I will listen and be your online friend. You seemed to have accomplished alot in your life. I am sorry that one incident hurt you so badly. I have minor distorted episodes...but I go on...

Thanks chris138. It's actually been multiple incidents. The last one was the least destructive so they are at least getting more manageable. :)

I am also diagnosed at Bipolar 1. I got into slight trouble once. But the person who confronted me was a bit of a jerk. Glad to hear your episodes are getting more manageable.

I'm here for you if you ever want to chat! I'm lonely too. I have one friend left - and I try so hard not to ruin our relationship. She really understands me.

I'm reading this and thinking, well - you are on your Way to getting better; seeing it, and the destructiveness of it (the mania/psychosis of the past) is a Step toward gaining some control of your Decisions as to how to Manage it.


You and I are the same age....I didn't have the jail time but the chaos of manias brought me to a point where my life had Really hit bottom a bit over 3 years ago. I had Nothing to show for 50 years of existence, in my opinion. Divorced, no job, homeless, zero credibility to do Anything (even volunteer)....I hear you.

We don't give Up - that's what. We stay on medications. We become Transparent with our core people (doctors, family, etc) even when we don't Want to be observed under a microscope. We over-compensate by taking Wayyyy long to make decisions instead of acting spontaneously like we used to do.

We learn to Trust therapists, even when we don't agree with Everything they say. And slowly, we learn to trust Ourselves again. We re-build Slowly, knowing life is fragile.

Oh, and another thing? We practice Forgiving ourselves for stuff. Because this Very moment is all we Have. We can't do yesterday over; tomorrow is not here and can Wait til it Gets here.

The people who left you when the going got tough? Ask forgiveness, forgive Them, and then try your Darndest to forget the past, because it can become Heavy.


Your last two sentences in your post are your Foundation for building a Better "you", Now. Copy your post; keep it where you can Read it from time to time, when you are tempted to Forget.


You won't end up perfect, MMP, but we don't mind Here, because we Know what it's like. And we like you for being You.

I hope you find someone to Hug, who will understand people just Need that kinda stuff. (I miss 'em, too)


MA

OH YES, I KNOW THIS ALL TOO WELL!!
I have lost everything and boy did I do it publicly! Everybody knew but I about me having this illness. I made a mess and threatened everybody flipped out with a year episode, lost my business ALL my friends and family. I now live with the challenge of starting over alone.

I feel the real crappy part is in therapy I have to re-learn how to deal with these EMOTIONS and re-learn how to re-live and deal with "NORMAL" people. However they all just dumped me and my entire life is one big blur of nothing! Knowing everybody knew and didn't tell me. I didn't know about this illness. I also have high mania and have to run on the LOW side which means depression for me.

If anything I hope you can gain comfort in knowing there are a whole bunch of us in the same boat. I gain comfort knowing I just have to log in and there are people like I right at my finger tips.

I'm hanging on to another lady's post that said. " If they don't take all of you",..." they don't deserve you". That somehow does make me feel better.

I do hope you get to feeling better. A big hug for you :).

Welcome to the boar MMP...I think a lot of us have had life altering experiences due to our illness... I'm so sorry you've had so much loss

I think most places will let you volunteer with an arrest record as long as the two aren't in conflict... Most places will now ask for a police check however that doesn't mean you can't volunteer

I have a record and it's never stopped me... I don't think for instance you could volunteer at a battered woman's shelter if you had a history of violence but many other things wouldn't be in conflict

It's great that you're now stable... Have you ever attended NAMI?... I think they are in most states and they're free

Big hug for you and a blessing...x

My mental illness introduced me to the local mental health consumer community, and I made some really good friends there. They understand and accept.

When I left the last hospital, with a recovery plan that has been working for 10 years, I decided to find people who played the spades card game, which I learned in the hospital. I joined a couple of groups on meetup.com and made friends, we went on a camping trip one time that was a lot of fun. So that is one way to find friends, go places where people share your interests. meetup.com has groups for almost any imaginable interest.

