A smile doesn't necessarily mean I'm okay..

Agree that this is a good topic to raise .....

@Former-Member I am still in the double life because my hubby’s mi is still hidden .... after many years .... and what seems apparent to us as his family, as both an eating disorder and a personality disorder (driving the eating disorder ?) is barely visible on the surface of our lives ..... and equally invisible to health care professionals.

This is because both states are shape-shifters, and despite being aware of his symptoms being uncomfortable, hubby cannot identify that he is unwell. He has no insight into that. There is an “ends justify the means” mentality that runs through his family, so if the symptoms remain hidden / manageable / disguisable then they are not there ..... right ?

Trying to reason with him, calling out the behaviours as disordered and needing medical intervention, trying to communicate with his family member about it, all resulted in a massive emotionally abusive backlash that left us all reeling and helped to trigger mi issues in our youngest two ..... something that I can now recognise had a genetic basis ..... and daily life became a struggle to survive.

The emotional abuse was only partly “obvious” in the form of rants and rages ..... most of it was passive-aggressive, gaslighting, choices between two unacceptable options, creating chaos, white-anting coping mechanisms, personal insults, oppositional-defiant behaviours .... and because of the underlying genetic stuff, all this was resonating within the kids ..... they could “read” him and what he was going through, why he was doing this ..... enmeshed ..... It was so hard to actually recognise that it was abuse, and label it as such, when he didn’t mean to harm us and couldn’t see that that was what was happening.

The risk for us was / is that showing what is happening to the outside world risks an almighty implosion of our family unit, as a whole and as individuals. Our safest passage through is behind masks, until diagnoses can be made, which they have over the adult children who have been most affected. We now have mental health support for them, and I sought a psychologist several years ago, which served to “confirm” the idea that I am the one who is unwell and who can’t accept my hubby’s “healthy lifestyle change”.

I relate so much to that video, for him, @Tiggeroo .... he runs till he loses toenails, he reads / listens to audiobooks constantly, was working 100hr weeks until he retired and turned all that energy and drive into eating disordered behaviours and practices. They are all coping strategies. He is trying to outrun / numb / fix something inside him and can’t ask for help.

I refuse to risk the loss of my family, as not wearing the mask is likely to cause an almighty implosion within individuals as much as the family unit. Not wearing the mask for doctors and specialists resulted in being reprimanded, dismissed, told I was mistaken, and having the microscope turned to my health instead and being put throughy testing and criticism. So the smile remains fixed in place where and when it has to.

It’s very socially isolating, and the kids have felt that too. They have struggled with me opening up to a circle of family and friends for whom I don’t have to wear the smile. They know I am not happy, can’t be under these circumstances, but they do share in the joys that still exist within the mire. I have explained to the kids that it is important for them to do the same for the same reason.

The forums have been invaluable to me .... my sanctuary amongst like-minded and understanding people while I wait for this illness to breach, as it must, eventually.

good afternoon @Faith-and-Hope, @Former-Member, @PeppiPatty, @Tiggeroo, @Former-Member

Hi everyone here. Yes, good conversation 👍 Oh my dear

@Faith-and-Hope - I'm so glad you got all that out. And its so hard when in asking for help from emotional abuse - they turn it back on you, and then pick your family to bits. So not fair. Of cause you feel silenced. Same old same old "damned if you do damned if you don't" I wish i kept my daughters sexual abuse to myself now, found another way to escape him. It must be so tempting for you to leave him now the children are adults. So sad you say

"our safest passage through is behind masks"

Hang in there F&H ❤❤❤

@Tiggeroo

Love your use of the work BiPolarBear 👍

Sounds like

'my Polar Bear' 🐼

Its use is a bit like

'my Blackdog' 🐶

Which helped me separate from it - become more an observer and less reactive. And more caring than critical of myself ☺

I just wanna hug polar bears and placid dogs. And thats what you're doing - by seeing yourself as a carer of BiPolar bear - WOW! Thats a new take on 'self care'

I'm not sure your approach of honesty in the workplace would work for me but possible when you are so qualified with level headed peers, and at peace with your condition yourself... happy for you that 'honesty'is working. And you seem to have a better handle on BiPolarBear than many do with their own MI

Here's to

THE GOOD DAYS 🍻

Great thread @Former-Member

Great cartoon @Tiggeroo

Teasing out problems of binaries is important.

My first conscious understanding of smiling was from a dance teacher who scolded us into smiling more for the benefit of the audience. So I tried harder .. huh!

After years of serious grief I thought i would never smile naturally again, but it comes back when we are in good circumstances for smiles.

I have worn a cheerful attitude a lot of the time, which is different from a fake smile or mask. It was not frozen on, and I allowed my deeper experiences to reach the surface, but the bottom line is too much pain, is too hard for people.

So many make do and lead with our strong suite and dont worry too much about smiles, except to notice when we have been blessed with them. From within or outside.

Love your use of the work BiPolarBear 👍

Sounds like

'my Polar Bear' 🐼 yes my Polar bear 11 @Appleblossom. @Former-Member, @Faith-and-Hope, @PeppiPatty

Dearest @Faith-and-Hope

So, lets just both agree on one thing: I am not going to tell you that poor you-you are right. Please just let me write one word.

Yes.

I will read your answer more thoroughly later tonight and have written it down to re-read :

this answer is a bit self-involved and I'm writing about my journey.....

A few years ago, I was told that I was a drama queen.

That I was married to a paranoid schizophrenic and I knew what I was getting myself in for so this was it and live it.

That he was going to get me in trouble and that I had to leave him.

He was not sick enough to go to the hospital.

One Psychiatrist at Sir Charles Gardener sat in this you know........casual lounge around on a sofa and carefully told me that he was not sick enough to have a break in a hospital and it would harm him if he was admitted.

I took the papers to show them that it was illegal for them not to listen to the loved one and carer (me). That it was ILLegal for them to ignore me. I had hospital nurses and social workers coming to visit me and actually giggle while I was trying to get him assistance. I told them that the IQ changes everyone's symptoms, that he had a problem with intimacy and his 150 IQ made him very manipulative.

No one listened.

They knew more than me.

I must have had co-dependency problems.

I have had a head injury.

Every day, every second day the police were coming over, take him to hospital. The hospital would tell them that he wasn't sick and he went to the Watchtower for the night.

Every morning, I would wake up and think, this is the day that they will accept him in hospital.

When he was put in jail, for trying to bite a policeman's nose off: I wrote a letter to the hospital 75% blaming them for wrongdoing and not doing their job. I blamed my husband 25% for his own responsibility.

Just before he went to court and be charged, a nurse saw him in the watchtower and said that he was about to commit suicide.

WHY does it have to get to this: where we the carers and loved ones are humiliated and left helpless. Why does it have to come where our loved ones have to be stripped bare and left with no support ...

in bold letters I want to write.... no support again.

grrr. Sorry....

@PeppiPatty

@Former-Member Some more thoughts I have on the subject I have is that in smiling we can sometimes 'fake it till we make it' and deliberately looking for things to smile about and be grateful for can help our own mental health.I know at times I have not wanted to go out but have put on my happy face and have thoroughly enjoyed myself BUT I don't think that we need to smile all the time, indeed to do so is to deny our own humanity. Finding a safe place where we can freely express these emotions and get release / comfort / advice makes so much difference.

Agreed ❣️

@Former-Member