My final series tip is most obvious.  I promised Tony I’d control my temper, only I couldn’t. I tried unsuccessfully for decades to tame the beast through prayer and memorizing Bible verses.  I had not given therapy a try.

In February, when my temper stood clearly between me and my dream of a family with Tony and Cali, I challenged myself to commit to therapy.  My doctor suggested Grow Therapy where I’d have the option of choosing my therapist and meeting virtually.

I browsed through online profiles of available therapists until I found Renee.  She seemed right for me.  

After scheduling an appointment, the work started.  I had to fill out a questionnaire explaining why I’d come to her.  Though Renee was just a photo and a blurb, I laid it all out in writing.  I was more honest with a stranger than I’d ever been with myself.

It was time.  I was desperate to beat my temper for good and make Tony and Cali my family.

Renee addressed the anger beneath the temper.  It was comically difficult to unearth the source of my fury.  Did I know that I was allowed to be angry, that it was a natural human emotion?  The first step for me in beating my temper was to stop beating myself up for feeling something.

It’s a nasty cycle, if you think about it.  When you feel angry, if anger itself is bad, then you’ve already failed.  You were not slow to become angry. In fact, you were quite quick about it.  Where do your thoughts take you next?  You’re angry at yourself for being angry.  That temper flairs now, for sure, doubly fanned.

My great aunt, a Bible teacher, sent me to my room to memorize scriptures about controlling my temper on many occasions.  Ephesians 4:26-27 was not among them, but it’s in my memory now.  “Be angry and do not sin,” it says,” Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” 

In our earliest sessions, it was a breakthrough to simply be able to identify the emotion when it surfaced and explain how I’d responded to that trigger.  I could be angry, and then choose what to do with it. I’m still a work in progress, but after nine months, our house is pretty peaceful.  I do still lose my temper, but not as often.  Neither does it get so big or last so long.  It’s better every time and followed by a swift apology, taking responsibility for my mood mismanagement.  

Once I was able to locate the root of my anger, I had to face it.  It was suggested and dismissed at twenty-four that I had bipolar tendencies.  I took a low dose of an atypical antipsychotic medication for a decade to help me sleep at night, something I never advertised.  In 2017, I was diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety and changed medications. 

The next two years of my life are a blur of highs and lows, moods apparently running my life.  Having a first-row seat to the deterioration of my mind, the haziness and confusion of those days – well, I’m glad you weren’t trapped inside there with me.

When I began suspecting I had bipolar disorder in October of 2018, I stopped blogging. I didn’t want anyone to know. I was officially diagnosed the following February. Shame mounted.  It festered. 

I was angry at myself for having a mental disorder that I didn’t ask for.  Maybe, I was even a little mad a God about it. In sessions with Renee, I finally began to unpack that anger. It came from a place of fear.

I started writing my memoir this spring.  Coming Out: Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made weaves the myriad stories of real people living with bipolar, mine and those published by other authors and celebrities, to paint a colorful, informed tapestry.  I’ll share an excerpt from chapter one that explains why I’m writing this book.

“That’s why I’m here. No one wants to live in fear of my angry outbursts. My temper’s trigger isn’t my family and friends; it’s my own secret den of shame. My short fuse is fueled by self-loathing. I don’t want this dysfunction, but it’s real. Keeping it a secret, though, has just made me hate a part of myself… and can we really hate just a part of ourselves? Either way, I don’t want to settle for anything less than full acceptance of fearfully, wonderfully, and bipolarly-made me.”

If you ask Tony, it’s writing this book that got him to marry me.  Deep down, I suspected my mood management misregulation game had single-handedly destroyed all my relationships.  I couldn’t keep a guy because my bipolar was unlovable. 

I had not considered that ignoring and avoiding the severity of my mental illness, particularly when it comes to taming my temper, only made things much worse.  The sun went down on my anger every day.  I went to bed and woke up hating and afraid of a part of me I didn’t understand.

Embracing my diagnosis, getting past the stigma, writing through the most confusing and painful moments of my past, learning how I tick and why – this is catharsis.  I made peace with my mental illness when it finally clicked.  That exuberant personality, all that creativity and empathy, what makes kids love my English class — my bipolar disorder powers all that goodness, too. 

I feared there’d never be a man like Tony who, when presented with the facts, chose to marry a woman with bipolar disorder and make her the mother to his teenage daughter. Their lives were better with me and my moods, for better or worse. That boosted my confidence, I’ll admit, and gave me a safe place to keep doing the work to balance the scales in favor of better. 

I aim to finish my book by Christmas and then hit the streets of self-publishing. It was in reading other people’s stories of living with bipolar that I was best able to see and accept it for myself.  Meeting with Renee for therapy a couple of times a month wouldn’t have made a difference had I not been willing to go to the uncomfortable places, week after week, to arrive at wisdom and peace.

It was in therapy I worked through every tip set forth in this blog series.  I accepted that I needed to change and began changing.  I had to rethink perfection for the sake of my relationships.  I had to learn to apologize well, even after time has passed.  I had to give up control and end my cycle of co-dependency. 

Most pivotal, I had to acknowledge that my temper wasn’t standing between me and a family of my own.  My unquiet mind was, bipolar disorder ever positioned to strike unexpectedly. Therapy was how I got to the real problem. There, I faced my unique brain chemistry and began unpacking it in my book.

About 26,000 words in, at forty-one years old, I’m finally able to say, “Lord, I thank you, for I am fearfully, wonderfully, and bipolar-ly made.”  I hope to inspire others, like me, that it is possible to have a mental illness and a healthy, fulfilled life. 

Grace, peace, and wisdom reside nearby, just on the other side of all that fear, angst, and confusion. If there’s something that weighs on you, holds you back, go and find yourself a Renee to help you visit the uncomfortable places.

It was so obvious I almost missed out on an endless stream of PTSA meetings, family dinners, and a home where I get to be someone better tomorrow than I was today, every day, ’til death parts us.

— This concludes the “How I Got Him to Marry Me –> How to Become Someone Easier to Love Series. I’ll be back with a new series, soon. In the meantime, leave a comment here or on Facebook and let me know what you’d like to hear more of in coming posts. —

Enjoy this read?  Leave a *Like*.  Subscribe and share. Better yet, find yourself a therapist like Renee at Grow Therapy, and start visiting those uncomfortable places.

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