Letting go is hard, but letting go of things when you have bipolar disorder? I think that’s an entirely different level. You can have all the complex bipolar disorder coping strategies right at your feet but the reality is bipolar disorder is rooted in our emotions and moods, so because of the nature of it, it’s just so unbearably hard.

Coping and growing with bipolar disorder is unlike anything else. And if you don’t live with it, you just can’t even imagine it. Daily tasks that healthy people can handle like nothing, we have to leverage our energy with whatever part of our mood cycle we are in. Gambling everyday between depression, mania (hypomania), a mixed episode (please not that) and maybe, if you’re lucky, stability. A moment to land on your two feet and take a deep slow breath. We live for those moments.

With most of our time being spent at one end or the other. We live for the middle. We pursue the middle as if it is our lifes mission to be there. To put our flag in the ground with a smile on our faces and say “yes, I made it here”. Well, I suppose if you’re living with bipolar disorder, that is your life mission. To find your way to the middle. Constantly.

It’s something we have to constantly do. It’s not just a one and done thing. Finding our way to the middle is in every move we make throughout every single day of our lives. It’s all consuming, infectious and pervasive.

We have to calculate every move we make with how our mental health is.. Because one wrong move.. One slight trigger, and you might be back digging your grave. People with bipolar disorder dance with their demons so often they know their names.

They know what they’re rooted in. Where they come from. And that they’re never going away. So what is a life mission for people with bipolar disorder is something healthy people can just do without thought or care. Without depleting all the energy from every part of your body and a brain that’s throwing vile thoughts at you. That’s what you get for coping and growing with bipolar disorder.

Managing your mental health letting go and dealing with emotional baggage, bipolar disorder is no walk in the park.Whether you’re managing sleep patterns, developing routines, monitoring medications, whatever it is. Bipolar disorder is alot. But if you’re here, chances are you’re affected by it too. And who knows, maybe there are something that you need to release too? So let’s dive into my emotional release of my letting go while being a person existing with bipolar disorder.

Letting Go of Perfectionism – Coping and Growing with Bipolar Disorder

As a mother, I strive for perfection. I literally try every single day to show up as my absolute best self for them. (Lately though my best self sort of sucks, but you know, it is what it is.) Perfectionism may make symptoms of bipolar disorder worse.

I look at every single situation I’m faced with with a microscope, closely analysing all the potential outcomes of every single scenario. Closely looking at how this particular situation could impact my babies long term. Will this sentence I’m about to say be the one that still haunts them when they’re in their 20’s and their life is a mess? Will this compliment be the thing that defines what beauty means to them and I’ll end up hurting them more than anything? Will this one thing be the detrimental factor that causes nothing but wreckage and hurt in their lives? Will they sit and face their reflection wondering how could their mother have said that?

But, you have to take care of yourself to take care of them.

Because I know.

Because I know what happens when you’re raised in the chaos. In middle of the heavy storm. Between the screaming, swearing and if you’re anything like me, hiding. Hiding because I was a little girl. Hiding because I was scared. Hiding because I didn’t know how to be safe when my house was like that. When it was loud with so much anger spewing from their mouths. The mouths of the people I loved most in the world. Hiding because I was confused. Hiding, silently hoping that it would stop. The banging. The slamming. The screaming. The stomping. The throwing. The everything. Just, please stop.

I know what happens when mothers and fathers leave in a fight. When the door slams and someone opens it and yells “you can keep the kids. I didn’t want them anyways.” And you’re left to make sense of that when you’re six years old. That feeling of being unwanted. This is before you can even start coping and growing with bipolar disorder.

That feeling of not being sure where to go or what to do. It felt like my heart stopped beating and I died but stayed alive. It felt like I could have cried a million rivers of tears and still have millions left. It felt like I was smaller than the smallest piece of dust that sits on the door handle that I was probably supposed to clean earlier. Insignificant. Worthless. Meaningless. Nothingness. As I sit hiding.

I know what happens when you carry the shame of generations before you and it bastes itself into your very soul. When you cry the tears of pain from your great-great grandmother and pray that you can stop before they touch your own. When you lug the hardships and obstacles every woman before you faced while you navigate your own while striving to be perfect. When you can feel the pain your grandmother felt, the fear, the anguish and you’re terrified that it will spew over into the soul of your daughter.

I know what happens when you can’t truly be yourself. When you’re always too loud, too talkative, too much, too emotional. I know what happens when you’re just too much too. There aren’t enough bipolar self-care tips in the world to take away the weight of watching some of the things that I watched as a child. And all the personal growth bipolar disorder forces me to do can’t strip away the hurt that I still feel from all the years of never feeling like enough. Never good enough. Never pretty enough. Never small enough. Just never, ever enough. I know what it’s like to live in a feeling of never enough. It haunts me everyday.

