Crying from the Inside Out...: a memoir about living and loving a person with bipolar disorder

by Chris Ward

Finally accepting life was not going to be what I dreamt about growing up, I fall in love with a man who I think changes all of that, only to find out that his deep, dark secret would soon change my life forever. This is a true story about my two year relationship living and loving a man with bipolar disorder. Nobody could have ever warned me how this mental illness would drastically change my life or that I would become so utterly powerless against this sickness. The first chapter of this book describes our developing love for one another and how our relationship seems literally unbreakable. The second chapter begins with me experiencing for the first time one of Ismael's manic episodes, whereby I get to see a complete other side of the man I thought I knew. Lastly, the third chapter walks you through my daily journals of this horrific mental illness and how bipolar disorder becomes stronger than our love. What I experience living and loving this man turns into a complete nightmare ranging from his numerous arrests, gross negligence by the mental health system and ultimately one of his manic episodes raging out of control. It eventually leads to my first experience with physical violence. All in all, I am forced to watch as self-destruction literally takes down the man I love.“Crying From The Inside Out” is an inspirational story that will help others involved in the life of someone suffering feel like they are not alone in this toxic journey. The true fact is that the bipolar person afflicted with this illness is not the only one hurting. The people that love them experience extreme anguish as well as society at large. Even as I lived each day trying to make sense of it all, this mental illness not only affected my life, but was affecting other lives in the media (i.e. - Senator Deeds' is stabbed by his bipolar son and then devastated by his actions, he turns a gun on himself and ultimately ends his own life; Amanda Bynes' family struggle with the mental health system trying to get their daughter help before it is too late; and the master chief contestant, Josh Marks, committing suicide during a manic episode). All of these people have to deal with bipolar disorder and I talk about all of them and more in the book.Whether you have experienced bipolar disorder in your life or not, this book will open your eyes so you can see how it is spreading through our world today by storm. Don't let this illness go unnoticed any longer! I am prepared to be the voice of these people suffering in silence and my goal is to let the world know how debilitating this disease is for everybody involved so that changes can be made to stop bipolar disporder in its tracks!God Bless

247 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 17, 2014

Reviews

[Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was not a good book. It was incredibly frustrating as well. I'll start off by saying that Chris Ward seems like a really sweet woman and my heart went out to her multiple times but I found myself questioning the validity of half the things she said. The book started off weak and just declined from there. Isamael is a horrible person and his bipolar diagnosis has nothing to do with this fact. If he was anything at all like Chris alleged him to be, then he was an utterly disgusting human being. Mean, cold-hearted and ungrateful.
***
I say this next part with complete and full understanding that I am not an expert and may not know what the heck I'm talking about. But it seemed to me that Isamael had borderline personality disorder and not bipolar disorder. For more than half the book, his mood shifts in seconds. Literally. One moment, he's yelling at Chris and then the next he's telling her he loves her. Yes, people with bipolar disorder experience sudden shifts in mood but they're not this sudden. Also, I was a bit confused as to why he was having so many manic episodes but only one depressive episode was written about. It seemed like for the majority of the book, Ismael was manic.
***
I will admit that when I got to the end of the story, I was very sad for Chris and even Isamael. But this book could have been executed so much better than it was. I also feel like the way Chris spoke about bipolar disorder and those with it, was a little insensitive and misinformed at times but that's just me. Hopefully Isamael finally got some help and Chris is healing.

[KIMBERLY DELPHIN MARTIN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Serving

I know what it is like to deal with someone who has been diagnosed with bipolar. It's hard sometimes some relationship can survive and sometimes they don't. It's hard and not all bipolar disorder is the same we all have the same story but deficient endings