People sometimes joke about bipolar disorder, but living with it is no joke. In fact, living with undiagnosed bipolar disorder is a walking, confusing nightmare. You have no idea what’s wrong with your mind, why your moods fluctuate, why you can move from giddily hyperactive to angry and depressed in the span of an hour. You may self-medicate with binge drinking and make stupid decisions, then feel immense guilt when you learn you broke someone’s nose in a drunken rage just for looking at you wrong.
Bipolar disorder in someone whose entire childhood was busted up, abused, stomped up, and flipped on its backside is an incredibly bad combination. What is your brain supposed to do with the garbage it was given?
The condition makes you feel anything but in control of your emotions, and you worry that the inspiration you get one minute will be dashed by the defeat you feel the next. Ideas are many but follow-through is difficult, and guilt, failure, and depression crowd out the good feelings. At times it can leave you feeling unable to be who you really are.
There’s no explanation for the way one nostalgic memory can make you light up with happiness or a hitch in your plans can seem like the end of the world. Rick easily became angry or sad and hopeless when things weren’t the way he thought they should be. A minor disappointment could destroy an entire day, and a particularly irritating individual could cause his “nice guy” mask to fall. He was prone to lashing out if someone accidentally cut in line, chasing someone down who gave him a dirty look on the highway, or throwing an entire carton of eggs at the wall just because he had bought the wrong ones. And seconds after he would lose control, the shame and guilt would overtake him.
People with bipolar disorder often have social anxiety issues as well. Rick has struggled with these his entire life. They can sometimes be the hardest to kick once you’ve gotten over the other major hurdles—because it’s a necessary part of your daily life. The brain becomes conditioned to the fear of others, and social encounters can trigger the worst parts of the illness to come back when least expected.
“I have a mental disease that you can’t see,” he explains. “It’s not like I can say I have cancer. People see me as normal. But when I became depressed or severely angry, before getting the right medication, people couldn’t recognize me anymore.”
Rick also experiences the other side of bipolar—the happy, hyper side. He has a childlike sense of humor and can be rambunctious, like a puppy dog ready to play. He’s enthralled by the idea of spontaneous fun and loves to wake up on a Saturday and just start driving somewhere.
Making plans isn’t fun for him. In fact, he rarely gets excited about vacation plans. He’s always aware of the possibility of things turning out badly, so he’d rather take off on a whim than plan something that could disappoint. Throwing cold water on his spontaneity can ruin his day.
He’s also childlike in his tendency to blurt out what he’s thinking in the moment without stopping to think about the consequences. His conversation can be unfiltered, especially when he’s under stress. During tough fights he will say things like, “I don’t want to be married anymore. I don’t want to do this. It makes me want to quit.” It’s a childish reaction to a very adult problem—and that’s something a partner must learn to deal with.
He’s not a child. In fact, he’s a very responsible, resilient, loving man. But some of the emotional trauma from the past can still seep into everyday conversations in a very childlike way.
The social anxiety and bipolar disorder also creep into life in other ways. Double dates, parties, trips with friends—these are rare occasions because of the crippling anxiety they cause him. But he’s learning to deal with it more each day, praying that God will heal his ailments and help him find the confidence he so desperately wants.
“At a party, I look for the shy person that’s not talking to anyone. . . . I feel like I can have a one-on-one conversation with that person because they’ll be glad someone reached out to them,” he says. “I think sometimes I put a lot of pressure on myself, so I overcompensate. [Then] I’ll feel uncomfortable, drink too much, and be incredibly loud or obnoxious. Either I’m incredibly shy and say nothing or I completely overdo it. I don’t find the balance of being relaxed.”
This is especially true when Rick is around other men. He’s tried, in a way, to live up to the traditional male standard. But he might not even recognize how he stacks up in comparison because of the complexities inside his head about body image and manliness.
Rick says, “[With most men] I have to fake it until I make it. It goes back to me having to present myself as an alpha male when I don’t want to.”
Despite the struggles, he has made some good male friends over the years. One of his army buddies, José, and he bonded over the struggles of deployment while spending hours in a tank. He met his friend Linden while working one of the many jobs he had over the years. Rick took a while to warm up to Linden, but they became friends by joking around with each other and realizing they were both thoughtful, sensitive, good guys.
But despite those somewhat kindred spirits, Rick says he’s never met a guy he thinks is a lot like him. That’s another reason he finds it so hard to make close male friends. But he’s learning that in reality no one is “like” anyone else—we are all who we are, and that’s okay.
Rick can be silly and serious, thoughtful and genuine. He’s ready to jump into deep conversation with people immediately. Some would say that makes him more refreshing to get to know than most people who wade through the superficial for no reason. Others are caught off guard and perhaps a little put off.
“That’s just how I’m wired,” Rick says. “I’m raw with my emotions and ready to share them with people, whereas most people take a while to get to that comfort level. I don’t have the patience for it and, in a way, I feel rejected for the way that I am.”
