This was always one of my favorite scenes from Nightmare on Elm Street 3, where Freddy used the kid’s veins to make him into a marionette.
Those ripped out frayed nerves and veins and arteries are how I am feeling today. Every noise has me on edge. My kid is driving me nuts. The closer it gets to time for the birthday party, the worse it gets. Plus my dad is supposed to be stopping by which is an every weekend sort of fraying of the nerves because he can never give a time he will be here, it’s just always when he gets around to it which kind of amounts to my life being put on hold and relaxation a joke.
I used this picture not to be morbid or gross or broadcast that I am a fan of cheesy 80′s horror flicks.
It accurately depicts how I view my disorders. Like something else is in control, influencing my thoughts and behaviors, and I am but a puppet with my strings being pulled. Some say this is a cop out but altered mental status is no joke. It is not simply “bad personality.”
Sometimes my moods get black and my anger soars. I hate people and I can find ten reasons that it’s all consuming anger.
Mood shift and that same person can become an object of my affection or someone I want to spend time with.
The Donor spent a lot of time trying to convince me this is just my personality. I have been in therapy and getting shrunk for so long, though, and have asked point blank if any of things are manifestations of like borderline disorder. I am told that these are staples of bipolar, depression, and anxiety/panic disorder. So I do NOT believe this is simply a mercurial personality.
I believe when my moods shift, when I cycle, when my thinking is distorted by panic and paranoia, I do become quite a different person. And it can all turn on a dime. People have witnessed just how quickly it can happen. The shrinks tell me it does not happen this way with bipolar, but being cyclothymic and shrinks not really having much experience with this form of bipolar…I tend to disagree with them as I am living proof it does happen exactly that way and I have witnesses who have seen it.
Then there is the panic and anxiety, a constant in my life, some days manageable, some days unbearable.
Today…
My heart is pounding. Every noise has me jumping and my ears cringing. My kid keeps letting out blood curdling screams every time I say the word no. “No, don’t strangle the cat.” “No, don’t play with the dvds.” “No, you cannot throw things at me and get away with it.” So I am quadrupled on tictacopin and it’s doing shit.
I feel like a rubber band pulled so tight I could snap if one more iota of pressure is placed on me.
I feel like I am hanging on by a rope so old and frayed that the last piece is threatening to give way.
I feel like every nerve ending is on fire and sticking out of my flesh and subject to being poked with every noise.
I am hoping I can keep it together for the party, but as I have become crampy and teary it indicates pms has come on and this coupled with my panic…It could not be a good thing.
It sucks because aside from the distorted thought caused by the anxiety, The cymbalta is actually helping with my mood. That combined with the end of seasonal affect disorder. Were she to put me back on xanax, I am betting I could get a good six,. seven month stretch of not wanting to die, until the next seasonal affective bout.
All my hopes hinge on a doctor being willing to listen and put aside her own bias, though. And the fact she keeps canceling my appointments does not give me hope that my well being is of particular concern to her.
For once, I am actually looking forward to seeing the counselor Monday afternoon. Because things have just gotten so out of control, my thoughts so far askew, that my functionality has taken a severe nosedive and people are taking note of my descent from stability to flying off the handle.
It makes me wonder if I will ever be more than my disorder to people. If they really cared, couldn’t they try to look beneath it all and see there is good inside me? I am always lectured on accepting the faults of others and yet I have a mental illness no one can seem to accept.
It’s almost comical in how idiotic it is.
