Category Archives: Read Along

It’s 5:14 am. I woke at 2 am. I have swept, vacuumed, put a load of wash in, done dishes…Oh, yes the hypomania is highly useful. Unfortunately, I have had this thing my whole life where for some reason, regardless of amount of sleep or food or whatever, I am extremely nauseous between the hours of 4 am and 6 am. I can’t understand or explain it, but it has been a constant in my life. Which made working early shifts living hell, trying not to barf on everyone. Such lovely pictures my words paint…

Thursday was uneventful. Saw the counselor. She was in good spirits, which meant she was a quarter useful and comforting. Though she seems to think the more I expose myself to panic inducing situations the better it will get. I beg to differ simply because I have been doing it my whole life and it never gets easier. It is always horrible, embarrassing, and even though I know I won’t die, it feels like I will, so you can throw absolute terror into the mix.

Speaking of terror…I unplugged the laptop to vacuum, forgot about it, and it died. For a half hour, I scrambled and panicked trying to get it back up and running and kept getting error messages about how the problem could not be repaired. Talk about a freak out. My entire existence revolves around my kid and this computer. But I let it charge for an hour and it’s back. Now I need to stick to my resolution to back all my stuff up. Some of it is on an external but not all. This morning’s scare drove the point home. I need to do that this weekend.

I want to go back to bed but I tried that and the scumbag brain is not on board. Round and round it goes, being an asshole, and every time I manage to use all my little psych tricks to get it slowed down…It presents some new issue I need to completely obsess about…Irritating. But I gotta be up in two hours anyway, maybe earlier, my kid is my alarm clock and she’s about as consistent as the weather in the midwest has been this year.

I have come to the conclusion…People are jerks. Denial laden self absorbed jerks. I base this on the fact that everyone around me is worried about my mood swings AS IT PERTAINS TO THEM HAVING TO DEAL WITH IT. Otherwise, they could not care less if I want to perform a self appendectomy with a chainsaw AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT IMPACT THEM. I wish this was paranoia or melodrama because the truth sucks. I have people around me. But I am still totally alone. The bipolar sets me so far apart and the people I know are so damned shallow, it’s like I will forever be the square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Which is both cool and depressing. Cool because I have always been non conformist. Depressing because ya know, I could use one good friend who gets that I have a disorder, I do not just switch moods to make people around me uncomfortable.

I tried to talk to R several times this week. He doesn’t care. If anything, he’s using my current bout of mood swings to point out that I am not that different than I used to be, which is why he dumped me. Yeah, because being mentally ill is totally grounds for not standing by someone you claim to love. The excuses and self delusion of the people around me make me want to projectile vomit. I have tried to be understanding. I have tried to atone for my sins. I have tried and tried and changed so many things…But the one thing that bothers everyone the most is the one thing I cannot control.

So alone it shall be, because it is better than kissing their asses. They can’t handle me at my worst, they don’t deserve me at my best. Fuck ‘em.

Now…what to do with this hypomanic energy…God, if I could just feel this way all the time…Not too happy, not too sad, but energetic and motivated.

But the only consistency about mental illness is that even with the consistency of the cycles…It’s all still a clusterfuck.

I worry. I fret, I fear, I agonize, I stress, and I get anxious. For the last several days, however, I’ve been dealing with something I’ve never felt before – impending doom. I don’t know where’s it’s coming from. I don’t know why I’m feeling it. But it’s there, looming over me ready to strike.

I have a lot going on these days. I’ve overloaded myself by taking on too much at church. I have finals coming up in 1 1/2 weeks. I’m trying to determine when I’ll be able to visit my daughter this summer. Even worse, I don’t know how I’ll pay for the trip. I’m fretting over what classes to take coming up in the Fall semester.

My list goes on. All of these things are creating a lot of anxiety in my life right now. I don’t like to feel so anxious, but I’m use to it. This impending doom feeling is not something I’m use to.

I don’t believe in psychic ability, so you’d think I could shrug it off, but I can’t. What I’m feeling feels real. It’s up there looking down on me and it’s going to turn my world into a living hell.