Social anxiety disorder plays a big role in this—and it’s truly crippling in a way that most people don’t understand. While outsiders can say, “Just suck it up; small talk isn’t fun for anyone,” they simply don’t grasp the panic experienced by someone with this disorder.
When the feeling hits, it’s like an instantaneous shutdown, almost like a heart attack. The chest tightens, the throat closes, and speech becomes impossible. There’s an animalistic instinct to flee the situation or confront it like a threat—a fight or flight response, neither of which bodes well at a cocktail party that seems rather tame and normal for everyone around you.
“Unfortunately, my coping mechanism is to fly and get out . . . instead of trying to conquer and move forward,” Rick says.
If you let social anxiety rule your life, it will keep you away from everything that doesn’t involve just you and your spouse. New Year’s Eve parties, family holidays, double dates, work functions—things that seem like ordinary fun to other people become epic battles requiring preparation, prayer, anxiety, and the hope that everything goes smoothly.
For the spouse of someone with PTSD or bipolar disorder, life can be tough because you don’t fully understand how your loved one feels or how you can best help. It’s a learning process and takes love and commitment.
CHAPTER 30
SEATTLE TO DC
Moving from one place to another usually brought fresh hope for Rick as a young adult. Maybe this will be the place I belong, he would think. Each new location seemed full of opportunity, possiblities that didn’t exist before. It was one of the only sources of happiness he knew.
Of course, much of that was a mental game, because happiness always comes down to a person’s mental and spiritual state, not a location. You won’t be happy anywhere if you’re not happy where you already are. Nevertheless, the moving addiction was real for Rick and always seemed to satisfy an aching need inside of him.
After having his car shipped to Washington State from Hawaii, he had a month and a little money to get from Hawaii to Washington and then drive his car across the country to Washington, DC, for the new job he’d taken. DC sounded e
xciting—it was different from Hawaii or anywhere else he’d ever lived, plus it was far away from Sabrina. This new job sounded like a solid one—a place you could climb the ladder without trying too hard. It was respectable and the kind of job that a hard-earned college degree got you.
Due to Dean’s military assignment, Jenny and her family now lived in Seattle, so it had worked out well for Rick to crash with them again before moving to DC. It’s interesting how Jenny always seemed to be right where he needed her to be when things got tough. That sibling relationship—the “ride or die” mentality they both leaned into—was, in fact, the glue that helped hold him together just when he thought he might completely fall apart.
It was good to have Jenny to keep him company in the aftermath of the divorce, especially since being Uncle Rick made him feel valuable when little else did. He was coping better than many people would have in his position. Never stopping to truly mourn this loss, he propelled forward in survival mode. A job was the only thing he thought he needed at that point, and he had already managed that.
His inner resolve was much tougher than he recognized. Somehow he was able to persevere, work hard, and aspire to be something more than he had seen growing up. That inner drive, though it may have been day by day, isn’t something everyone possesses. The truth is, every one of Rick’s new starts was brave, even if they were partial escapes. And moving to DC was no different.
After driving across country, stopping to visit his former “stepdad” (Sylvia’s long-time boyfriend) James in Arkansas, Rick pulled into Silver Spring, Maryland, and started looking for a place to stay. He found the place through a random ad on Craigslist—kind of a thoughtless process that could have been disastrous. But it was fine—a tiny spare bedroom in someone’s house. Thankfully, it was near his new workplace.
He felt a little excited, proud of having a professional job, and, as usual, terrified of all the people he’d have to meet and lie to about who he was. He would again be fooling everyone with his exterior, though no one thought nearly as much about that as he did. But by this time he was good at fooling people. No one could see beneath the surface smile to the scared little boy who didn’t think he could handle a happy hour. He had job interviews down pat, conversations with bosses in the can, rehearsed lines about what he’d learned in the army and in college—all to prove to people he was up to the task. He was very good at impressing people. Bosses, coworkers, dates, parents—they all loved him from the outset.
He liked his new roommate, Gina, well enough. She was a young black woman, and they got along just fine. He was in the mood to forget about things at that point, to enjoy his newfound freedom of being single again without the burden of a difficult marriage. Thus every penny he earned was gone pretty quickly after covering rent.
Having fun had always meant drinking—not in the way his mom did—but in the partying kind of way where you get drunk with friends at a bar, take home a woman, make inappropriate comments, and sometimes teeter on the edge of a fight. The only problem was he didn’t have any friends, so he went alone. All he needed, he believed, was a little liquid courage to make a new friend—something he’d never even attempt or want to do sober.
Drinking had long been a way for him to quell his social anxiety. A few drinks and he was your best friend, talking about every subject under the sun. The truth was, he wouldn’t want to ever see you again after that drunken night of conversation, and he never remembered the people he met on nights like that. They were just a means of escape. He would buy shots for all his new “friends,” drink until he was wasted, then go home and pass out with his clothes on.
