For me, my temper involves keeping myself on the up-and-up. Keeps me in control of my thoughts and my ideas. For the most part, I keep my temper bottled up inside of me, not on the outside.
Sound weird? For me, no. For others, possibly.
Most of the time, it's because my mind is racing with many thoughts, and I never know how to contain them. For example, this morning I'm feeling so creative and so inspired that I just can't control them. I've been writing them down all morning to keep them in check because I want to execute all of them, so I know in order to do so—and not forget these inspirations and ideas—I must do it this way. This was also recommended by my therapist as well as my "drug dealer" (my psychiatric nurse).
However, in the past year or less, my temper has escaped me—verbally and emotionally. I have been unable to restrict it, to the point that it has bled into my family as well.
This is not good.
Although verbally I have taken it out on my daughter many times, she hasn't judged me for this behavior—for now. I've never hurt her, nor will I ever, but acting this emotion out on her is something I will always regret. She is a strong girl and will most likely grow into a strong woman as a result of this—am I proud? absolutely not—but no child should ever have to endure the verbal pain that I have caused her.
As I was growing up, I witnessed my father's temper on many occasions, but as far as I know, he was not suffering from bipolar disorder. Just like me, he has never taken out this aggression on me or my brother physically. Is that an excuse for me? Maybe not, I don't know. But I do know this, I wanted it to stop and it had to stop immediately!
My temper mainly involved myself and nobody else. I was frustrated with everything and everyone around me. I was a walking time bomb waiting to explode. Instead, they mostly imploded inside of my body and my mind, until I decided to release them, thus affecting my family.
I wanted to hit the wall. I wanted to hit anything around me. Hence turning to hit myself instead. For me, at that time, I knew if I didn't hit myself, who knows who I would have hit in retaliation of my soul. During that time, that was a safe alternative for me.
It had gotten so bad, that I contemplated—not acted out—thoughts of suicide. I wanted the pain to end and it needed to end STAT! I didn't know what else to do. I was desperate.
Hitting myself was the safest way to act out, this much I know, but I was depressed and I was frustrated. Frustrated to the extent of sadness and an eternal episode of crying and internal mourn.
As the months progressed and quickly passed me by, I knew I needed to do something drastic so I could change my actions, for my family's sake.
What turned into weeks felt like an eternity for me. We were all anxious for me to get better and move forward with my life, so thankfully because my unemployment benefits were in full force, I was able to collect a 'paycheck' as I continued to try and get healthy. We all felt that during that tumultuous time in my life, holding a job would have been near impossible. I was very lucky.
After I had my first few appointments, I was on my way to getting my health and my sanity back—no pun intended. I was optimistic.
A few weeks later, my medication was starting to work and I immediately noticed that my agitation and temper had almost completely subsided. I was relieved! Life was looking a lot brighter for me. But I still had a long way to go. I never gave up and I never wanted to stop going to my regular therapy appointments and seeing my "drug dealer." I knew it was a huge step in the right direction for me.
Today I can proudly say that my temper has almost disappeared. Although I did have a blip a few weeks ago—nothing to the magnitude of my regular episodes as before—am I almost free of my grumpy irritability.
Thank you to my "drug dealer" for making me better!
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