The Wounded Soul Needs What the Heart Craves Why do we run from the love we once prayed for — and how do we begin to come home again, one breath at a time?
|
Time to read 11 min
The Tower Moment: How Did I Get Here?
Waking up from a manic episode can feel like regaining consciousness in the middle of a collapsed building—you don’t quite remember how it all fell apart, but the debris is everywhere. The heart aches with confusion. Who led me here? Who gave me poor advice? What version of myself made those choices? This is what’s often called a Tower Moment—when illusions crash and clarity begins. Named after the Tower card in the Tarot, it symbolizes sudden upheaval that breaks false foundations and forces transformation.
Often, it is not the secure, challenging, emotionally available partner we retreat to in times of crisis. Instead, we gravitate toward the path of least resistance—the toxic choice. And the list goes something like this:
🩹 They take advantage of your unhealed wounds ⟶ vs ⟶ 💚 They nurture your healing process with patience.
💔😒 Do not treat you right at all ⟶ vs ⟶ 🌱 They strive to honor your boundaries and needs.
🎭 Feel comfortable treating you like an option ⟶ vs ⟶ 💎 They prioritize your presence with clarity and consistency.
⛓️ Feel entitled to control you ⟶ vs ⟶ 🌾 They respect your autonomy and emotional space.
🚫 Would devalue you in a committed relationship ⟶ vs ⟶ 🔐 They rise to meet commitment with shared growth.
🐍 Operate in bad faith against your vulnerabilities ⟶ vs ⟶ 🛡️ They uphold honesty and protect your trust.
🧊 Treat you as an object or placeholder ⟶ vs ⟶ 🔭 They see your soul and mirror back your worth.
🕸️ Use manipulation and testing to create false bonds ⟶ vs ⟶ 🌄 They invite mutual growth, not games.
🍷 Keep you busy, drugged, distracted from healing ⟶ vs ⟶ ⌛ They slow down time to help you see yourself again.
🧨 Trigger reactive abuse, then blame you ⟶ vs ⟶ 💧 They calm storms, not create them.
🧷 Use your mental health as leverage ⟶ vs ⟶ 📚 They educate themselves to protect you, not possess you.
🎁🥱 Benefit from your gifts but resent your growth ⟶ vs ⟶ 📣 They cheer you on while you manifest.
🧙♂️ Sell illusions they could never fulfill ⟶ vs ⟶ 💡 They offer only what they are ready to give.
🌀 Confuse you, then shame you for being lost ⟶ vs ⟶ 🔍 They sit with you in clarity, even when you falter.
🎣 Say just enough to keep you hooked ⟶ vs ⟶ 🎶 Speak truth even when it risks losing you.
💰🎣🥴 Use money to seduce, manipulate, and control ⟶ vs ⟶ 🌿 Offer financial support with transparency, shared decision-making, and no strings attached.
🛑 Word to the wise: Using money to create dependency, distort power, or sway affection is financial abuse —a deeply manipulative form of control. It doesn’t always look aggressive; sometimes, it looks like extravagant gifts, covering bills, or "rescuing" someone during a vulnerable moment. But if the generosity is laced with expectations, guilt, or control, it’s not love—it’s leverage, it’s disrespect, and emotional manipulation.
🧠 Defend Your Mind and Integrity: You may not always see yourself as vulnerable during a manic or depressive episode—but manipulative people, especially those with narcissistic traits, can. They recognize mood dysregulation as an opportunity to insert control. If someone uses your mental health as leverage—especially through money—they are not protecting you. They are positioning themselves above you.
Someone who limits your access to money, sabotages your employment, or controls household spending is not being generous—they’re undermining your autonomy. This isn’t support—it’s subjugation.
💡 Clarity is protection: If someone controls the purse strings to control your soul, it’s not safety—it’s subjugation. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. Defend your mind. Defend your heart. Defend your integrity.
You may have ghosted someone who saw you clearly, because clarity can feel threatening when you’re still unsure of yourself. You might have avoided intimacy, sabotaged healthy love, or leapt from one connection to the next—a pattern sometimes called “monkey branching”—because the idea of being alone felt unbearable. Many individuals with bipolar disorder carry an insecure attachment style shaped by trauma or inconsistent care, and during times of dysregulation, instability can feel safer than stillness.
But deep down, you know—you are not meant for that. You feel it when you hug your children, when your soul wants to soften. You felt it when you met the one you pushed away. You manifested what you once begged for… only to numb yourself with the counterfeit.
These are the choices that lead to Tower Moments—those jarring emotional reckonings when avoidance, chaos, or impulse shatter stability and leave only truth behind. They feel catastrophic, but they often clear the way for authentic rebuilding—when the glitter fades, the games exhaust you, and the truth begins to surface. Clarity returns like a sunrise after blackout. And suddenly, all you want is to return to the one place you felt seen—not because it’s easy, but because it’s real. And what’s left is your truth—a quiet knowing that echoes when you're alone, when the depression creeps in, when rumination won't let go. It's the truth that survives even your shadow’s scrutiny.