And because I know this pain, because I know this hurt, one that still brings me to my knees in tears of wonder.. Sometimes yelling into the void. Yelling so loud but it seems only I can hear. “Why am I still not good enough for you?” “How am I still not enough?” I cry, sobbing rivers of tears while my demons rise from the waters and start to bring me in. They start slowly. RIsing from the waters and moving recklessly my way. They’re saying something but I can’t hear over this numbing nothingness.

I know this emptiness. The one where the sadness just absolutely drains you. You’re left with nothing but a shell. You exist on the outside but you’re dead on the inside. You wander through life from one life stage to the next being able to quickly shift your hats, constantly fitting in exactly, while inside, there’s nothing. You feel nothing. A hole. A deep, emptiness that is as unexplainable as it is hurtful. One that no one seems to understand and it just brings you closer to the darkness to be so misunderstood.

I know what it’s like to question everything. Why was I born? Why haven’t I amounted to anything yet? What is wrong with me? Why don’t my parents like me? Why don’t I get this supposed “village” that it supposedly takes to raise a child? These questions are haunting. Like ghosts whispering doubts while my mind weaves the doubts into stories. Until the stories become my truth and eventually a new memory. A memory that will reply over and over like an old VHS tape that’s been played too many times.

I know this.

I know what it’s like to feel so unwanted. To feel so wrong. To sit with myself at 10 years old in front of a mirror and cry wondering why I couldn’t have blonde hair like my mother. That’s what she always wanted. A blonde haired blue eyed baby girl. And I was not that. My eyebrows dark and bushy. My hair the same color as my favorite chocolate bar. Silly little dots freckle my face and my eyes match my chocolate bar hair. I was the depiction of exactly what she didn’t want.

I know what it’s like to not be what was wanted. To not be what was expected. To be a let down. To be the disaaopintment. To be the thing that everyone had such high hopes about only to have them all come crashing down, burning and lighting more fires along the way that you’re left to try to extinguish while still managing everyone elses’ feelings about it all.

Because I know what it’s like, I strive for perfection in motherhood. Because I carry that pain with me in every move I make in life, I try so hard to never give my children the same load to carry. And while trying is good, sometimes it becomes an obsession.

I get wrapped up in my words as if they’re my favorite blanket.They hold me. Keep me safe. I choose wisely. I dote on certain things that were said silently praying to whoever listens anyways that I didn’t just damage their lives by voicing my frustration. I sob, wondering why I can’t be better. What just can’t I be “that” mom?

There’s no amount of bipolar self-care tips that will teach you how to be that mom. The one with her hair looking perfect every day. She’s first in line to drop her kid off at school and then she’s probably going to pilates. She’s never late to pick her kid up after school and she’s always happy. Even when she’s not dressed up she still looks awesome and I’ve just been coming to terms slowly with I am not that mom.

I am this mom. My hair is usually some sort of a curly mess. I don’t really do cute outfits and I’m not going to pilates. I laugh too loud, cry too much, and don’t smile enough. I’m a mess of emotions that run so deep it cripples me. I feel everything so intensely that it radiates through every part of my life, making even the slightest inconvenience ending up down the rabbit hole of not being enough, again.

I know this.

And because I know this, because I carry the weight of what was done to me, and still have to learn to manage and cope, I struggle with motherhood. Because it’s enormous. Because it is everything. Because it is everything and more, and I am nothing and less. And how could those two things possibly unite?

Because it is so absolutely magnificent I doubt my worthiness to be so blessed. It is so absolutely wonderful how could I possibly deserve the people who call me mom? It is so absolutely grande and all consuming how could I possibly be destined for such a role? To be the center of these little peoples world. To be the air they breathe, the beating of their heart and the one to push them towards all their dreams. To have the privilege of hearing their little feet running up my stairs, watch their faces dance with wonder when they spot something new and feel their tiny hands enclosed safely in mine. How could I be so lucky?

Because I know this I still cry. I still cry for the little girl I was. When she wasn’t protected. When she didn’t understand. When she felt so small and confused. When everyone else thought they were just living life when actually they were creating core memories for her. When everyone else thought I was being too emotional, I was acutally grappling with a sick and twisted mind and I couldn’t tell anyone. When everyone else told me I was too much, worried too much, cried too much, felt too much and to just get over it, I tried and learnt quickly that again, I wasn’t enough. I couldn’t make it stop and that silly little girl that I was supposed to be was more of a high-strung, busy anxious one instead.

