree in musical theater and start his own landscaping business.

Depressed Gideon is the worst. Depressed Gideon is apathetic. He doesn't love me. He doesn't hate me. He just...doesn't care about me. He shakes when I touch him. He cries when I look at him. He forgets to eat, leaves cold cups of coffee on the kitchen table, stares at his computer screen. Stares at the television screen. Stares at my face, mouth agape, while I sob and beg him to "just be nice." Depressed Gideon never loved me. I was just convenient, an escape plan.

He eventually cycles out of whatever phase he's in, holds me, tells me everything is okay and it wasn't real, not really him. He didn't mean that. He's sorry that it hurt. Some things he says are real. Some aren't. But in the moment he's saying it, it all seems real. And somehow, I'm expected to hold three truths at once.

And he didn't mean it. It was unreliable. But when you see a disease talking to you through the mouth of a person you live with and love, who you know loves you, it's devastating. You look like Gideon, but you don't talk like Gideon. Learning to separate the disorder from my very wonderful boyfriend has taken mental jumping jacks on a level I usually reserve for babying my own anxiety and neuroticism.

Is it any wonder, then, why I'm back?

Gideon's seeing a physician; he's diagnosed. He's medicated, takes his mood stabilizer, which he hates, because even though it helps control the mania, it makes the depression that much worse. The mania, statistically, is more dangerous. It could get lead to a manic break, a full-blown psychotic episode, and get him involuntarily hospitalized. So it's more important to treat the mania now.

I have a hard time, sometimes, remembering that as much as I feel like I'm suffering, and as much as I feel like I want to quit, it's somehow even worse for him, because it's inside his own brain, and he can't leave it. Gideon, when he's himself, he's the best thing that's ever happened to me. But sometimes I don't see him for a few weeks, or even a month or two. And it's weird, sharing a bed with a very cruel, tense, weeping, cursing monster with your lover's face. I know it's his disease, not mine; it just hurts. He knows it hurts, but I'd rather get this out here than lay this on him too. I'm sorry for anyone who takes offense to this pity party. I just don't really have anywhere to go to sort it.

So, is it any wonder, then, that I'm back?

Regrets

My ex, Grant, texted me tonight. Out of the fucking blue. I haven't heard from him since October. When he found out I had a new boyfriend (Liam), he completely cut me out of his life. No explanation, not that I needed one. He was hurt.

Tonight, at midnight, he texts me "Well, I guess, fuck you 'cause you broke my heart."

And my first fucking thought is "Well, at least I'm thin enough now that he can't call me 'fat' behind my back. I've gotta lose more weight so that no one can make fun of me." Well color me insecure.

First time I've heard from him in months. Grant and I dated (sort of, whatever) like, three years ago, off and on. This is back when I was really fat. And he basically treated me like garbage, talked about me behind my back, fucked my roommate, that sort of shit. Our relationship fizzled and I started dating Michael. About two months into Michael's & my relationship, Grant gets shitty drunk at New Year's Eve party and confesses his love for me. I start crying and leave the room, and he leaves with a friend.

When Michael & I broke up, Grant couldn't have been happier. He was so sure this meant that he had an "in." He got it in his head that when he got back from overseas, I'd be there waiting for him. I never, never told him that. I never once gave him any indication that I'd be picking up our relationship once he came back. And then I found Liam. I agonized over telling Grant for almost a year, but all his friends agreed that I shouldn't upset him while he was in Afghanistan. Every time he called me, I'd light up like a little fucking kid, and every time we hung up, I'd just cry. He didn't come back until I'd already moved for grad school. I don't know how he finally found out. But anyway, it was too late. And he immediately stopped speaking to me.

I love Liam, I still do. I wouldn't trade our relationship (whatever it is, right now) for anything.

And I deeply, deeply care about Grant. I mean, my heart aches for this guy. But he was always so fucking immature, and no part of me every really believed that he could change. If I thought it were possible, I would've ran screaming back to him when Michael and I broke up last February. But no, Grant's never gonna change. He's always gonna be that immature hot guy who fucks around on girls and joins the Marines because he wants to shoot people.

But I do regret not giving him a second chance. I'm not saying that to feel justified, or...anything, really. It's just how I feel, and I'm just being honest. I feel like a piece of shit. And I do miss Grant, desperately, honestly. But I know in my heart of hearts that he'd just hurt me.

This is the very definition of a trigger, for me anyway. If I was hungry before, I'm not now.

Fair trade

Liam likes me better when I'm sick. He's got issues with self-confidence, mostly because he's too intelligent and that makes him socially awkward. He tends to over-think things, and he's terrible at filtering the truth to make it more palatable. He's also pretty judgmental. Ironically, this all makes him a fantastic therapist, because he's excellent at getting people to recognize the reality of their situations. I wouldn't have thought that were true, except his clients actually recommend him to friends and family members.

But back to what I said before. It's true. I remember him saying at one point last semester, "I'm afraid that if you get better, you won't want me anymore."

My illness, obsessions, whatever-the-hell, has always been a good way for him to...not control me, per se, but to know how I'm feeling. It makes me very predictable. And he likes that. His ex-girlfriend cheated on him after a 5-year relationship, and it's all made him rather paranoid about my faithfulness, especially considering we live in separate states. It's completely ironic that the dissolution of our relationship was what it took for me to recommit to losing weight. And doubly ironic, the fact that I've gotten sick again makes him want me back. He always loves me, but I think my being strong and confidant scares him, because when I'm at my best, I easily outshine him. I'm incredibly sociable and dedicated and passionate. I can honestly say that I look for the best in people. I'm an optimist at heart. In general, I love people and I'm always eager to make them at least a little bit happier for having known me. That's my fair trade for the privilege of being alive.

The only thing I'm excessively negative about is my weight, and the only person I'm really hard on is myself. And Liam, he pulled me out of it before. And when I got better for a few months, he started to see me as independent and unpredictable, and all his irrational worries just got worse and worse. Officially, he broke up with me because he'd "rather be my therapist than my boyfriend," and he didn't feel like he was happy with me anymore. If this sounds psychologically manipulate and controlling, yeah, I suppose it is. And I've come to terms with that.

Now, one month later, I'm losing weight again, and I regularly talk to him about it instead of hiding it. Whenever I'm having false or excessively negative thoughts, I call him and he tries to help me rationally assess my behavior. The fucked up part is, that's what he loves me for. As much as he says that he fell in love with me because I'm a strong, independent woman with morals and positive ideals, I don't think that's true.

He loves the broken little girl, who wears white lace and never combs her curly hair and can't stand to be touched.

I should be upset, but I like it better this way too. It's probably sick, but it's comforting.