Love Me A Little Louder

Some days are better than others.  That is God’s honest truth, whether you have bipolar disorder or are perfectly mentally healthy.  When I was in therapy with Goddess of Mindfulness (and sometimes QoB does this), it gets said that not all of the struggle in life is because of mental illness.  Some rough stuff is just life.  Life for me, you, the gal down the street, everyone.  Having bipolar disorder doesn’t mean that I hold the monopoly on psychic pain.  Psychic pain is a HUMAN thing.

I feel very fortunate in my life that I have a fairly large support system.  Of course, I have LarBear, but I also have my mom and her significant other, my dad and his significant other, my sister, and the Big Dawg.  Add to that, a smattering of specialists, doctors, therapists, the members of my DBT group, and other interested parties, and there is generally someone that I can turn to at some point in my day, if things are going astray.

My first choice, and this is increasingly true as time goes on, is to seek out LarBear.  He is the person who is always there, always has time (or makes time), and I count on for the majority of matters dealing with me being any sort of upset or sad or depressed or crying or anxious.  The main reason I do that, is because he is most available — we live together, and he knows my comings and goings and the details of our life better than anyone.

The next reason I do that, is because I feel like he really, really *gets* it.  We work hard on our relationship, and none of it is taken for granted.  We both come from pasts where we have been screwed around quite a bit, and we spend a great deal of time working on the relationship that we do have.  Things aren’t perfect, but we learn together and grow together and I can honestly say that every day, things get stronger and better between us…and that is only because we keep talking to each other and working to make things better.

Although I have been feeling better overall for the past while, I still have my ups and downs.  The lack of sunshine and the time change have really messed with my sleep, and the last few days of rain and gloom have not helped matters.  I have found myself feeling somewhat down, or at least until I can motivate to get up and do something and get out.

When I noticed this slight struggle within myself about a week ago, I immediately talked to LarBear about it.  Yes, I talked to some other people too, but more about technical things like whether or not to break out my sun lamp (ya, probably should!) and that sort of thing.  With LarBear, it was simple, and that is part of the beauty of LarBear, is that he does simple like no one else can.

He doesn’t lecture me and he doesn’t use the words shouldn’t and should.  At times he reminds me of a bright-eyed child, so trusting and open and unspoilt.  So when I tell LarBear that I’m having a hard time, he says to me that he will give me more hugs and kisses and any kind of help I need.  He said, we will get through this, we always do.  He says, we’re a team, we help each other.  He gives all of himself to me, and I have never, ever had that.

And then, he follows through on what he had said (which is all too uncommon in my world, it seems), and he does hug me and kiss me more, and check on me more, and go far out of his way to do sweet things for me (just because he can, I guess), and most importantly, he reminds me that I’m going to be ok, just being who I am.

We have been together slightly less than a year, but in many ways, I do get the feeling that I could spend the rest of my life with LarBear and be perfectly happy.  I think he gets that feeling, too.  We don’t dwell on it and we operate day by day, but when I’ve had a hard day, when things are rough, he does love me a little louder, without me even having to ask.  I don’t think there is anything better in the world, than that.