Scared to do anything, everything and nothing simultaneously.The voices changed her. They altered who she was at her very core. The thoughts hurt her. And she had no way of making them stop. She sat victim to it day after day. Sobbing quietly, because sobbing out loud would get you sent to bed. And in bed was where I was most afraid. And her trying to cope through it? That nearly ruined her.

And because I know this, I long for perfection in motherhood. To say the right thing at the right time in the right tone to the right person always. To always have the right response with every situation. To never forget anything. To be at every single event ever. To never miss anything. To protect, to love, cherish, and be their number one fan. And I do it while carrying the feelings I’m still processing of the years of not being right. I carry it while I celebrate them. While I do the Merry Christmases, happy birthdays, and first days of school. I smile, and do my best to live in that joyous moment. Knowing that they have it different. Well, praying that they can feel that it’s different. That they’re safe, loved and okay.

But in the back of my mind a demon is knocking. Her name is doubt. And she barges in and takes over everything. Once she spins her rabbit hole it’s impossible to get out. “How could you possibly think you’re a good mother” she screams. “You’re not enough, remember?”

“Good-bye sweetheart. Have a good day at school! I love you.” I gently whisper to my littlest as he hops off to his school door. His eyes twinkle with mischefness and I am in awe of him constantly. I wish I could just keep him close to me forever. He heals me so much. But he must go into the world and spread his wings. The world needs him. His hand leaves mine and he’s gone. And I’m left alone once again. A piece of my heart on it’s way to the first day of grade 3 while the rest of me sits broken and shattered because now it’s just me again. Me, doubt and the demons.

I know what it’s like to live with doubt. She’s not just a bitch, she’s a cruel awful being. She makes me question my reality. Question my memories. Question what is real. Question everything. And I get lost in the questions. And when I arrive at the other side, I often have fallen victim to her. She’s convinced me once again. I am not enough. I am not a good mother. I am failing my children and they’re going to have to recover from having me as their mom.

I fall to my knees. Silently begging doubt to stop. She’s running around wild inside my mind and I can barely see straight. “Why did you think you could be a good mother?” She’s laughing at me. She’s mocking me. And I just sit here silently like a coward. I just let her do it. Do I even have control over her? Is she just me? Am I her? Is that the real me? I don’t know what’s real anymore.

I know what it’s like to live in cowardice lies. To believe hypocrisy. To be bathed in manipulation as if it’s that one soap that you remember your mom used to use and when she was in a good mood, she let you use it too.

To string together words so perfectly that by the time the person udnerstands what was said I’m already at the next point and I’ve lost them once again. To hang my feelings out to dry to get some space and to have them ripped up, shredded and left only for the malicious monsters that exist out there.

And because I know what it’s like, I crave perfection in motherhood. So they never feel the weight of every generation before me. So they never feel small, inadequate and unlovable. So they never go to bed praying they won’t wake up. So that they never look up to the moon in the dead of the night and wonder if they have purpose. Wonder if anyone would miss them should they not be there. Wonder if their breath matters or the fact that their heart continues to beat despite their pain and suffering. Wonder if anyone would even notice if they just stopped showing up to all the things that life decided they need to be a part of. Wonder why. Why do they have to live with so much fear and doubt. Why does shame flow through them like blood through veins and no matter what, it’s just never okay. Wonder what the world would be like if they just suddenly “dissappeared”.

Because I know this.

But, I’ve come to realise, that perfection is nothing but an illusion and completely subjective to what a person believes perfection even is. It’s a myth. A dream. Something that is without the flaws and imperfections that I feel I am made of. Something where brokenness is healed before it ever starts breaking and flaws are non-existent.

I must put an effort to redefine my idea of perfection when it comes to my motherhood journey and perhaps allow myself some grace.

Because I know what it’s like to hate myself into a spiral of nothing but self-sabotaging cruel hatred.

Because I know what it’s like when my demons have me digging my own grave and I’m left to reflect on what that be of my life. Because I know what it’s like to go through the most painful and horrible experience of your life and be expected to smile and be joyous. That pain is interwoven in my bones. I can feel it in my skin. In my joints. I can feel it every time I move my body and there’s pain.

That deep dark sadness for the injustice the little girl I was faced becomes a swirling black hole doing everything it can to suck me up while I grab at anything and everything hoping and praying to be saved. I know what it’s like to want to want to live but to not actually want to. To sort of hope you don’t wake up the next morning. Just so it all stops.

And because I know what that feeling is and how deeply it affects me, I aim for perfection in motherhood. Because it would kill me a thousand times over if my kids ever feel an ounce of the hurt that I’ve been carrying around my entire life. Because I would give my beating heart cut from my chest if theirs stopped first. Because I don’t ever want to know a world where they aren’t bouncing around, hopping from activity to activity, singing their songs and living without a care in the world. Because I’d crumble if they ever felt like I did.

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