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How I deal with it.

First, a short autobiography.I'm bipolar II, very rapid cycling.  Diagnosed in the early nineties.  I am a retired military sergeant, with subsequent careers in corrections, and as a school bus driver.  I've been married three times, widowed once at nineteen, and divorced twice.  I've just left a long term relationship due to her gambling addiction and the financial/emotional havoc involved.  I don't do drama.  At 59, I've discovered that in relationships  I was a "nice guy".  I have the ability and desire to adapt to a relationship rather than set standards for one.  This results, after a while, in resentment toward both my partner and the relationship.  I've walked out twice, without warning, and never looked back.  The first was a twenty year marriage, the second was a ten year longterm relationship.  After realizing that I was the fatal part of the relationship, I have built walls around myself.  I've come to the conclusion that since I am biologically irrelevant, older, and have yet to find someone who laughs in the same language as me, I will resist enmeshing myself in a new relationship.  I don't "date", I don't know how.  I haven't the patience or interest in learning to read "signals" from women.  I don't drink.  The only drugs I use are those prescribed, and I have the enviable circumstance of no responsibilities, the ability to pick up and travel where I wish, and the freedom to explore any option I choose.  The downside is that I have no ambition, no drive, and no direction.  Focus is difficult,  I have all the toys I want, and now that I have them, I don't play with them.  Peers describe me as mediocre with occasional flashes of brilliance.  Women have described me as kind, attentive, gentle, loving, and in the end a dirty rotten sonofabitch.  Currently I am a happy underachiever. That leads to my quandary.  In life, I was a go getter, a doer, and invincible.  When I cycled down, I was depressed, with suicidal or impending mortality ideations, and generally felt worthless.  I now accomplish nothing, and don't care. 

APA Reference
(2009, August 25). How I deal with it., HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2024, November 13 from https://www.healthyplace.com/support-blogs/myblog/How-I-deal-with-it.

Last Updated: January 14, 2014

Medically reviewed by Harry Croft, MD

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