Posted by CareBear04 on April 16, 2004, at 15:14:01
hi everyone,
i don't know if i'm posting in the right place because this is sort of med-related, but the heart of the issue is about a relationship, so i figured this was the place. this might be a little long, but please read.i've been seeing this guy, and i really like him. the problem is that he coincidentally happens to be the close friend of one of my best guy friends. over the past year and a half, i had a lot of problems. i made two serious suicide attempts and was hospitalized twice and had to take two semesters off from school before i was correctly diagnosed as bipolar and we found the right meds. during this time, my friend was really there for me. he sometimes even visited me twice a day in the hospital. i didn't realize how upset i'd made him until he told me recently that during this time, he'd talked about me with one of his friends, who just happens to be the person i'm seeing. my friend says that he didn't use my name when talking about me, but he thinks there's about an 85% chance that the guy has made the connection that i was the friend with all the problems. he hasn't said anything to me, and since i'm now very stable, i didn't see the point of bringing up the subject of my mental health.
everything has been great so far in the few weeks i've been seeing this guy. the other night, though, i did something really stupid, and i'm afraid it might be a relationship-ender. my dr. has prescribed all sorts of sleeping meds for me, but what works best is ambien. i'm not supposed to take it anymore because it sometimes causes me to hallucinate. the other night, i couldn't fall asleep and i wanted to get up early the next day, so i took ambien, anyway. right after i took it, this guy called. i stupidly picked up and managed to carry on a normal conversation for about five minutes before i started slipping into this really vivid hallucination. he says that i got really silent and then started talking about my curtains being people and other really strange things. i think i told him that i wasn't supposed to take ambien, but that i did, anyway. he was really disturbed by all this, as anyone probably would be.
i guess we were supposed to go out tonight, but he cancelled on me. he's a doctor, a surgical intern, and he said he has to be at the hospital until late. i don't know whether he just doesn't want to see me. one possibility is that he thinks i have a substance abuse problem. even worse, he could know everything about my psychiatric history and just not have said anything. he might conclude that, while i seemed fine, this ambien incident proves that i'm really still unstable and a liability. as a doctor, i think he's actually more freaked out, not less, by what he knows about psychiatric illnesses. in a professional role, he might be understanding of his patients who have them, but in a personal capacity, i don't think he wants to date someone not "normal."
he said he would call tonight. does anyone have any suggestions for what i should say? i really really like him, and i just want him to give me another chance. i'm afraid he's going to cut me off now in order to prevent himself from getting even more attached to someone he thinks might do something to hurt him. what can i say-- without saying too much and scaring him off-- to assure him that i'm stable and under professional care?
thanks for reading. please, if anyone has advice, let me know!!
cb
poster:CareBear04
thread:336947
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040414/msgs/336947.html