My name is Angi and I am a Bipolar Mother of three beautiful boys. My middle son has COBPD and my youngest has a sleep disorder.
I am nearing 30  years old. I am 4'10" tall and weigh ruffly about 170lbs ( yes I am a bit chunky). I am a midwest girl. I love the color green. My favorite animal ( like it's not obvious) is the wolf. My favorite flowers are Sunflowers and Japaneese Lillies. I prefer Pepsi over Coke. My favorite time of Year is Christmas ( all the pretties!), second is Fall. I like to watch CSI, forensic shows, NYPD Blue, and Cartoon Network. I listen to hard rock music ( crossing my fingers for an 80's come back ). I was Goth before it was even a term and I was Grundge before it was cool ( I guess I was ahead of my time)
Ok, now that you have some of my basics, let me tell you a little more about me.
I was diagnosed Bipolar in the winter of 2000. I have been battling with it for most of my life, at least as far back as I remember. I had a lot of strange quirks, very needy of attention, and talked constantly. Come to think of it, the talking thing hasn't changed much. It was pretty bad, I would think to myself that I needed to shut up, but I just couldn't. I also loved to sing, and it didn't matter when or where.
As I got older though I learned that I was different than the other kids. I never knew exactly why, but I didn't have a lot of friends and I was picked on a lot. The friends I did have, except for one, were the type that liked me around when no one else would or could play with them. I didn't do anything to them, and I didn't understand what was wrong with me that made them dislike me so much.
When I was 10 and going into 5th grade, my family moved to a new town, and new schools. I remember thinking that it was scary, but maybe I would make some new friends, since I really wasn't leaving any behind. But I knew I couldn't be myself, so I started creating what I thought people wanted me to be. People didn't like me for what I was, so I had to be someone they would like.
But that didn't work either. I decided to play myself off as tough. I invented stories of my life that I thought made me exciting and someone everyone would like. Instead I alienated myself even more. The only thing that ever got through was my need for adult attention and companionship. I was always smiling and talking to adults. I did everything to get their attention as often as I could, because adults were the only ones that seemed to like me.
But as I grew older, going into Junior High School, my cuteness to the adults started to wear thin. I was now a preteen with a non-stop mouth. Teachers were not so nice anymore. Family were more interested in my younger cousins, who were just babys on one side. On the other my girl cousins and I didn't have much in common. I wasn't into cheer leading or girl things so much( though on many occations I pretended to be, just so they would play with me). And I always felt like that odd wheel. My boy cousins let me hang around them sometimes at first, especially when there weren't other boys around. I think the problem there was I was a boy crazy tomboy. And there were a few little ones too. The baby's were the ones I played with mostly at big family gatherings. They didn't care about my little quirks, it was fun to have someone to crawl around on and hang on. A few of them I had a very close relationship with for their first few years, but as I got older, the bonds I had with them wore away, partly because I started to seclude myself from everything.
As time went on I started going to family functions, but after dinner or whatever big deal was going on, I would hide somewhere alone. Sometimes is a bedroom of my grandmother's house, sometimes just in a room that no one else was in. I had gotten to the point where I felt that if someone wanted to talk to me, they would come find me. Sometimes they did, but many times they didn't. Occationally I would go to see what everyone else was doing and tried to include myself, but I never felt welcome. I was very lonely. But I went to every event I could, and even got upset for missing them, because I always felt that I would miss something, or even that this time would be different.
School was a whole new matter. We had 3 grade schools, 2 Junior highs and one high school in my district at the time. When we filtered into Jr high, my school was mixed with some kids that went to the other schools. And worse, older kids that I had never met before. I was picked on a teased almost from the start. But I did meet my first boy friend in my 6th grade class ( we didn't switch out for most classes). And it was because of him that I met my first real and good friends. It was a typical pre teen relationship. Done in a few weeks, and my friendships went the way most friendships did, we're fighting, their fighting and your in the middle, we're all just fine. But they never really knew me, not for a long time. I was very scared of them finding out who I really was, I was afraid to be myself because no one would like me. Sounds like every typical preteen doesn't it? The thing that wasn't normal was a true darkness that was filling me from the inside out.
The older kids picked on me something fierce. To the point that I was afraid to go to school and I definitely wouldn't ride the bus. Some of the most horrible thoughts I ever had in my life resulted from those encounters that were threatening and downright hateful. Again, I never knew what I did. It was like the way I breathed disturbed them in some way. And So I found a way, I don't even know what excuse I made up, to get my mom to drive me and my friends to and from school , but she did it, even though she worked 3rd shift. On really nice days I would walk or ride my bike.
I was afraid to loose my friends, so I rarely ever argued with them. If one of them hurt me, I just sucked it up and took it. I let things go. I always tried to do things that were right, by everyone else. But inside I was growing darker. Suicide crept in, not out of sorrow but so it would punish them. But then those thoughts would turn to what if they don't care? I couldn't bare that. I stuggled with the side of me that desperately needed to be loved and accepted and the one that just didn't care anymore.
It was 7th grade when I started smoking.  The summer before 9th grade, I started drinking and doing drugs with a new set of friends. I still had the old ones, but I didn't notice that they were slipping away from me.
I liked smoking marijuana not because of the "high", but because it made me feel better. The term here would be self-medication, not that I knew that at the time. Drinking just made everything disappear. I liked that too.
As I entered high school that little bit of blackness inside me was still fairly small. I made new friends and still kept the old ones. But as those four years progressed I continued to head down a very self-destructive path. And it was difficult for me to keep reality and fantasy straight.
Family was the reality, they already knew me, and I continued to seclude myself from them more and more at family gatherings. I did develop a strong relationship with one of my male cousins that was my age. At family gatherings we were usually together and talked a lot outside of the family. He lived near me and went to my school for a small period of time.
School was a whole other matter. I was slipping away from my friends . My relationships with boys became more and more abusive, not as much physically as mentally. I had a few long term relationships, the longest being a year and a half off and on, that was extremely heart wrenching. During this relationship I developed what I was told was the beginning of an ulcer. My doctor told me that I had to stay away from acidy foods and Alcohol.  So I had to stop drinking. I took it seriously, mostly because I hated throwing everything up. But I could still smoke pot, and I did it regularly at about that time.
I had mostly male friends, girls seemed to have something against me. I don't know if it was because of the way I dressed ( remember this was the late 80's early 90's and I took fashion advice from people like Cindi Lauper, Madonna, and the hard rock bands), that they felt threatened, or if I had this neon sign over my head that everryone but me could see. But girls just kind of stayed away from me. At this time my best friends were 2 girls that I was inseperable from. Other than the long relationship that I talked about earlier, I spent most of my time with them. They started to see a little bit of my dark side over time. But even to them, much of what I was becoming was hidden.
My other friends that weren't in our inner circle, stayed my friends. But by the time my Sophmore year was over, they had distanced themselves from me greatly. I had become bad news somewhere along the line, and I didn't even realise it. I had lost myself in what I tried to be.
I think that I should include here that I had a gift , or curse, of an open mind. I was able to see and understand both sides of a story. And that made me severely empathetic. And I always believed that my side wasn't as important as the thoughts and feelings of others.
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