I started going to a DBSA group when I was in the hospital, I liked it, so I kept going. After a couple of years the facilitator had to move on, and I became a co-facilitator. I consider my partner a "friend" and we talk often outside the group. There are a couple of other people in the group who are friends. That is another way, by going to peer support groups, you may meet people who understand you.

The big disruption in my life was at the age of 36, I became homeless with my wife and small child. It took us 10 years to recover. Almost all our friends dropped away, and the ones who kept in contact distanced themselves. That was almost as distressing as the challenge of daily survival. Probably the most painful part was rejection by my mother. She called the police to remove us a few times when we threw ourselves on her mercy for a couple of nights with a roof over our heads. Let me be clear: we were not taking drugs or criminals or anything else like that, we just had a bad sequence of events that caused us to become undomiciled. One of the most painful parts is finding out now that my mom and my uncle told all our relatives and their friends that we WERE taking drugs. That way nobody thought it was strange the way they treated us. My mom died last year and I forgave her at her funeral.

My wife said one of the factors was my erratic behavior, I was pretty sick then, I am better now. I spent a couple of nights in jail when she accused me of domestic violence. But it wasn't as if I was a classic abusive man, it was more like we had fights, and she used my mental illness to blame me. When I made my recovery, we stopped having physical fights, and argued hardly at all.

I also go to professional and networking events. I guess you can say I'm a slightly shy extrovert. Sometimes I don't feel like going out to an event, but since I pre-registered, I go, and once I am there I feel better.

I tried an experiment once. I went to a networking breakfast for Ivy League grads of all ages (I went to Brown) and when we made introductions, I told them I struggled with disabling mental illness and homelessness, but I have been in recovery for a long time. Some people avoided me, others were quite condescending when they spoke with me, although I probably earn more than the median income in the group.

I also went to an after work event by the same organization. I connected with a man who is about the same age as me. He works in insurance. In our conversation, my wife's recent death came up. I told him about losing my Medicaid because I was earning too much to continue on SSI Disability, and that I am planning to get Life Insurance so my final expenses won't burden my daughter. When I left he waved and smiled, and I waved back. I connected with him on LinkedIn, and I found out he wrote a book about the jazz musician Sun Ra, whom I saw in concert once. There is a kernel of a friendship there. I also thanked him afterwards for listening to me, and I told him he has a warm heart.

I'm a little lonely because my wife and my best friend both died last year. But some friends I met when I lived in a group home after the hospital invited me to a birthday party for me in May. The last several years my best friend always threw a small "Mexican" birthday party for me, because my birthday is May 5 (cinco de mayo) and I am about 1/4 Mexican. They were at Mario's funeral and they knew he wouldn't be throwing a party for me. So it's very touching that they thought of me.

I'm not "all better" and I will probably never be "cured." I am diagnosed Bipolar 2 so I have deeper depressions with some hypomanias. In our DBSA group we observe that many people "mellow" over time. As they get older their symptoms become less extreme, and/or they learn better coping strategies. I call out sick from work once in a while, for mental health days, I don't have to tell them that is the reason.

When I was in my early 30s, my symptoms were so extreme they manifested as narcolepsy. My psychiatrist prescribed dexedrine around the clock, and I still fell asleep inappropriately. He signed a paper excusing me from my student loans because he judged me unable to work again ever. I am proud that I didn't give up, and I am about 10 years into a successful career as a self-employed IT consultant.

You can see I like to write, and I was hired last year to write a technical book for web developers. It's about half written.

omg..very similar to my life with the exception of me being in jail.

lost my job, friends, money, family....started being self destructive and drinking..and smoking again. It sux..plain English.

I totally feel your pain. It's like WOW...we did great our WHOLE lives and when we need to be needed and successful...no one is there..no one understands....its super depressing ON TOP of being bipolar.

I went through some massive life changes due to my bipolar disorder and self-medicating with alcohol. Legal trouble, lost my job. etc. Some days it was hard to get out of bed, I had no friends and had alienated much of my family.

It sounds silly and simple but I got a dog. She is a cute little fur ball and I have to say she has saved my life.

When I didn't feel like getting out of bed, she was the reason I had to get up and take her for a walk. I joined a local dog park and took her almost every day. I used to be friendly and open but now find myself shy and find it hard to communicate with others. At the dog park, it is okay to talk to people's pets first and if you feel like being alone, the people at the park that I joined also seemed to respect that.

