I would actually like to share a happy story, if I may. If you think this is too long you do not have to post it. Just the act of writing here makes me feel better and remember that all hope is never lost.

I have Early-Onset Bipolar Disorder Type 2; meaning I was pretty much born with the disorder affecting me and my family. Growing up in a time where Bipolar Disorder wasn’t well known was absolutely miserable, horrible, sad, angering, [insert every synonym here]. I would go into “rages” and alienate my friends. When I was a teenager and my friends talked about getting married, I thought to myself, “I will never get married. Who the hell could ever put up with me?” From then on I believed and accepted this thought.

Flash forward to age 21- I was living on my own, had a successful job/career path, I was stable, I felt great. I met up with someone I knew in high school. We went to the same parties back then, yet could not recall seeing each other. He joined the Army after he graduated and I, well that’s too long of a story. In the Army he was Infantry. He went on two tours; one and a half years in Afghanistan, and one year in Iraq. He had seen things, he had done things. He suffered from severe PTSD from 2008-2010. He got out of the Army in 2011 and was also “stable.” We moved in together, just as friends, or so I thought. I never had a serious relationship, so did not recognize the signs that I had fallen in love with him. Turns out he fell in love with me the second he saw me the day we first met up in 2011.

We got engaged on New Years 2012. Well I drunkenly said, “If we’re still together in September we should go to Vegas and get married.” And we did just that.

We will never fully understand what each other went through, but we understand each other’s struggle having a mental illness. Both of our “disorders” were not recognized by the public as a “real thing” while we were first dealing with them. We just bought a house and have 5 chihuahua/miscellaneous mixes.They are the closest we want to having kids. We still have “acute episodes” but have learned how to deal with them in a healthy way. We have a code word, “pajamas,” to say when we feel like either one of us is getting “a little too worked up,” I’m not exactly sure how to describe it. We never feel like we hate the other one and consider divorce, not matter what they do. We have what we call “True Love.” He is my Wesley and I am his Buttercup.

The bottom line is, even if you think no one would ever marry you because you would just drive them away, don’t lose hope. You just might have what even “sane” people will never experience, True Love.