There’s not much I can do about this feeling I’m feeling. The only thing I know I can do is hunker down and wait for whatever it is to happen. Logically, I know all will remain right with the world and this feeling of doom will pass. I don’t know when, but I’ll be damn grateful when it finally does.

I had such a good mood day. I dressed well, I presented well to the shrink, though I did  mention the rapid cycling mood swings. We are trying an increase in Lamictal but next month she is “re-evalutating” me, which means she wants to change the Lamictal to one of the heavier duty mood stabilizers which scares the fuck out of me. The side effects alone are frightening enough but if they work even less than the Lamictal is…But doctors don’t understand this because they don’t have to live with the fall out from side effects and meds not working. To them, you’re being immovable or not keeping an open mind. It’s never occurred to them you’re TERRIFIED. The devil you know is better than the one you don’t and all of that…It was not a bad appointment though she did want me weighed and that never makes me feel good. EVER. But on the plus side, I am down a pound and a half from last time they weighed me. At least I’m not gaining weight. I suspect once the mental stuff is straightened though, I WILL get the “lose weight” lecture. Doctors seem preprogrammed to blame everything on weight these days. Knife in your skull? LOSE WEIGHT!  Brain syphillis? LOSE WEIGHT.

Eh, fuck you.

It was very hot today, which was very uncomfortable for me. My temp gauge has been broken for awhile now, causing me to be burning up, freezing cold, never comfortable, ever. Rather irritating and frustrating. (Maybe early menopause setting in?) Not to mention people now think I am some sort of princess. (This bed is too hard…This bed is too soft…This bed is just right…Wait, there’s a lump in it…) I can’t help it. I try to keep my complaining minimal but if I am shivering or sweating bullets, it’s sort of something people notice. And if you  alternate amongst the varying temps, well, then you’re just a whiny little princess who can’t be made happy.

Eh, fuck you.

Shop wasn’t busy or dead. Stuff came in, went out, phone rang. I was surprisingly well equipped to deal today. Not one rubber band snap.

THEN I got home. And Spook’s little friend came over. And it was sweltering hot outside with no shade so I was baking in  the sun watching the kids and her friend just kept saying my name every ten seconds and she wanted food and she was thirsty, and…I felt like my brain was going to implode. In all fairness, she’s been here six straight nights. I need a fucking break. Badly.

Then R calls and wants me to bring the car by so he can check out the brakes, which I say seem to be failing. But he and his son in law both drive the car and say the brakes are perfect. (And let me tell you, having other people drive my car did not make me comfortable. R I don’t mind, but that snotty son in law of his who teaches auto shop yet can barely fix a fucking a bottle for his baby…Not so much.) Of course, R’s wife, Mrs. Picky was there and doing yard work and she basically took charge of my kid. R sent me out in his rental car to get more beer for him. For a soccer mom mobile, it’s actually pretty posh aside from being a bitch to see to back up. I could do with an SUV easily. But then, I have always liked driving bigger cars whereas he hasn’t. I can see how going from a two seater to that huge thing bothers him. But the leather seats just wrap around you and it’s…posh. Not the best looking SUV I’ve ever seen, kinda space ship-y but…

So while I was gone Spook helped Mrs Picky with the yard work…And I asked if my kid behaved and she snottily said, “She minded me fine.” I could be paranoid. I could be hypersensitive. But I am pretty sure that was a shot at how my kid does not mind me half the time. Okay, so when I got there, I was pretty stressed out. I assumed it was the neighbor kid and the heat but then when things started getting spinny…It hit me I hadn’t had a Xanax in nearly 20 hours. So no doubt I seemed psycho flaky and they probably thought someone needed to not freak out. Like stressed out mommy is somehow unacceptable.

The kicker came when his friend Mark and his wife, Mrs Even Pickier, showed up and blocked me in the drive (unless I wanted to back out over a ditch, which I did not.) She, too, got her shots in when my kid didn’t say please or thank you. Well, I try, I try very hard, but ya know what? The kid is three and I pick my battles. So if she says “Give me a drink” without a please once in awhile, I doubt the world will end. Between Mrs Picky and Mrs Pickier, though, I fled the place feeling like an utter failure as a mom. I was actually in tears. And the anger, oh, the blessed anger…And the Xanax withdrawal. And backing out, I nearly ended up in the ditch because my night vision is utter shit.

