Have you ever met someone who just understands you inside and out? Knows you better than you know the back of your own hand? When I met this person, I was 16 years old. Someone I thought I needed so much at that one time. I was wrong. Now that they are no longer in my life, I need them now more than ever. But this post isn’t about Diego and about how he is the one that got away; a concept I’m not sure I believe in. This is about my new relationship and how I am trying to make this person my new home, my new remedy, my new… everything.

Maybe I’m just homesick. Homesick of what once was, but what could never be. Right now I am missing the intimacy of someone who knows what one touch can do to you. Now I’m fumbling around with my new boyfriend, whom I care for dearly. He doesn’t know me yet. We had our first date January 27th of this year and only started dating March 4th. He knows virtually nothing about bipolar disorder, let alone mood swings, my sleeping patterns, my weight struggles, my paranoia, nothing. I am getting frustrated at having to start over fresh. I wish he knew how I felt at a time when I need to be intimate with someone who just… gets me. I don’t want to put in the work and try to get him to understand. I wish he would put in some work to research about bipolar to understand how I feel, maybe then I would feel the motivation to try to be better. Maybe I am doing my best, it’s not much I know, but going through some much adversity lately has me drained.

Sure I have my friends who get it, but with quarantine happening, I can’t see them in person and it’s not like I can be intimate with them physically. I am very attached to Brandon (that’s my boyfriend’s name) and have been since our first couple of dates. He is very sweet and compassionate and empathetic. He would do just about anything for me if I just asked. He has been through a lot in his life and initially I was constantly there for him in our days of friendship. I went to the bar with him nearly everyday after he got off of work and watched him cry as his life fell through the cracks, even though mine was as well. My heart constantly hurt as he said he didn’t have feelings for me and the more I clung to him, the more he said it would push him away. As his life became more stable, he asked me to be his girlfriend when he thought he was going to lose me when I was Diego to be there for me instead of him. I chose Brandon over Diego. It’s not a decision I have really come to terms with and I am not sure he would have asked me out had he not been jealous of the fact that I had Diego take me to the ER for some of my health issues at the beginning of March.

My friend, Brent said that we are new to this relationship thing so if I give it time, he will come to understand my bipolar. Brent also said it took him six years of knowing me to understand and come to terms and understand my bipolar. But I am not sure if I can start over when I am here at rock bottom. I can’t really tell where I am in my cycle, I am assuming I am depressed, but it hasn’t ever been like this before. When I am depressed, I cling on to whomever I am dating at the time and rely on them to be my rock. I just don’t know if Brandon can be that for me with all that he has going on in his life, I don’t want to set him off into a depressive state that he just got out of. But I need someone to confide in and just hold me as I cry and knows to say the right things or just tries to ask the right things.

I want so badly for this new relationship to work, but part of me wonders if I am too broken to make it work, put forth the effort to figure shit out. Tonight is just a bad night, not a bad day, not a bad week, or even a bad lifetime. I am sure I will feel different tomorrow, but tonight I am empty and have no motivation to try to make anything work, not even myself.

Comment below if you have any advice, words of wisdom, or can relate to someone important in your life “not getting” your mental illness.

Til next time,

Dani