I made a really good friend whose husband struggled with may of the same issues that I was dealing with.

I would say find something that you have always wanted to do. If you want to volunteer, consider your local humane society. Dogs don't care about your past and just like the attention and company!
I did my community service at our local humane society, just as an fyi, so the past legal issues may not be a problem.

Best of luck to you in the future :)

Wow. Thanks so much for all of your input. It really does help to have this kind of feedback. I'll be sending out some friend requests too :)

I'm definitely not a quitter. I can't quit. I just have to figure out how to make things work for me again.

I use to go to DBSA a few years ago and it was very beneficial - need to revisit this support group. I never got much from NAMI cuz it always seemed a little watered down, but again it could have been my mindset.

I have found that my arrest record has kept me from being able to volunteer at hospitals, libraries and United Way agencies. Humane dept, Goodwill and churches don't seem to mind. But boy it's embarrassing when you get rejected for volunteer jobs lol.

Forgiving people and forgiving myself has been the hardest part. Some people I begged forgiveness from and they wouldn't give it. Some people would keep rehashing events over and over with me causing me to continuously relive the humility of it. Some people just left me in Stoney silence. Some people actually sought and obtained revenge on me. I'm almost "there" regarding forgiveness but not quite.


I'm just glad to be back on Daily Strength. Been gone a while.

I'm glad you're back, too! I have had my fair share of losses and breaks with family and jail time and DUIs. But you're here again and saying you're not going to be a quitter is all the more power to you!

Hi MMP1 I have empathy for you as your story basically echoes mine. I too have lost many friends, my wife divorced me, lost many well paid jobs and also thousands of 's because of the illness.

I am BP1 btw, but do not rapid cycle. My last manic high saw me jailed too, on five occasions and hospitalised 3 times. This was followed by the deepest depression ever that lasted for 2 years.

When I felt better, although still lacking confidence and enthusiasm, I started working closely with my doc and started taking lithium regularly. Also, through Daily Strength I began to learn that it is important to manage stability. When I was on an even keel my doctor reduced my Lithium intake to a very low blood count. After a while my thoughts began to race a little and doc put up the lithium dose. This stabilised me, but also deadened my enthusiasm and natural energy. So now, together we balance the dose to try to keep me stable.

I am not saying that this will work for every beeper. Some have no choice but to take continually a mood stabiliser whatever one that may be.

I too use to think I had certain triggers that started an episode. Relationships for one, but now, I think, I was only getting involved with new relationship because I was on the road to new high. And further more, why should I give up on meeting a new partner, or music or exercising on my bike or being humorous just because I'm bp?

Again, like you, I have often sat here and thought where have all my friends gone? Oh I how I wish I call a girl to come on over for a chat and hugs. I was so lonely and down I did not even love myself any more and it was oh poor me, bipolar has ruined my life. But I realised that even me, myself had not really come to terms with my illness. When I did, I started loving me again and then found it easier to love and care for others. I also found that some of my family members where as confused and scared about my illness as I was, so how can I blame them for staying away?

I can never get back the things I lost, my wife, those good jobs, some friends and all that money. That's gone, that's the past end of. But what I can do now and tomorrow is to continue to learn how to manage things. So get out there running, loose some weight, but work closely with your doc on your mood condition. Good luck.

My name is Dave and I'm Bi Polar.

Wow, I'm sorry this has happened to you!

Hey JennS, I appreciate your kindness, but on the flip side I have much to be grateful for. I have travelled the world, had much fun and designed some equipment that is still used today in developing countries and many other things besides . Above all I have 2 very supportive daughters and 4 gorgeous grandchildren.

The main point I was trying to get across is that not until you can really come to terms with this illness and admit to your self your stuck with it and not be ashamed of where it has led you, or be ashamed of the illness itself, then can you lead a better life.

This is not easy. It took me 61 years to get anywhere near it. I am 64 now and still learning. But I am not ashamed any more. As I said in the closing statement of my post here, ' My name is Dave and I am Bi Polar'