Yes, the suckiest ending to an otherwise okay day.

I don’t know if I was due for a mood crash or if it was the lack of xanax or being hypersensitive and feeling criticized…But it sucked. I admit I don’t take destructive criticism well. Who does? As a writer, I had to learn the difference. As a female, I also had to learn the sneaky ways other women sneak in their judgmental little digs when you don’t meet their standards. Could they have just been trying to be helpful? Sure. I doubt it though. I way they both treat their husbands speaks volumes for me.

And it hit me…Is that how I am toward guys? I’ve always had guy friends and it was always a banter type deal. Is it possible my banter is taken seriously and I am actually offending guys? And if so, why the fuck do these people not stand up for themselves? I have boundary issues, I admit that freely. If I have crossed a line, sometimes it is necessary to tell me because my social skills are so lacking, I don’t always know. So now I am flogging myself in the event my humor has caused someone to feel bad when that was not the intention at all.

Bloody hell.

I am lost when it comes to dealing with other people.

And maybe that’s why my kid doesn’t respect me or appreciate me or mind me. Maybe I am too pathetic. Because she seems to do fine for every other adult out there. Am I too laid back as a mom? I honestly don’t think I am. I am trying to teach her right from wrong, manners, consideration for others, et al. But since children aren’t allowed a childhood anymore and must apply for Mensa by age 5, I guess my kid is lacking intellectually. I stand by my decision to be unconventional and not push her too hard, though. I want her to be happy, let Mensa recruit other people’s little geniuses. I am surrounded by all these over achieving persnickety people and it’s insidious the way the doubt creeps in when you’re insecure in the first place.

But Mrs Picky…has a 22 year old son with a $20,000 truck who earns $15 an hour and she still pays his cell phone bill, so I’m not sure she is the perfect parent template she thinks she is.

And Mrs Even Pickier…NO ONE except her husband can stand her, so I probably shouldn’t be too concerned with her opinions. God himself couldn’t meet them.

So what exactly is the bug that crawled up my butt?

I get soo scared they will take my kid from me. Because she doesn’t mind me half the time. Because I am at a loss for what to do that is politically correct these days. Because I know when my child is manipulating yet these other people haven’t got a clue and cater to her little mind games because they somehow think I am denying her. Mrs. Picky kept giving her apple juice boxes even when I said no, you can drink water. She was going to give her a third one and I put my foot down there. Three juice boxes in under an hour? NO. Apple juice gives the kid massive runs. Ya know what the woman said to my kid? “Mommy says No, I have to assume she thinks it’s best.” I don’t THINK it’s best, I know it, because I have been with the child every single day for four years.

I swear Spook does it on purpose. Any time there is an audience, suddenly she is hungry (just ate), thirsty (Just drank a gallon of water) is hot (it’s 2o degrees out) is cold (it’s 90 degrees out) wants to stay outside (bugs are eating mommy alive but who cares) wants to go inside (because there are different toys to play with.) It has started to feel like being set up for public failure. I know she’s just a kid, but she has this manipulation gig down pat. And these people who know fuck all and may mean well…don’t have a clue, they just feed it endlessly and what I say doesn’t seem to matter because I am mean mommy.

I am glad I see the counselor tomorrow. It will probably be a shit appointment but still…I need to vent. R is no good to talk to. I wouldn’t dream of asking any of these other people for advice or a sympathetic shoulder. About the only people I can truly trust to talk to about any of my problems are Becca and my stepmonster.

But I won’t.

Because I have on the big girl panties and I just need to suck it up, grow a spine, and stop letting these insidious little bitches invade my mind. I am a good mom. I don’t always get it right, my kid is not perfect, but I do okay. She’s clothed, clean, fed, happy…Let her attend etiquette classes and obtain her master’s degree in Kindergarten, for fuck’s sake.

Eh, fuck you.

Yeah, that’s where I am right now. I am in no mood to go to the shop tomorrow. Because I now know why he is a functional alcoholic. If I had to go home to that every night, and even be around friends’ wives who are the same, I would drink too. I would never stop drinking. The difference is, he chose this life, he is fine with it.

