the extra person

I feel as though there's an extra person in our house.  His name is Bipolar and I'll refer to him as B.P.  No one invited him to live with us.  No one asked him over for a visit.  He just moved in.  I suppose he came along when we began our life together as a married couple.  I just didn't recognize his presence then.

B.P. likes to wake my husband in the middle of the night.  He appears in his dreams, although he's not recognizable as a person, simply a presence.  B.P. sometimes shows up at meal time.  He often comes downstairs with my husband in the morning, yet sometimes he seems to stay in the bedroom.  He likes to make himself known when it's cold and dreary.  Maybe he summers somewhere else.

B.P. is almost like a ghost haunting our house.

B.P. is attracted to the people in our lives who inflict the most pain.  Those that hurt us seem to be the ones he likes to be around or talk about or remind us of.

Living with B.P. is at times like living with a grandparent you cannot leave alone at night.  He ties us down.  There are limitations to what we can do, where we can go, who can come over.  At least that's how it seems.  To me.   

I long to throw a going away party for B.P.  I'd like to send him packing.  I'd like to wake up one morning to find him gone.  I wouldn't mind driving him out in the middle of nowhere and leaving him.  But I know he'd find his way back.