Tag: hidden illness

When you think it’s all going so well… a global pandemic throws a spanner in the works

soppymagsLeave a comment

So firstly I feel like I need to apologise for the misleading title of my blog, it’s called bipolar & my wife but we are not actually married yet.

We got engaged on 24th June 2018 on the sea front which was honestly the best day of my life.

If you’ve read my other posts you will already know the rocky road it has taken to get to this point. If you haven’t read my previous posts (shame on you!) let me break it down into bullet points and get you up to speed.

Age 17 – thought I might be gay.

Age 17 to 23 – took lots of drugs and drank a lot of alcohol to ignore the fact that I might be gay

Age 23 – planned my suicide and wrote my note, put on medication and tried to get better

Age 25 – Accepted I was a massive gay

Age 25 and a half – Downloaded an app called project toe to speak with people that might understand or be able to give some advice. Met a girl on there that lived just 15 miles away. Met, fell in love and moved in.

Age 26 and a half – asked her parent for the blessing to marry her, they told me no and accused my partner of being ill

Age 27 – got secretly engaged, told her family after 2 months and they didn’t speak to us for a year.

Ok, you are all caught up… I did warn you that our road was rocky! So we planned our wedding, count down was on 591 days and counting! We counted down the years, then the months and then the weeks.

5 weeks before our wedding: our family business floods from the crazy weather we had in February, worked non stop to try and get back up and running. Finally got to a good place and we could look forward to our wedding again.

3 weeks before our wedding: 26 people have dropped out

11 days before our wedding: the country is put on lockdown meaning all of that waiting and excitement was gone. Our wedding has been cancelled. This was the hardest and most heartbreaking thing to happen after the fight we had been through just to be together, it was all for nothing.

Except it wasn’t, we had to look for a silver lining in all of this happening, we had been so wrapped up in the wedding day being perfect, where the flowers were going, how many candles on the table, whether the hair and make up person was going to have enough time, making sure the menu was right. None of it mattered. In the few days before the lockdown we had a feeling that it was going to happen and all I could think was ‘I don’t care if I have to walk down the aisle in tracksuit bottoms, my hair a mess, no guests, no food. Just please let me marry her’

We evaluated what mattered in life, and for us it was that we were together.

Life is going to get unbelievably shit sometimes, trust me I know this more than most, but you have to find the good in it. If you don’t learn from it then it really will be for nothing.

One day I will marry my soulmate, I just have to wait a little bit longer than I expected.

Everyone needs to look at what’s important in these crazy times, look after yourselves and your families and just stay safe.

You Matter Too

soppymagsLeave a comment

When I started this blog, it was primarily to give an insight and hopefully some advice to people who love someone with Bipolar, in my ‘about me’ post I explained a little bit about my background and what led me to the life I have now.

I have written about how important it is to understand your partners needs and illness but it is also important for your partner to understand yours.

I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression when I was 23, I had to go on medication which made me feel like a failure, I felt like I wasn’t good enough to fix it myself, and I felt defeated, but at that point it was life or death, there was no choice.

When I decided to reach out to people that I thought might be able to help, I wasn’t expecting it to change my life completely, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to meet my wife on an app for people that were suicidal, had mental health issues and in the closet! But sometimes life works out that way, it allowed us to be completely honest with each other when we met because we were both struggling and hurting in some way, and we knew that neither of us was being judged by the other.

Over the last 3 years I have been able to come off of medication, we have a house, a dog, we are very soon about to start a family, and every bit of it is because of my wife.

She understands everything that I need, she is my doctor when I’m ill, my therapist when I’m overthinking everything, My best friend that knows me better than anyone.

Our relationship is very two sided. We lean on each other and push each other to be the best we can be. My wife is the one with bipolar but I am the one with depression. We support each other and neither of us is made to feel like someone’s mental illness is ‘worse’ than the other’s or that someone needs to be ‘looked after’ more.

neither illness defines us, they are just apart of our lives, albeit a big part but it’s not the whole story and it doesn’t consume our relationship.

make sure you look after yourself and make sure your partner supports you just as you support them. Everything is better when you have your best friend by your side.

team work makes the dream work!

The Quiet Times

soppymagsLeave a comment

When things are good, they are really good. Sometimes you can even forget that Bipolar exists in your life because your life is so perfect in these times. You sit and look at your life, forgetting the months of tears and worry.

Sometimes you get yourself into a false sense of security that your partner is so well that nothing could possibly go wrong. Then, one day, you get a reminder that it hasn’t just gone away and your life gets turned upside down once again.

Bipolar is an illness that doesn’t raise its head all the time, it makes some ignorant people say, “its obviously not that bad” or “she’s better now”. People in my family have said that “if you hadn’t told me she has Bipolar we wouldn’t have known”. Aswith any mental illness, it’s hard for people that haven’t experienced it to understand. It’s not visible everyday, it’s not like a broken leg or a bad cut. There are not casts or bandages to make it obvious, but they don’t understand that just because they can’t see it, it’s still there.

In the hard times, you have to remember that it will get better, there will be a time that you are both just lounging on the sofa, laughing at stupid things, watching awful tv and eating all the food you shouldn’t be eating (but that makes it taste so much better!)… the quiet times. You will get there, it may take a few days, a few weeks, maybe even a few months. But the quiet times will come. Remember to cherish them and reenergise yourself ready for the not so quiet times.

I write from the perspective of loving someone with bipolar, but my partner writes from her own perspective of someone who has bipolar. If you want to see our life through her eyes read her blog @bipolarandme.