I am not.

And I think it is time to start looking into computer courses or something to get the fuck out of that place and away from all his negative female clan.

Maybe the computers won’t take it personally when I have mood swings and panic attacks.

Because this is something people will never grasp.

Crash, crash…Eh,fuck you, mood swing, fuck you insecurity, and fuck you, you holier than thou picky elitist women who can’t mind your own business and let me parent my kid the way I see fit even if it doesn’t suit you.

Why do I let them get to me?

That’s the $64,o00 question.

I woke up at 5:30 today, to be intentional about writing and getting some things accomplished. I went to bed at 9:00 last night to make sure I would get up early today and not struggle with potentially less sleep. I was up for about forty minutes and all I could do was OBSESS about how much I’d like to still be in bed. Ridiculous. I had my coffee and my beautiful flower arrangement from Mother’s Day sitting in front of me, next to my laptop. The kids were asleep and the husband was occupied. I was alone. It was quiet. And I was obsessing about sleeping. Not just wishing I was still in bed, or thinking how nice and cozy my bed would be. I was OBSESSING about sleep. OBSESSING and couldn’t get it out of my head and starting-to-turn-into-anxiety-OBSESSING. How dumb. I got almost nine hours of sleep last night. Geez.

Do you ever do that? I’m sure, if you’re bipolar, you do. These obsessive thoughts are sometimes more interesting, but sometimes…not so much.

In the past, before I found the right cocktail of medication to stabilize me, I obsessed a lot. There was a lot of anxiety. I still have obsessive thinking and anxiety now (clearly), but have learned to deal with it better over the eleven years since my diagnosis. But something I’ve learned to truly help is trying to IDENTIFY the source of the anxiety. Sometimes, my anxiety is just “chemical.” It’s the disorder. But in actuality, even though it’s “just” the disorder, it was likely triggered by something. If I can figure out what triggered it and work though that issue, it helps dissolve the anxious thoughts and feelings. It’s not foolproof, but it really helps.

Anxiety was once described to me as worry about something from the past—which I cannot change. Or worry about something that might (or might not) happen in the future. Also, something I can’t change OR control! Living in the present, day-to-day, sometimes hour-by-hour is where my focus has to be. We cannot help what’s already happened or what is still to come, so for my mental health I have to stop!

Let’s talk about guilt. Guilt and anxiety— two things I’ve always struggled with. In my teenage years, it was real guilt. I did something stupid and felt terrible for embarrassing actions. But often, it’s actually “false-guilt.” As in, I didn’t do something wrong, but I have this nagging horrible feeling that something is not right. A feeling of unease, of guilt. It’s hard to explain perhaps if you’ve never felt it. But we all know what guilt feels like, right? Well, imagine that uncomfortable feeling, only, you didn’t do anything to feel guilty about. Sometimes with guilt it’s hard to know the difference between real guilt for something I’ve done, and false guilt, well, just BECAUSE of the disorder and my chemicals being all out of whack.

Something specific that helps me with the feelings of false guilt are the same exercises that help with anxiety. False guilt and anxiety often go hand-in-hand in my experience, or at least the “symptom” (the uneasy feeling—for lack of better description) can be similar. Although, I think anxiety is often harder to get to settle down. Taking a step back, so to speak, taking anywhere from three to ten deep breaths, closing my eyes and calmly processing in my head what I may OR MAY NOT have guilt (or anxiety) over. The very best thing I can do is to write things down. Bullet points or a numbered list to organize my thoughts and boom! Either the answer is there, that I have real guilt, or I don’t. Once I clearly IDENTIFY that the problem is CHEMICAL and due to the disorder, it really does help ease the pain of the false guilt. (Especially, if I can identify what triggered it, that really helps ease the feeling). Talking it out with a friend or a family member who understands too. But I feel like it’s crucial to be able to help yourself, especially in cases where you cannot seek out some one else.

Prayer is always a winner too. I figure, if I’m trying to contact someone to talk something out, but I can’t reach whoever it is…that’s God saying; “I’m right here. Talk to me.”

Dreaming of Sleep,

Mrs Bipolarity