I have been through the bipolar ringer the last few days. Up, down, all around. Withdrawing, low energy, no desire to do anything. Then back up we go, high functioning and half manic. Some days the anxiety is crippling, other days it’s like a background hum.
The seasonal depression is coming, like it or not. The temp went from mid 90’s to “cold enough to turn the furnace on” in the space of a week. I am reeling big time.
I need to call the shrink because they didn’t set me up for three months and I told that nurse the seasonal would come. With cyclothymia, things shift that fast. It’s like a roller coaster because it never stops speeding around the tracks, up a steep incline, down low, pulling back into the station straight.
Maddening.
I did something yesterday I’ve wanted to do every year for 3 years but could never work beyond the anxiety and agorophobic tendencies. I took my kid to a petting zoo that comes to town once a year. Bex actually left the house and went with. My kid was interested all of 5 seconds but I enjoyed it immensely. Llamas, a camel, goats, a black lion, a white bengal tiger…
It seems like such a silly thing and yet for me, it took a lot of moxie and courage to put myself out there that way. Even if something is fun for me, climbing the mountain of anxiety to get to it is insurmountable at times.
I am glad I did it.
We also cleaned house for Mrs. R, hit yard sales, went to R’s house last night for pizza and drinks. His middle daughter was down with her 3 week old son and Mrs. R handed him to me and introduced me as Aunt Niki. (Swear I almost teared up.)The baby had been awake most of the day and ended up falling asleep in my arms. I miss having an infant. My kid was a breeze as an infant. Now she is so needy and demanding and doesn’t sleep through the night, it makes the newborn period look like even more of a joy.
It’s bizarre to run so low a few days, then come back up. And I am battling making the call to the shrink because just last month I really was feeling good. The seasonal affect doesn’t care. The doctor said me doing so well made her day and I am reluctant to cave in and call lest I disappoint her. Which it’s not my job to please her, I have an illness and need treatment. It is that simply. But lately with her tossing out “borderline personality disorder” I have become increasingly uncomfortable with her. Not because I can’t face my own flaws, I can see some borderline traits in myself. But they ebb and flow with the mood cycles so I don’t think it’s mere personality flaws. I mean, my cat died, my car blew up, all in the same week, and I wasn’t trying to kill myself.
Then the weather changes and suddenly my downward spiral begins.
I’ve cried 4 or 5 times in the last week for no real reason. I have become less interested in hygiene and appearance. I don’t want to get out of the bed come morning. I batcave earlier and earlier every night, feeling this tug away from others and into myself. All hallmarks of depression. And last year, the other shrink took me off my anti dep in August and by September, seasonal slammed into me like a speeding bus. I don’t want it to get to that point, it’s too hard to climb back out of the abyss.
I am going to have to make that dreaded call soon to save myself even if it means letting the shrink down and having to hear that it’s my personality at fault. I dispute that vehemently.
For today…I vegetate. IT is much deserved and has been earned.
Some pics I took yesterday as a closer.
(yeah, i did the llama with a hat thing, ‘cos it’s funny…”but Carl…that kills people!”)
