It seems like a lot of us who experienced ppp are still grappling with the reality that it may be bipolar. Some of us know that it’s definitively not, but some, like me, aren’t sure. I explore this realm often - I try to see if a bipolar diagnosis can help me make sense of my past. But I usually just end up with more questions, and wanted to share some of my experience to see if others might relate.
Before ppp, I was certainly “moody.” But my ups and downs were so deeply linked to 1. my period and 2. my relationships with men, starting with my dad but more notoriously later on with my husband. As a teenager I was very tall and athletic, which, as a woman, made me feel like an “beast.” Eventually I wanted to attract male attention so I developed an eating disorder (my entire family - 3 siblings and 2 parents - struggles with food). All I could think about was making myself smaller so that men would like me more. I did not get much attention, and did not have a serious boyfriend until I met my now husband at 19. He was the first to seemingly love me, and my parents taught me that this was the most important thing in life I could strive for - to be loved by another person (as opposed to truly loving yourself). I was not about to let that go.
I look back at old journals when we were dating and read in horror about our vicious cyclical relationship. We broke up and got back together for over a decade. When we were broken up, I’d quickly seek attention from other men and then write about how much of a failure I was when I couldn’t find it. I’d crawl back to him because my childhood doctrine stated I couldn’t/shouldn’t be alone. I was so open - too open - with my with family and even my therapist about our problems, but no one ever raised a red flag. My parents said that hardship in relationships was normal, and worth it. In my journal I’d write about yet another break up, counting the days I could go without talking to him, and always somewhere in there were my parents, dad especially, encouraging me to get back together with him. They, too, met when they were teens, like my unhappy older brother and his anxious wife did, and they told me it was all part of being in love. I believed them, always (nevermind the bad example of a relationship they set for us. It was so hard to pick up on; except for some explosive fights, theirs has always been a subtle unhappiness). My little brother is also in a miserable marriage of ups and downs. My sister is 37 and single, and perhaps better off than any of us.
After an exhausting rollercoaster of painful fighting and passionate loving, I got married to my first ever boyfriend in 2020. I cried silently in our bed on our wedding night, while he was passed out.
At 35 I now know that I either have an anxious attachment style, or I’m anxious-avoidant (mostly because of my insecure, inconsistent dad who I loved more than anyone, but also because of my beautiful mother who was deeply religious and made life seem like a dream that I could never achieve). My husband has an avoidant attachment style because of his own trauma - two types of people that unfortunately often find each other, but shouldn’t. When we started dating it was as if we imprinted. I wish I could go back to young me and say “for the next 15 years, until you develop your sense of self - because it turns out you are not your parents - don’t even bother trying to get out.”
16 years after we first started dating, I’m now the mother of his child and completely dependent on him. I do work, have a graduate degree, but it’s in education (because my mother and her mother ere educators) which means I make no money. I resent everything about our life, except for our son. I now see how I let my parents completely shape me, how I never pushed back, and thus I’ve walked right into this life - their life. Could this ever work? Maybe. Plenty of people do it. But I want so much more than what he has to offer. We are not right for each other, and never will be.
Part of my ppp was this extreme, horrific guilt that I’ve been ungrateful for all that he’s done for me, and that was part of the reason I thought I should die. I prayed and prayed for God’s forgiveness for not seeing my husband as the wonderful person he clearly is (sounds like my mother). Now I look back and I say f*** that. I would feel grateful if I was in a stable, loving, unconditionally supportive relationship, but I’m not. And it’s not all his fault, but it is certainly not, as he and my family and the medical world wants me to believe, all me and my brain’s fault either.
And yet I’m the one who’s gone inpatient 3 times.
So my big question: What comes first? Staying in a toxic relationship that ultimately rips you from the happiness you once believed in, or a diagnosed mental illness? How many women are deemed mentally ill, when really they were once beautiful, vulnerable children needing care and guidance, but ended up being led into someone else’s mess (their parents’) - a mess that they can’t seem to get out of? I’m not saying I’m just a victim, or that any of us are. I do believe I’m strong and that it’s possible I’ll figure this out. But I am saying I’d like a little time to do so, before I’m slapped with a label.
MBU's Are there plans for more?
2nd baby after post partum psychosis
My experience
Baby #2
