Middle age with bipolar can feel like a wild ride — yet it may also give us hard-won wisdom and resilience.
I whined to my mom about how difficult middle age seems to be: the angst, never-ending worry, deep regrets, fears for the future, and my obnoxiously changing body’s aches and pains. She chuckled gently and said, “Yeah, I remember. In some ways, my fifties were worse than my teens. Middle age is kind of like puberty all over again but with more wisdom. Which kind of makes it worse.”
Aha. There it is. At least the fundamental part of it. We all remember puberty: Our bodies changed in ways we then didn’t quite get, even if we had the best information. Regardless of gender, our bodies ached with actual growing pains.
We were awkward in handling the hows and whys of having to accept new bodies when we were perfectly comfortable with the ones we’d had. Our minds grew fast with new knowledge, but our emotions caught up slowly, resulting in yelling, slamming doors, and the certainty that our friends had all the answers.
Now, we believe we know better. We’ve been there, right? We’ve lived a bit of life. We may have had our kids, perhaps seen them through puberty. Or maybe we just watched other generations, older and younger, and now think, “Okay, I have some wisdom; I have so much to share!”
Yeah, right.
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I’m confused about what I want and need. My mind is changing in that it is so full of knowledge, beliefs, and values, but it is slower in plasticity. It’s a feeling of so many choices and so little time.
My physicality alone is a comeuppance. In middle age, we all still feel 25 in our heads. Until that one night, we stay up past 11 p.m. Or, like I’m doing now, we try to heal a four-year-old sprained ankle recently exacerbated, as well as feel daily arthritis now in my shoulder and thumb from that car accident several years back. And flab. Ugh.
Now Add Bipolar Disorder to the Middle-Age Mix
So, as if our second puberty weren’t enough, there’s our bipolar disorder. Take all the stuff above, swirl in bipolar, and middle age is even more so not awesome. Symptoms typical of bipolar disorder can echo some of what we felt as kids and what we experienced in middle age, but, of course, magnified.
Our mood swings — especially the sudden swings into anger or tears or the overwhelming anxiety — are feelings I struggle with as I am now in my late fifties and working hard toward stability with bipolar 2 disorder.
It’s been a bit tougher for me to fight depression, too, due to the smack of mortality midlife gives me and the abrupt need to get a “real life” in order to make something of myself. Not to mention to “beat” this mental health condition once and for all before becoming engulfed with the frightening sense that it could beat me.
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It’s challenging to maintain stability when I feel like I must hurry up and get this aging thing down pat so that I somehow understand how to be a truly wise older person with a life worth looking back on.
My physicality with bipolar also goes beyond regular midlife grievances. All folks in midlife must watch their weight and look after their health — their heart, bones, memory, brain health, stress, and fatigue. Those of us with bipolar must do all that … and more. We know that our medications, bodies, and, oftentimes, lifestyles can adversely affect these systems, and we end up steps back from where others begin.
Where We Can Shine in Midlife With Bipolar
I find this to be a rather heady time. It’s easy to spin wildly in my thoughts and worries. It’s easy to write, “just go back to your coping skills.” And that’s not wrong.
It’s more mindfulness that’s helping me, with a shift to the objective insight that midlife is, indeed, another fundamental life shift somewhat separate from bipolar. And while coping skills are similar, the resolution — and ultimate stabilization — may be different.
This is where those of us living with bipolar can shine: We can sometimes reach places of mindfulness many cannot.
Meanwhile, when I stop to chat with other middle-aged people in public and say to them, “Midlife is like wiser puberty — and that makes it harder,” I get back snorts, smiles, and a good shake of the head.
UPDATED: Originally posted December 9, 2019