On the Subject of Partners and Isolation

It’s been about a week since my last post, and boy, has it been a rough week.

My partner has been going through a bipolar cycle, which essentially means everything comes to a grinding halt in our home, and all the attention, focus, etc turns to her. It means her work suffers. It means our home life suffers. It means she ignores everything in the home, from me to our pets to her kids and just spends days in bed. It means that for yet another few weeks she is essentially given a “pass” to be an inconsiderate ass. It means that, once again, the feelings of isolation rear their ugly heads and make me question everything.

Every few months this happens. She cycles and the world stops. Please understand, I am not diminishing the seriousness of the disorder. But from a partner’s standpoint, it gets tiresome. And it makes me callous and uncaring after a while. I get tired of walking on eggshells. I get tired of the rudeness, of the snarky and snide comments that are completely unwarranted.

I have been in this relationship for about four years. I’ve been here through many cycles, stays in behavioural health facilities, and the ostracising of my friends. It doesn’t get any easier.

On Thursday I attempted to give myself my shot. My partner had decided to throw a tantrum after work and was trying to walk home. She was angry with me for some reason… I’m not even sure why. After threats and ultimatums I managed to get her in the car, but she ignored me the rest of the evening. Then took her meds early and passed out. Meanwhile, I’m staring at my bottle of testosterone and the needles, trying to work up the courage to do it myself, since it needed to be done. I was able to stick myself with no real issue (I was proud of myself for that), but then I don’t know what happened. I pulled the needle out and I started bleeding like a stuck pig. I now have a giant knot and a nice bruise on the side of my thigh. It wasn’t pretty.

The next day she got mad at me because I did it myself.

We took the boys hiking on Saturday, up to the same spot we went last weekend, sans the dog. The oldest has no real interest in nature, and was bored the three hours we were up there. I sat with my feet in the water and read my book, which I was ok with. I really didn’t feel like getting wet as the sun kept disappearing behind a cloud and it got a little chilly. My partner and her youngest went wandering down the stream. I didn’t go with, and this was deemed a huge character flaw. To make things even better, my partner dropped her phone in the creek. This is the 3rd time she’s dropped her phone in water in the past 6 months. THAT was a great climax to the day.

Trying to have any sort of a conversation with her when she’s like this is an exercise in futility. So my request for her to take the weekly pictures of my transition was met with “You can take a picture of your own tattoo and plaster it all over Facebook. Obviously you don’t need my help.” (Note: “plastering” a picture on Facebook = a single picture, posted.) So not only did my shot get messed up, but we missed a week of pictures. Because she couldn’t act like a human being for 10 freaking minutes.

I know, I know. It’s not her fault. But she’s always saying, “There’s no excuse for being a dick.” And yet she feels she can be as mean, hateful and snarky as she wants whenever she feels she’s in a bipolar cycle. There isn’t even an attempt to be nice, or even civil. So essentially, for ME, there’s no excuse for being a dick. But she gets a get-out-of-jail-free card. It gets harder and harder to deal with.

Then there’s the isolation issue. We are a one-car family. We live in a completely different city from most of our friends. But at this point, it doesn’t even really matter. During the last couple bipolar episodes, she managed to shove all of our friends up and out. And by “our friends” I mean people who were mostly my friends before she even came along. The problem is that now, because she pushed everyone away, I’m now “that person” with the partner that no one likes. She gets angry because she feels like people don’t like her whenever we’re out and about. I have to bite my tongue so I don’t tell her that she essentially dug that hole herself, and pulled me into it with her. People that I’ve known for years, who had been my support system for years, now keep me at arm’s length. Because we only have one car, I can’t just get out of the house, drive to a friend’s house if I need a shoulder. The car is hers. At this point, I don’t even know who I have left in my life that I can turn to.

Which is why I’m here. Which is pretty pathetic.

When the bipolar isn’t making an appearance, things are generally fine. But then she cycles and I’m reminded how alone I really am. I hate the “woe is me” posts, and I’m not looking for sympathy. I just have no other forum to lay it all out on the table; my frustrations, my fears, my anger.

And I am angry. I’m angry that I’ve lost the closeness of certain friends because of her actions. I don’t blame them. I’d stay away too. I’m angry that the disorder gives her a pass to say and do whatever she wants without fear of consequence. I’m angry that she tells me she supports me in my transition, and then constantly makes comments about I “don’t count” anymore, when I say something about being gay or hanging with the gays, or how she finally found an accepting community only to have it taken away from her with my transition, or how she only sort of tries to get the pronouns right.

Bah. I detest how emo I sound in this post. I’m sorry that I’m not my usual, more positive self today. I wish I had a more uplifting post after what should have been a nice, relaxing three-day weekend. I promise my next post will be better. I just needed to vent.