meltdown

There are moments when you force yourself to think, so in my case I demand my inner self to take some time and (in this case) blog. However, the reason why I started this in the first place and promised you (my readers)… is to share my feelings. At their best. And mostly–at their worst.

About fifteen minutes ago, I completely flipped my shit. This is pretty normal for most bipolars. From talking to other bipolar mothers online, it’s definitely normal. And in taking an educated guess, it’s probably not normal for bipolar single mothers not to have them. Never is there just one cause to the meltdowns. They happen. I like to think that there are tiny little men similar to lemmings (remember that computer game?) who are working very hard to get from one place to the next. Trying to get the endorphins where they belong. If you’re unsure of what mental illness is exactly, for those who have bipolar – we have a chemical imbalance in our mind. It’s a lot more complicated than what I am willing to explain at this moment.

But you should get the point.

Back to where I was… when I freaked out not too long before I re-opened my laptop… I had another boiling point. The easiest way to interpret one of these meltdowns is to have you imagine a tantrumming three-year old child who’s able to express with pretty solid vocabulary how much they want something. Of course, there isn’t justification to their wants because it is ordinarily a routine response… The “bipolar meltdown”.

I completely disregarded the fact that my son is only five years old and threw a fucking hissy fit because he wasn’t helping me around the house today. I threatened to take away his toys and when I saw tears streaming down his face I realized I was almost out of control. Call me a bad mother, but I’m not. Ninety-nine percent of the time I am calm and treat him like a prince. It’s the one percent that most people aren’t going to tell you about. At that moment when my son looked terrified of me, I decided that I needed the blog. I needed to write before I said or did anything I would regret.

In other words, writing just saved me.

Similar to an elephant mother, I called him over about five minutes after the freak out and hugged him so much. I apologized to him and tried to defend my actions. But I know that he is hurt. I don’t know what it’s going to be like for him to grow up with a mother who suffers from bipolar. Yes, there are many positive things that I give him – my energy, my talent, my creativity… and all of those I can attest to the beauty of having this disease. But it’s moments like this where I end up hating who I am and what I have because I can’t control a certain part of me.

People without the disease won’t ever understand this.

I have two friends who I know whose mothers suffer from bipolar. They are two of the most gentle gentlemen I have befriended. They are kind, understanding, charming, and have genuinely pure hearts. When I ask, they will share with me very personal moments shared with their mothers. One friend remembers spending a birthday in a mental institution. Another friend remembers the day his mother broke his sister’s arm and locked her in her room. It’s memories like these that frighten me.

I called my son’s father and asked him to please take Kai tonight into tomorrow so I can be away from him. I wish more than anything that I could be normal in times like these. That I could snap my fingers and become stable. But I cannot. I am who I am. And without a doubt, right now, I hate this part of me.