Secondary Emotions

Secondary emotions are emotions about emotions; it requires some thought. i.e. I often feel angry when I cry because it's a sign of weakness on my part. At least, that's how my thought pattern works.

I bring this up because when I was visiting with my therapist this week, she set the record straight for me on several points.

For one, she has yet to meet the perfect mother. Not that I ever thought there would be one out there or that I was one. Yet, I have a visual of the kind of mother I can be to be seen as perfect in my own eyes. Make sense?

When I was telling my tale to her, postpartum depression sets up shop and here I am 2 1/2 years later still depressed and now newly diagnosed as being bipolar, she interrupted me right away. I was born this way she explained. The postpartum depression probably triggered it initially. Set it off.

I beat myself up in front of her for going off my antidepressants six months into feeling "better". She made me feel more at ease because she said my antidepressants probably would have stopped working at some point or another anyway. That they would have needed some tweaking or even changed to keep me feeling "better".

Stop beating myself up for going off the meds in the first place? That sounds amazing. And? It makes so much sense to me now. It also makes sense why the same antidepressant didn't work no matter the dose, when I went back on them. I wasn't just depressed anymore; anxiety and intrusive thoughts were tossed in as well. It was worse than ever. Little did I know at the time, I needed a "cocktail" of meds to level myself out and it would take a long time to find the right combination.

I can look back to my younger self and see the bipolar symptoms clawing their way out from beneath my skin. I can recall going from a huge high to an enormous low within seconds, and I wouldn't know why.

I look forward to working with my therapist and discovering more about myself. For the first time in my life, my emotions are making sense. There are underlying issues. Mine just happens to be bipolar disorder.