Reaching Out: A Step-by-Step Guide to Rebuilding Trust
1. Self-Reflection
Are you acting from guilt, ego, lust, or a genuine desire for reconnection?
Are you ready to accept healthy boundaries? Are you ready to accept a ‘no’ as much as a ‘yes’?
2. Prepare Your Heart
Be ready to apologize—without conditions.
Be clear, gentle, and calm.
3. Reach Out (Gently)
“I know I hurt you. You didn’t deserve that. I am here, with no expectations, only the truth.”
🔎 Word to the wise: Be honest. If infidelity was the cause of the rupture, remember—your partner may have insight. It's possible they've gained perspective during the silence. Don't underestimate the intelligence or emotional clarity of someone who was left behind but not confused. Half-truths or manipulation (even if they once worked) will only sabotage any hope of reconnection now. Be transparent, or be quiet.
4. Don’t Try to Buy Their Love
No gifts. No grand gestures. Your effort and presence in the spirit of reconciliation—even if expressed with quiet, wordless moments of affection—is enough.
5. Honor Their Boundaries
If they say “not yet,” honor that. Mental health is always a two-way street. While your partner may not have bipolar disorder, relationships require shared regulation. Co-regulated healing includes quiet nights, long walks, cuddling, hand-holding, saunas, foot rubs, and space. Don’t just ask for safety—offer it.
6. Build Back Slowly
If they open the door, don’t rush. Show up. Be real. Listen. Trust is a mosaic—it doesn’t return all at once.
And if they don’t open the door right now? If the answer is silence, or a boundary you weren't expecting—let that, too, be sacred. Even reaching out was an act of healing. Because whether or not reconciliation unfolds, you just proved to yourself that love still lives in you. That you’re capable of humility, clarity, and courage. That you can rise, not just fall. And that matters.
When you move with integrity, you never walk away empty-handed. You walk forward—more whole, more honest, more ready. If the door doesn’t open, don’t chase it. Walk toward the one inside yourself. The one that never closed.
7. Close Gently, Not Grandly
Even if you're filled with emotion, don’t end with a performance. Say what’s true. Thank them for hearing you. Leave space for them to speak. Sometimes, the most powerful move isn’t a mic drop—it’s presence.
Renewal: Navigating Post-Reconciliation
And they lived happily ever after...Congratulations! You took a leap of faith and you and your twin flame or soulmate are rekindling and making up for lost time.
Perhaps make up sex was mind-blowing, but real life is not a Disney movie or a fairytale, and we must be mindful to guard ourselves against repeating impulsive cycles. Let's navigate this and keep future obstacles in full sight.
The heart may have guided the two of you back together—but from here on, the head and the heart must lead together, just the same, healer and the defender (the one who returns) must work hand in hand, lean on one another in the face of life's challenges, as well as life's abundance.
This is the realm of the Emperor now: logic, boundaries, structure, and maturity rule the day, but let your passion govern the night. The Emperor rules, but, preferably, clothed in a robe woven of discernment, emotional accountability, and schedule-keeping apps.
Hope brought you this far. But only wisdom can keep you both here.
Still—passion mattress. Oh! Pardon me. Passion...matters. Passion is the breath that keeps the fire of intimacy alive.
After reconciliation, the path forward must be forged not through replaying old wounds, but through rekindling the connection that first made you feel safe. Touch each other like you mean it. Speak your desires honestly, point, draw pictures, write notes, make an origami puzzle and leave your favorite kink inside-the key is communication.
Make time to play, to cook pancakes together, plan spontaneous escapes even if its to your nearest grocery or adult novelty boutique. When trauma quiets, pleasure teaches. Allow each embrace to sooth and heal your nervous system.
But understand this: the friends and family who knew the old you—who saw the manic spirals, depressive retreats, or impulsive sabotage—they may not recognize this new you. They may not trust your healed state, your renewed love, your bold direction. And some of them may try to pull you back into old roles.
That’s not betrayal. It’s misalignment. And misalignment must be addressed with boundaries.
But what happens when the ones misaligned with your growth aren’t strangers or surface-level acquaintances? What happens when they’re your oldest friends, your closest relatives, your ride-or-die circle who still sees you through the lens of your past?
This is where the real inner work begins—not in choosing between love and loyalty, but in realizing that true loyalty supports your evolution. It doesn’t hold you hostage to who you used to be. Growth can be uncomfortable for those still invested in the old version of you—especially if your healing threatens their unhealed parts, or if your new relationship reflects back what they’ve denied themselves.
And so, as you move toward a life of emotional balance, nervous system safety, and sacred connection, you may find yourself needing to navigate a new polarity—a rise in frequency that love called you to, but one that those you once resonated with can no longer walk in. Not because they are against you, but because your healing speaks a language their wounds haven’t yet learned to understand.
