A Long, Hard Road Out of Hell

   I will admit to the fact that I am a difficult person to be in any type of relationship with.  Whether it be friendship or romantic or even related to me, I am a hard person to deal with.  I've always known this and I've always used it to my advantage to kind of "test" (I use this word because I can't think of any better way to describe it.) people to see if they truly do love me.  I mean, really, you only deal with difficult people when you love them, right?
   I honestly couldn't tell you why I do this, I'm sure if I sat there and really examined things, I'd get to the bottom of it, but one thing I know is "if you can't handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best" is something I've always seemed to live by.
   There are a few people who have seen me at my worst and still love me, those people are the people that I hold dear and let them truly see the person I am.  I've always told my mom that I know I'm hard to love, she says that loving me is easy, it's dealing with me that's hard.  Her and my dad have seen me at my worst.  They have seen me go through some of the toughest times in my life and they still love me, even when I hate myself.
   My best friend, Stephanie, has seen me hit rock bottom and has even dealt with my bipolar wrath, and she still loves me.  This is the type of person that I've always needed in my life but only in the last 11 years have come in contact with.  Most of my "friends" from my past have never loved me as she has.  If my inner demon has been invoked and she has to deal with that awful part of me, she simply lets me know that I will not be able to push her away, although I've tried many times.
   In my past, I've been the person who sinks into the darkness of depression and can't see any way out.  Usually, I've been alone when I get like this.  Now, I'm not alone.  I have my husband who has to see me when I'm enveloped in this darkness and can't see 2 feet in front of me.
   My husband has been there by my side for the last 5 years and he has seen the absolute worst in me and has stuck by my side.  Seeing me on occasion or a few days a week is nothing compared to living with me.
   I can be awful, I can be evil, I can be sweet as pie.  With the snap of a finger, my emotional roller coaster takes a dive and I am a woman possessed.
   I feel terrible when I become the evil part of myself and it's like an out of body experience because I can see the way I am acting, but I have no power to stop myself.  I can't put the brakes on the emotions.
   I know a lot of people look at me and they don't see a person with a disability or they can't understand why a person who seems as intelligent as I would act as I do.  Now, I wish I could control everything because if I could, I would not be so up and down with my emotions.  When I try to explain that I can't control myself, no one seems to understand.  I get told that I need to learn how to do this, but don't people think I've tried?
   I have been blessed and given a second chance at life.

   When I married my husband, I was reborn with a new name.  I left my old self behind.  I say this because I told everyone about being molested as a child by my cousin and that huge weight that was on my shoulders was lifted.  I may have lost my family by doing this, but I gained a new family built of those who love me enough to be by my side.
   For the last year and a half, I have dealt with being made to feel like a leper by the majority of my family on my dad's side (ever since I confessed the evil doings of the bastard sick fuck that molested me) and now, I haven't had as many nightmares as I used to and my therapy sessions were not focused on my being molested, they had moved on to other issues in my life (I have many) and that part of me felt like it was in remission.
   I still don't want anything to do with sick fucker, or anyone who has anything to do with him, but it's not because I can't handle it, it's because it's my choice.  I mean seriously, who the fuck wants to see the person that caused so much pain in their past, regardless of moving on?  It's like opening an old wound that has started to scar over.
   Ever since I realized that therapy had been focused on other things, I was able to to start dealing with this whole being bipolar crap.  I've been working on trying to understand who I am and how to deal with what is going on with me mentally.  Although I've been bipolar my entire life, it's only the last couple of years that I've had this diagnosis so I'm still trying to understand and learn a lot about dealing with everything that comes with learning something new about yourself.  Especially something as deep as mental illness.
   I don't want to deal with things the way I did in my past.  I don't want to go back to using alcohol or any other type of self medication.  I want to deal with this head on.  I want to learn to be the best version of myself that I can, despite my illness.  I want to take my bipolar by the neck and show it how strong I can really be.
   I know that I have a rough road ahead of me.  I know that most days, I will feel like my emotions are driving on the bumpiest road known to mankind.  I know that I will hit walls of depression, but I also know that I have a community of people (albeit a small one) who care enough about me to love me no matter how shitty I can sometimes be.  Because I will eventually get back to me, the person I was born to be, the person who loves so hard that it sometimes hurts.