It wasn’t long until he started going out with girls. But these dates were just superficial hookups—fleeting and empty. He finally started dating a girl he met at the gym. She was twenty-two—ten years younger than him—and ready to party, so they would go out and get drunk together. Their relationship wasn’t the real thing, though—he knew she couldn’t last.
Despite his careless ways when moving to the DC area, Rick somehow knew he was meant for a serious relationship. He was made for commitment to someone who could love and appreciate him for his good qualities and also know his flaws. He wouldn’t last long with someone he couldn’t pour his heart out to.
When things ended with the younger girl, he moved on to a relationship with someone at work—never a good idea. That messy little drama was soon over. On top of that, he realized he needed to move, because his roommate had decided she had a thing for him. It was all too much for him to handle, so he looked for a new place to live.
For a guy who had trouble socializing, he seemed to have no trouble with the ladies. He was a guy with depth, passion, and kindness in his heart—and the army-guy good looks didn’t hurt.
In a way he was like his mom when she wasn’t drunk, the woman she would have been had drugs and alcohol not been her best friends. I realized that when I met Sylvia later in life. The person she might have been came through so clearly in her words and actions, reflected in her son’s own eyes and actions. The power of drugs to fully ruin a life took on a powerful and tragic reality in that moment.
But the girls were just something to pass the time. Rick wasn’t ready for a real relationship. Actually, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted one again. The thought of marriage wasn’t appealing, and he had no clue or care what was next in that department. Having failed at marriage twice, it didn’t seem likely that a third time would be the charm. So he just put the whole idea out his mind.
But it didn’t last. Soon enough he needed something solid, someone he could count on. He’d never found that in a male friend, and he sure wasn’t looking for it at church or with friendships. So when a coworker dared him to sign up for the online dating service Match.com, Rick figured he might as well check it out.
CHAPTER 31
ALMOST THERE
Meeting someone with the intention of forming a serious relationship wasn’t easy for Rick. His periodic depressions made dating more difficult—though a date was still easier for him than any other social situation. His introversion had grown more extreme by this time, appearing to get worse as he got older, and he had only recently been diagnosed with bipolar. He may have known about it but the combo of meds wasn’t optimum at this point. Before he knew it, he had cut happy hours and birthday parties completely out his life.
When he did find himself in social situations, he invariably drank too much. This caused problems in most of his relationships and had been a point of conflict in his marriage to Sabrina. He panicked if there was no alcohol available—and sometimes even if there was—and whoever was with him would usually have to come up with a quick excuse for why Rick had ducked out.
More and more, his inner turmoil was showing itself in dramatic physical forms. When he was asked to give his name at the doctor’s office, introduce himself at work, answer questions in an interview, or talk about something personal, his voice began to give out. The volume was lost, air slipped through, and he couldn’t get out what he wanted to say.
There were many painful moments when he had to repeat his name several times before the person on the phone—or in the restaurant— could hear him. The voice problem wasn’t a big deal to other people, but it was devastating to him. He was humiliated every time he couldn’t get the words out, convinced that others were judging him. It ruined his mood and made him feel less of a man.
Rick’s intense fears of other people’s judgment stemmed in part from his own tendency to judge others—which in turn grew out of the many times he had been criticized by adult figures when he was growing up. He had never been considered strong enough, good enough, smart enough, or good-looking enough. He had internalized not only the criticisms, but the habit of being critical, which became part of how he analyzed and dealt with people.
There was no leniency for rude behavior in his book, no understanding of habits that were different, and very little understanding of why others acted in ways they did. For him, actions
were simply right or wrong, and what was wrong needed to be labeled as such. Having compassion and offering grace did not come naturally for him.
He soon began learning to extend both compassion and grace as his life started taking a turn for the better. But even when life goes well, all the hard things about yourself don’t just disappear. Emotions and irrational thoughts and those experiences embedded in your memories are all still there, urging you to react and respond just as you did before you understood that life can be better—that it is better. It’s a battle of the mind to be fought and won—sometimes lost and regained—every single day.
Rick would have to learn that in time.
Throughout most of his early adulthood, Rick was like a rolling stone. If it was up to him, he would skip town every year or two and move somewhere that sounded more exciting than where he was. He never stuck—not with jobs, not with friends, not with community.
In each of these places—Colorado, Tennessee, Alabama, Hawaii—he left his footprints, perhaps an almost-close friendship that never fully developed. There are people who were charmed by his cheesy sense of humor, off-the-charts goofiness, and tendency to love corny pranks. Older women, such as Miss Nina—a kind Christian woman who showed him love, with whom he worked in Alabama. People like his friend Erin, of whom he speaks warmly, but he never communicates with today.
Rick experienced relationships with people and even enjoyed them, but he rarely kept in touch. Phone calls felt awkward, visits were expensive. He didn’t see the point in expending the internal energy required to maintain relationships.
That didn’t apply to Jenny, of course. As Rick adapted to his new life in DC, strapped in with newly advanced social phobia and aimless nightlife, he continued to talk with his sister regularly. And more and more, she began to mention the church she was attending.
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