u/AcceptableYou5415

Long story short, I’m bipolar 2. I’m 37 now and had my son at 25 (2014) and my daughter at 28 (2017), before diagnosis. I knew I had depression and anxiety and I suffered from pretty severe postpartum depression. I was put on Prozac in 2019 which eventually led to pretty severe mania (because I kept taking it not knowing it was making things worse or that I was even manic). I was diagnosed right before I turned 34 and it made life make sense.
I went from not drinking much to a full blown alcoholic in less than a 2 year period.
My now ex-husband is also mentally ill and I have sole custody so I have been a single mom, but I have had significant help from my parents before I got my drinking under control.
Now I’m in therapy, sober for just over a year, and have my symptoms managed pretty well — but I don’t always have the energy to put effort into my appearance and I can’t hide my exhaustion. It’s not like this everyday but it is like this some days.
My kids go to a private school and it’s small. I feel like I am the center of the gossip within the teachers and parents. I am one of maybe 3 divorced parents in the entire school.
I know some of the judgement and gossip is real but I also feel like there are times I may be overly paranoid about it.
There was a recent incident where my son couldn’t go on an overnight field trip because I had an obligation that day and could not chaperone and his teacher was NOT understanding about it at all. The principal had to briefly get involved. It was a whole situation. I feel like it made the judgement worse.
Today my son was inducted into the honor society and I saw this teacher whisper talking to 2 other teachers and then they all looked in my direction. I turned to fully face them and that’s when they looked away. It makes me so uncomfortable.

I am so exhausted. I am mentally ill but self aware and have been working on myself and my issues for a while and I just want fucking peace. I’m tired of being judged the harshest during times where I’m actively trying to fully get my shit together. And I may never fully have it together but none of us are supposed to be perfect, right?
Just because I’m in leggings and a hoodie, and not in a $200 dress with a full face of makeup does not make me any less of a mother.

I don’t know where to begin but I’m gonna try.

My life circumstances summarized to the best of my ability:

- 37 year old only child of 67 year old parents.

- My dad is an alcoholic and emotionally abusive a good 85% of the time. He’s also had a double lung transplant and somehow got meaner AFTER his near death experience. My mom is severely depressed and he’s mistreated her for decades but she’s never left and has always felt responsible for him. He owns a business and all of his “friends” are employed by him — so he’s been surrounded by enablers for decades.

- I am a divorced mother of 2. Their dad lives an hour away and talks to them quite a bit but is not really involved with day to day care. We are both mentally ill and he has some other health issues as well. We get along and have gotten along for years (the first year post divorce was rough for both of us). My parents help me with my kids when they can but there’s been times my kids have lived there when I’ve struggled post-divorce.

- I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 at 34 during my first (out of 2) stay in rehab. At 31, I was put on Prozac — by 32, I started drinking heavily and acting unlike myself (what I now know was mania) and my then husband and I eventually divorced after 13 years together. I had entered a toxic relationship that ended up lasting 2 years and I was in the middle of this relationship when I was diagnosed (early 2022 - late 2023). I had periods of sobriety but would always relapse after a few weeks or months until last year (April 2025 was my last drink).

- Since December 2023, I developed a relationship with my current boyfriend who is Bipolar 1. We bonded over this for sure. It moved fast then went toxic. We both stopped drinking last year and adjusted to sobriety and we are now both in therapy both separately and together and with our kids (he has 2 kids as well).

What’s happening now:

I actually feel like I’m more internally balanced than I’ve ever been, even before my first Prozac-induced mania (I was severely depressed MOST of the time before this and what I now know were hypomanic episodes just looked and felt like extreme productivity).

But my boyfriend is going through a custody case that is very triggering for me at times. We have been given full custody, and his ex wife now has supervised visits and owes us child support. This is due to her own actions, but she’s one of those people who is never the problem in her mind (I fully believe she’s got an undiagnosed mental illness and she’s definitely an alcoholic with skewed priorities — not judging at all, it’s just pretty obvious she’s not fully in reality because of the things she says and does).

Before March, she had primary physical and they had joint legal.

The reason my boyfriend even filed was because she got caught driving with a suspended license, asked if the kids could stay with us because she couldn’t risk driving them to school, then preceded to basically move to Florida (where she drives around and constantly Snapchats herself lipsyncing while driving multiple times per day) - she was using child support to fund some of this because up until recently she had no job for months and kept getting kicked out of houses - and then twice she randomly popped into town and the kids said no when she asked if they wanted to go somewhere with her (they’re 12 and 10) she called the cops and said we were withholding the kids (the kids ended up staying with us by their choice when asked by the cops), she even texted my mom involving her during one of these incidents.

When my boyfriend and I first started dating, she sought out my ex boyfriend and my ex husband. My ex husband didn’t play along, but she did get stories from my ex boyfriend (who was still upset over the breakup at the time) about things that happened at the worst of my alcoholism when I was undiagnosed bipolar disorder— and she’s made videos and public posts mocking me. I have never even met this woman. She occasionally accuses my boyfriend of being me when he’s texting her (like I’m responding for him or something — which I don’t do).

Every few days she’s posting something (my boyfriend’s mom is monitoring her public pages for court — I don’t have social media but I see the posts) or texting something.

She’s also told the kids I’m a literal demon and their job is to save their dad.

It’s a weird spot to be in because I sympathize with addiction and undiagnosed mental illness because I’ve been through it BUT it still hurts deeply. It hurts me personally but also it’s hard to sit back and watch what she’s doing to the kids. Then I have these moments where I just wanna text her a fucking novel (but I don’t — I’ve only responded to 1 thing through text).

And we’re still having to juggle our day to day life and responsibilities and complications ON TOP of the custody drama.

I’m so tired and every now and then I break down (in private and not in a way that blows my life up — but I do go into my garage and cry a lot or endlessly vent to my mom or boyfriend).

I just want some consistent peace.

5/10 of my planets are Capricorn. 😅

Sun is Cap in 6th

Venus is Cap in 5th

Saturn is Cap in 5th

Uranus is Cap in 5th

Neptune is Cap in 5th

Apparently this is really rare.

I recently read that the Cap stellium of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune that people born in 1988-1989 have is extremely rare in and of itself - the last time a stellium between those planets happened was in the 1300s when they were all in Virgo.

Anyway — who else out here is fighting the good fight with heavy Capricorn energy?

ETA - I added information on what I’ve read about the Saturn, Uranus, Neptune stellium in the comments!