I did meet my husband, oddily enough through online dating (back when online dating sites were just starting up). I had a ton of bad dates from that site. I read the email from my now-husband and nearly deleted it. A couple weeks later, I re-read it and thought he sounded interesting. I wrote him back, and he didn’t respond (I didn’t realize at the time he had gone to visit his parents in California for Christmas, and they did not have internet). When he got back to Houston, he emailed me, we started talking on the phone, and then met. After 2 or 3 weeks, I knew it was going to be a long term relationship. He proposed to me spur-of-the moment around a year later. We ended up eloping and are coming up on our 14th anniversary on August 4. We have a 10 year old daughter who is extremely intelligent but comes with her own set of parenting challenges. So at least I have my own little family though my husband doesn’t always understand the need for meds or that bipolar is there for life.

My mom is fairly understanding, and at least, I get along with my 2 sisters well. My sisters are really the only friends I have that I see regularly, but one of them lives a 4 to 6 hour drive away. The other lives closer, so I see her more often, but it is still a good 40 minute drive to her house, and that is when traffic is good and it’s not rush hour. I don’t have any friends I can easily go visit with a 5 to 10 minute drive.