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Forgiveness is a Fickle Friend

I am bipolar

By Marianne SuppaPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Forgiveness is a Fickle Friend
Photo by British Library on Unsplash

What does it mean to forgive? To be forgiven? It’s something we sometimes reach for when feeling hurt as well as when we’re responsible for causing hurt. It’s human to crave acceptance, even when we screw up, but forgiveness isn’t always about redemption or soothed egos. Sometimes contextually speaking, acceptance appears in the form of forgiveness we crave that can be born from the hurt others have caused us. So what’s the deal? Why do we so often depend on it for healing? Who is forgiveness actually for?

Oftentimes forgiveness and bipolar disorder do not mix. I know this from personal experience. Where one might hope for understanding and patience, there is only blame. Mental disorders are impossible to understand if you’re someone lucky enough never having to. Hypomania makes it impossible to control your reactions in a heightened state of emotion. It can unleash a fury of unhinged words and actions, later leaving you having to reflect on something you may have said or done under the influence of a hijacked mind. A tsunami of guilt is imposed on you when It’s not entirely your fault because it is an illness you suffer with. Yet you are still left having to own it because of the harm it causes to others who are also only human. Thus causing a downward spiral of self-loathing and can lead to suicidal ideation, and often does. Think of it in terms of The Incredible Hulk. He transforms into a being who is incapable of controlling his physical impulse, right? Amongst other things, Bipolar Disorder affects the brain in much the same way. So how do you ask for forgiveness or acceptance for something you aren’t always able to control? In my experience, you just lose people, both significant and insignificant, and things; really important things. So when I ask what it means to be forgiven, I really don’t know the answer to that in a sense.

When I lost my long-term job, I lost my sense of purpose. I was removed harshly and unexpectedly from all that I knew and thrown into a void left to feel afraid and abandoned. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time as I was in the throes of a lingering manic episode (which is why I lost my job). I was saying things around the office to people I shouldn’t have been saying them to, revealing secrets and hidden disdains. Ultimately making people uncomfortable, and my unpredictability posed a threat to some. But it was how I reacted to getting fired that caused the most harm. It was both the cause and the reaction because my mania became much worse afterward, as one might have, or should have assumed it would. I was simultaneously the villain to outside forces and the victim of inside ones constituting as an illness. Only I couldn’t rationally explain myself at the time due to the mania I was experiencing. No one understood what I spent months on end vapidly trying to explain, and ultimately no one cared. So why was I seeking forgiveness? Why did the people who couldn’t understand hold this power over me?

I’ve forgiven myself because I know in my heart of hearts the way I reacted to things was due solely to mania. I know I didn’t have a grip on my mental capabilities. And I knew the extraordinary pain I was in played a huge role in why I was stuck manic for so long. Hospital stays, both inpatient and out. Intensive therapy sessions, med experimentation, all of it over the span of two years, and I am just beginning to heal. But it isn’t with the help of forgiveness. That, I may never have, and its absence is present in the form of unfriending on social media and unanswered e-mails and messages that remain. So when I ask who forgiveness is for, outwardly I believe it is for self, consequently benefitting the perpetrator. For people like me, however, maybe it exists inward and not from others mostly. Maybe being bipolar means learning to cope in a constant unforgiven state until people become, if people become, more empathetic. Maybe forgiveness is a fickle friend.

bipolar
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About the Creator

Marianne Suppa

I am a bipolar psych student and a mom, My purpose is to breathe empathy into the struggles of those afflicted with mental illness through reflective storytelling of real life experiences. Please feel free and welcome to follow my mission.

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