Daily Archives: June 3, 2013

Imagine that your ears are tuned and listening constantly for the drop of a pin in silence that signals impending explosion.

Imagine your eyes scanning the room, straining to see behind your head as you walk, even half-open in rare moments of sleep, unable to close for fear of missing the approach of the evil that comes with the dark.

Imagine your skin so thin and so sensitive that even the still air rubs like a rasp.  Clothes are agony.  Underwear is torture.  No, no, don’t touch me!

Alert, always alert, and jump at the least sound.  Don’t close that door.  No, don’t open it.  Move my chair, I want to be able to see that door.  No, I don’t want that window at my back.  Close those drapes.

Who cooked this food?  I don’t want it, then.

My bags are packed.  I can leave at any moment.  My taxi money is set aside.  The driver’s number is in my phone.  No, not any driver.  Only this one.  I know him.

The bags inside my brain are always packed.  I can leave at any moment.  Any time and anytime, if my eyes see me something, if my ears hear me something, if my skin crawls at the feel of the air.  Or if the air in my lungs chokes danger, I can be gone in the blink of an eye.

I am always on the move, never in one place for more than a moment or two, maybe less if you think about it.  There is no place to rest: I must stay alert, on guard, watch out: someone may approach, may get too close, may brush my skin and leave raw places and burns that turn into scars, scars that hold pain, scars that pile on top of scars.  Don’t touch me.

Tough?  You said I must be tough, then.  No.  The opposite.  The longer I travel, the more I am lost.  My bags are packed.  I can go at a moment’s notice.

“Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t.”  
―     Kay Redfield Jamison,     An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

I’m redesigning the blog so it may be down for a day or two.  Hopefully I’ll be able to stay in action with no down time.

I told the reproductive endocrinologist about the heart palpitations and he waved them off. My Psych Nurse didn’t; she ordered …

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Well, it was a full cyclothymic week. Ran the entire gamut of moods in six days. Steady, lifting, UP, UP, slipping, sliding, SPLAT, inching up, level, irritable, angry, down, SPLAT…

And after a three  hour nap…

I am coming back up again.

Prior to the nap, thanks to getting my curse, and my daughter’s irritating pathological lying little friend Damiana, I was drained. I had cramps today, so of course, like sharks in the water, the kids sensed it would be an excellent time to test me and sass me. NOT wise, little ones. I packed a bite today. More snark and growl than true meanness, but still, it made me feel shitty. And yet, how could I not be pissy when I feel like absolutely crap and all they do is poke the bear?  Plus, I have run the mood gauntlet today, never reaching a manic or even happy or content high, but going from ok, to not okay, to really not okay, to GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME BEFORE I EAT YOUR SOUL! Good times. NOT.

But the nap recharged me and I leapt up and moved furniture to clean the carpet behind the couch. I am not sure why this felt so crucial but it did and I am learning not to argue with my gut. Just like that Damiana. I kept asking myself if I was vilifying her because I am just a bitch. But today she came in and told me my kid wanted a drink, grabbed the cup, and I watched out the window when she went outside and took a sip herself, then handed it to my kid, who didn’t want it. Damiana proceeded to drink it herself. My kid didn’t want a drink, she did. And considering by that point, I’d already given her about five dollars worth of food and drinks, I was kind of irked. I knew that kid was a liar. Still, she is just a kid. A kid with poor manners who left in a snit tonight when I told her she needed to help Spook clean up the mess they’d made.

Devil spawn.

Earlier, I was sitting here, turning over the prospect of having to return to the shop and it just really made me livid. I get my equilibrium back, well sort of, it’s on the edge of a cliff but steady…now I have to go back to that place and it will make everything teeter and fall off the damn cliff. I think tomorrow I will plead cramps. Men usually don’t pry if you plead female stuff. Wussies. Of course, the silent ones are better than the ones who make jokes or actually treat a woman like she should go live in a cave for a few days. I know some real princes.

Gah, what is wrong with me? I am stronger than this.

But I can’t seem to get past this stumbling block. I know the obvious solution is to just remove myself from the vortex of suck that is R and his obsession with busted shit. But if I do, then what? No one will hire me. Not that any jobs are available, not for someone with my history. At least with the shop, I am doing something. Besides, he said it was okay if I just want to come in a couple of days a week. Hopefully he will have the shop ape to amuse him. Because in my current state, he won’t want me around anyway. I am not pleasant during curse week. But then, if a man was in pain and being held hostage by nasty hormones, it would be a different story. Women are bitches, men are just men.

blah. Now my kid has wakened. I will probably be up til 2 am.

But it’s okay. My mood is better, I am calmer. And that demon spawn is not here. I can handle my own spawn. Well, sometimes, when she doesn’t have my in the closet crying “Mommy’s not here!” I’ve actually never done that, but the urge is huge sometimes.

Bygones.

Time to board the cyclothymia train all over again. Who knows, maybe I will cycle upward. I could do with a nice hypo manic spell again. I could live in hypomania forever.

Stupid bipolar two though, nooo, gotta be depressed more than up.

Can’t even have a fun mental disorder.