My Neice is Getting Married Today

I am happy my neice is getting married today. I feel sad because I feel like she cut me out of her life. About a year ago (this would be around the time of my attempt), I noticed that she was no longer on my friendship list. This was shortly after I made a dumb manic joke about a dinner she was at. She mentioned that a couple of Surpreme Court justices were there. Maybe I embarrased her in front of some pretty powerful coworkers/attys. I do not know for sure. And now I am sad that she has not told me what I did. I did send her well wishes as a comment under my nephew's message to her so I hope she gets it. Not trying to force myself back into her life, just feeling sad that I am not in it. I can't help but think that what I said was manic. I am not bitter, just sad I do not understand.

So sorry this is happening, NF. You are a good person.

I agree, this is very sad and unjustified. At least she could do is tell you what's bothering her. It's too bad other family members wouldn't intervene and tell her it's not nice to do this. Everyone makes mistakes and it doesn't feel good to be left out. You are a nice person and don't deserve to be treated like this.

By the way I'm still on 'plum pit poop alert' with Bella LOL - just wanted to make you laugh. Thanks for your reply on my pet's thread.

Ms Futz,

You have a loving, caring and supportive personality. I'd like to focus on that and let you know that sometimes just because we have a mental illness it doesn't mean we are the one to stuff up.

It's obvious you love your niece and it's just as obvious you would love to be there at her wedding to see her wed. I ask you though to look at what happened in the first in-stance to make her react and subsequently act the way she has.

Not knowing what was said I can't really allude to that but I can allude to the fact that you in a round about way called yourself dumb for making a manic comment or joke. You are not dumb so please don't think you are. What that says to me after reading your post is that you would rather consider yourself or your comment dumb rather than accept that your niece was wrong in her reaction without even discussing the situation with you. I personally don't agree with you in that regard; hurting and punishing yourself will not change your nieces atittude.

Since the year . families have embarrassed, humilliated, and made cringe the next generation of their own blood; there's nothing whatsoever that would stop them from being embarrassed because they haven't told you in advance "hey auntie there are supreme court judges here tonight pllleeeaasseee don't make any jokes or scenes or anything like that, I've already given the heads up to the others".

I just want you to know that you are a wonderful person who always has a kind word for everyone, who doesn't judge anyone, who doesn't hurt anyone and who goes out of their way to make others feel less panicked and less afraid of their mental illness.

For me personally you have said just the right words that have stopped me from being completely engulfed in blackness by making me think about what I had written and turning it around to accept responsibility for my condition and for working on it to bring me further along the road.

I am sad for your niece, for not having you in her life she is missing out on a very loving woman who is fighting the fight of her life to maintain as even a keel as she can; your niece unfortunately is into "appearances" not "family first",

I think you are wonderful, brave, strong, loving and a great example here of what it is to handle things as best possible,

Loving thoughts,

Rhian

That's what happens when people get married. They don't have time for people anymore.

Thank you all for your heartfelt words. And yes Lynn, you did make me laugh! I was close to this neice while she was growing up. She was pretty down to earth until important names and institutions came up. First it was Harvard law school then she won both cases in front of The Supreme Court then Oprah's magazine did an interview with her. Looking closer at the facebook stuff I noticed one of my brothers and one of my sisters were also missing from her fb friends so in an odd way, I do not feel as bad. Since I was able to send her a private message to wish them well, I am just going to let go and see what happens. I will let you know if anything happens.

It sounds like you are making a wise choice to pull it back for now. You have a bond that in time will come back to her. Perhaps for now it is wise to forgive her her youth and trust that a day will come when she realizes what really is important in life. All the fame and professional success in the world can never come close to the love of family. You have done all that you can do. I am sorry for your pain but relieved to hear you are finding a way to live with it.

I can totally get why it would help to settle some things in you to see other family is off her 'A' list at the moment. She will come around eventually. Kids hey! Geesh they can be such brats!! Smart and dumb all at the same time sometimes.

Definition of kid: anyone young enough to be my kid..... that would be anyone under 30... lol.

She just turned 30 this year, so yeah, she is a kid. Do not know how much she knows or understands my illness. If I told her in terms she could understand it would probably go something like this "you are smart and have accomplished things others dream about. Now lets say over a period of time, you start having mood swings that get so bad over time. You start loosing cases , your boss loses faith in you and you never get to haggle with the Supreme Court Justices again. If you don't diagnosed in time you will probably act out while manic. Depending on the extreme nature of the mania/depression and may even get disbarred which will trash your career, leaving you not only with saddness that your career is gone, but now you have to do the trial and error on the meds, and also learn how best to deal with this illness". Yup, that about sums it up.