Support vs. Familiarity.
Because while your friends and family may feel familiar, that doesn’t always mean they’re supportive. Sometimes, the group you’ve always swum with becomes the tide you have to swim against. Sometimes, the “school of fish” you’ve outgrown becomes the classroom you’re no longer meant to stay in.
🙉 They dismiss your experience (“Everyone’s moody sometimes”)
⟶ vs ⟶
📘 They educate themselves about bipolar disorder to better support you.
🗣️ They ridicule or gossip about your partner
⟶ vs ⟶
🤝 They respect the relationship that’s bringing balance and healing into your life.
🚫 They undermine your boundaries
⟶ vs ⟶
🧭 They learn and honor your new needs, even if it challenges old dynamics.
🎭 They use guilt, manipulation, or exclusion to pull you back into old habits
⟶ vs ⟶
🌻 They accept your growth and allow space for your transformation.
And what’s left is your truth —a quiet knowing that echoes when you're alone, when the depression creeps in, when rumination won’t let go. It’s the truth that survives even your shadow’s scrutiny.
You are the most consistent person in your life. Trust your instincts. If your instincts—or your higher self—have manifested love in your life, it’s worth protecting. It’s worth fighting for. It’s worth building with. And it’s worth walking away from anything that would sabotage it.
🕊️ Emotional Fulfillment Is Nearby: A Sacred Return to Self, Love, and Calm
“Love is patient, love is kind, and it keeps no record of wrongs.”
To be loved while living with bipolar disorder is a blessing.
But to be loved well—by someone who chooses to stay, to study your storms, and to see beyond the masks you once wore to survive—is a sign. A sign that emotional fulfillment is no longer distant. It’s nearby. It’s already arriving.
This is not just a second chance. This is a sacred beginning.
You may have believed your silence diminished the bond. That your distance dimmed their devotion. But it didn’t. Your absence didn’t erase you—it revealed what remained. Their love didn’t leave. It waited. It watched. It whispered your name in every quiet moment. And now, it welcomes you home.
🌀 Union doesn’t mean perfection—it means recognition.
The kind that sees past your impulsivity. Past the shame you once wore like armor. Past the hypersexuality or ghosting or retreating into yourself when the world got too loud.
This kind of love doesn’t demand perfection. It invites healing. But that invitation must be met with willingness:
To let someone in.
To stop running from the one person who’s always wanted to stay.
To stop retreating into the lie that you're too much or not enough.
You are not too much.
You are not broken.
You are becoming.
🔁 Reframing Anxiety: From Internal Alarm to Inner Alignment
What if anxiety wasn’t the enemy—but the flare signal? What if it’s simply a sacred nudge that something meaningful is trying to emerge?
Reframing anxiety is one of the most radical acts of self-love:
💡 When you feel nervous—it might mean you're close to something important.
🔥 That pounding heart might not be fear—it could be suppressed excitement.
🧠 Your anxiety isn’t always a stop sign—sometimes it’s a recalibration tool.
Try this shift:
View anxiety as a signal of what needs love, not what needs suppression.
Channel its intensity into preparation and mindfulness.
Use it as feedback: “What’s this trying to teach me?” “What am I afraid to lose because it matters so much?”
With practice, anxiety becomes less of a blockade and more of a compass. A somatic GPS guiding you toward what needs your care—not your punishment.
🤲🏽 Healing Together, Not Alone
For a long time, your reflex was isolation. Emotional safety meant retreat. But that chapter is ending now.
Healing doesn’t have to be solitary.
You and your partner—your mirror, your map, your medicine—can walk this new path together.
Share pancakes and inside jokes.
Take goofy photos at sunset.
Fall asleep in each other’s arms with your phones turned off.
Dance in the kitchen barefoot and offbeat.
This is emotional regulation. This is parasympathetic safety.
It doesn’t always look clinical. Often, it looks like play. Like stillness. Like knowing someone will be there when you wake up.
Yes, the work of healing includes boundary setting, shadow work, and emotional literacy.
But it also includes learning how to laugh again. To receive. To let someone rub your back when you’re too tired to speak.
🌱 Welcome Home
So if you've found someone who loves you through it, not just around it—cherish them.
Let this be the relationship that redefines love as co-regulation , not control.
As emotional depth , not detachment.
As freedom , not fear.
And let your nervous system know:
You are safe now.
You are no longer alone.
Emotional fulfillment is not a fantasy—it is a felt sense, and it is nearby.
✨ May the love you’ve longed for be the love you now live in.
This isn’t a fairytale.
This is better.
This is presence.
This is peace.
This is home.
With resilience as your crown, and unconditional love finding two stable hearts as foundation the road forward is paved not just with love, but with boundaries, discernment, support, balance, forgiveness, passion, and truth.
