Probably not a secret for those of you who have been around here awhile, but I have bipolar disorder. Specifically rapid-cycling bipolar disorder. I tend to have more depressive and mixed episodes than manic ones.
In 2006, I was nearly successful at committing suicide and wound up being involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for treatment. I had previously attempted two times before this, but those times I managed to avoid hospitalization.
I have never been able to develop a close, lasting friendship with a single human being. The type of friendship where you talk every day and know each other very well. Sometimes I think this just has to do with distance (the person I would be closest to lives across the country; hi mutinous!). Sometimes I think I'm just a failure as a human being.
My visual recall of objects (covers of books/dvds/cds, dishes, fruit, furniture, etc.) is very clear. But I cannot recall faces. If you stood in front of me, let me stare at you for as long as I wanted, and then said, "okay close your eyes and describe me!" I would come up with the most distinct feature (usually hair color/style) and that's it. I literally cannot "see" the rest of your face.
My house is usually messy. I'll go months without doing laundry, washing dishes, vacuuming, etc. It will bother me, but not enough to do anything about it. Usually this is because I am too depressed.
Although I am attracted to men, I don't think I could ever have sex with one. The loss of control in that situation is not something I could deal with.
I haven't had sex in mumblemumble years. I don't really miss it.
I tend to be flighty when it comes to hobbies/passions/resolutions. I'll dive head-first into something, burn myself out, and then abandon it. This is why I have piles of language books, scrapbooking supplies, etc. all over my house.
I never feel like I belong when I'm in a group of people in social settings. I get nervous. Feel like I'm saying the wrong things. In the work environment, when it's about work and not a social thing, I feel confident, perhaps overly confident. Even online I feel like I'm intruding in discussions on journals/twitter or that if I reached out to someone individually I would be rejected.
I owe approximately $75,000 in credit card and student loan debt. A lot of the credit card debt is from graduate school where I had to charge things like groceries just to have something to eat and when I had many more manic moods where I would walk into a store and buy everything in sight. I make enough money where I can at least manage the minimum payments on each credit card, but sometimes things are tight if I have an unexpected expense.