Yup that would about sum it up. Maybe you should have that discussion with your neice. It couldn't hurt and who knows she may face some of those demons going forward and hearing your story could save her from from pushing herself too hard. Either way she will get a reality check about who she thinks you are.

Your summary of the downward spiral fits my journey too and sometimes I find myself crying when I think how little my siblings kids know about me anymore. They knew me when I was flying high and setting the bar for adventure and living life to the fullest. Now I am the depressed aunt who never comes to family functions anymore. Even when the depression breaks for a spell there is seldom time to reconnect before the darkness sets in again. They don't know me and that makes me sad. I can't inspire them anymore. That pains me.

I think you should reach out to your neice and let her know who you are today and that even with the illness you are still the aunty she knew and loved growing up. You may act out now and then but your actions don't have to define you. Not the sum total of you.

Nucking, I would write (real letter?) your niece and tell her you noticed you're not on her friends list anymore and ask her why. Just one-sided wondering if you did something when you were manic isn't going to get you information or allow you to understand/see if you can fix the misunderstanding/problem. Does she even know you are ill? Do you know what your sibling has told her about your condition? You may just have been party to a bad comment from someone else and she may be embarrassed/anxious about how to respond to you so just "not" doing so.

I am going to give the letter a try. I will pass it by you all before I send it. I do not know what she will tell people because what she says spreads like wildfire throughout the family. You know, this should be interesting. Sometimes I'd just love to write on the comments section of my fb "I'm bipolar, get over it". But I won't because that is pretty manic.

lol. I have thought of doing that too now and then. Just put it out there and let the chips fall where they may.

The letter idea sounds like a good one to me too. You should probably not try to presuppose her reaction. Just share what you feel you need her to know for your own peace of mind. It will work out one way or another. Things always seem to work that way when we open our hearts.

Oh, NF!

Have you considered the possibility that her reaction has nothing at all to do with your condition? In my (limited, personal) experience, once people ascend into such celestial realms it is almost natural for them to completely erase from their lives the real, normal people not only to whom they are related but with whom they had friendships, shared experiences, grew up, etc. It's a completely different world up there. A very few people do not succumb, of course. But most "stars" do. And they're just gone, gone forever from the lives of the "plebs" below them, unless, of course, they screw up and do an Icarus fall from their great heights. It's sickening, I know. Maybe it doesn't happen in other societies. But it really does in ours. And, again, it probably has NOTHING to do with your illness. Do you really have any idea of the ego-inflating potential of what you've related regarding your niece? And one can get adjusted and live an entire life up in that particular stratosphere. I've been up there. And now I'm down here. And have been for a long time.

Take care.

Eh, thought about that stratosphere we use to belong to. I am putting that aside because she took the time to remove me from her facebook that I was once on. I had to try for me. I spent most of the first year of her life taking care of her. Sometimes we would have sleep overs and have hot chocolate. Sometimes she would swim in my pool. Sometimes it was scarey stories. And hearing all my nephews and neices rave about her wedding really hurt. I did send her a private message asking her (without speculating) why she took me off her friendship list. This is me speculating now...I fear I will not get any acknowledgement or response.

I'm sorry she hurt you.

Thank you notz! I really needed to hear that. I think I will be okay.

Ms Futz

It is so sad that you were so badly hurt, you don't deserve it and I wish it hadn't happened

Rhian

(((((((( NuckingFutz ))))))))

I'd just have a teeshirt made that says that, instead?

http://www.whatonearthcatalog.com/cg...CE_CE2838H=vci

I bet people who wear that shirt get treated differently when they wear it. It's a cool shirt though.

I got a friendship request from my Neice! Seems people have been randomly dropping off of fb! She sent me a friendship request and a letter explaining everything! It was so great.

Ain't life grand!! Always so full of unexpected surprises. Awesome news indeed. I can imagine you smiling right now.

Yeah I am smiling! Going to go thank my sister because she is the only one besides you guys that knew how upset I am. So I will go thank her.

Good idea. That will make her day too. Its a good good day.

Happy for you, NF.