Daily Archives: December 11, 2014

Really hate this disease/illness/hell today. My adrenalin spikes are so high that when they happen, they make me behave in an extreme and obsessive and insane way. My friends, even ones who know I have this illness, find it extremely difficult to deal with me and understand why I am behaving this way. I don’t blame them, who wants a rash, obsessed, crazy person around. I mean when a friend says “You’re doing it again. Please settle down a little” it is a wake up call, and it is embarrassing beyond belief… And not only that, am I now supposed to contact this friend again? The issue that I was going on and on about is drowned in this manicky behavior and never gets addressed. It seems to be happening more this year than in the past years… Lithium, Seroquel, whatever, it isn’t controlling this manicky aspect of my illness. And then I feel like absolute crap that I behaved like a lunatic again. WTF am I supposed to do? Call my psychiatrist so he can add on a 3rd medication with triple the awful side effects? Oh My God. Leave me the eff alone, leave my brain alone. Why do I have to live in this hell? This hell of embarrassment and chagrin and fear? Fear because I am so afraid all my friends will leave me, all my family will leave me because of my strange, obsessed, extreme behavior.  Tis the season, tis the season alright, of being as annoying, extreme, and frightening as I can be. Ho ho ho.

Is there not a positive way to look at this too? That a friend realized I was acting manicky and cared enough to check me thereby stopping me in my manic tracks? That means I have good, I mean GOOD friends. My friends, even though I am acting really annoying, recognize that that’s not me and give me a warning. Who could ask for better friends?

Even though I have this disease, I have friends and family who look out for me and let me know when I am behaving in a manicky way, so that I recognize what I am doing and stop. Ok, lets go with this version, where everyone is helping me overcome my illness’ symptoms and somehow banish, banish, banish the fear.

And if you readers have no idea what I am talking about, consider yourselves very lucky.

We went on that next morning, and I somehow stumbled through the day.  I didn’t know what was going on with Bob until that night after we put the kids to bed.  He sat me down and started talking.  He said he didn’t understand why he had acted the way he had last night except that he must have just been in shock.  He was now very angry and very upset.  He said he didn’t know if he could forgive me.

On and on he vented, telling me that he had talked to his dad, who had said he should divorce me—and he wondered if his dad had the right idea.  For the first time since I had been diagnosed, I was afraid for my marriage.  I just listened to him talk and tried to reassure him as best I could.

We went several months in this way.  Bob became very paranoid and controlling.  I had to report to him every time I left the house, even to pick up Rachel from school.  We talked in between classes when school started up again.  I tried to be the kind of wife he wouldn’t want to leave, stressing myself over everything in the house from meals to laundry to our sex life.  We went to a counseling session with our pastor, which didn’t seem to do Bob any good.  We went to see my counselor once but didn’t seem to make any headway there, either.  But every few weeks, we would sit down and discuss our future.

It got so bad that I actually started making plans for what I would do if Bob divorced me.  I decided I would move back to Starkville and try to work for Mississippi State University, doing what I was doing at my current job for them.  I went so far as to call the current head of the English Department and get information about what papers they would need from me in order to hire me on a part-time basis and called an apartment complex there to see what the rent on a one-bedroom apartment would be if I had to leave home.

But I finally got the courage to sit Bob down and explain to him that I would not give him a divorce even if he left me.  I said I had no intentions of leaving him for anyone.  I said I would not sign papers for an irreconcilable differences divorce because I believed in our marriage and I didn’t want to do that to the kids.  I told him he didn’t have grounds for a divorce under Mississippi law and would likely be laughed out of court if he did try to get one.  That ended any more talk about it, but we still had a long way to go to build trust.

So the other day I was looking for something in my Mum’s study. And I came across this.

I may have laughed until I nearly threw up. But once I stopped, I gotta say, it was a bit of a shock. I knew these kind of things existed. You just never expect it to be in your family. 

But then I thought…hey…who am I to judge? Christmas time is the one time of the year where I feel strangely compelled to dress up my dog and take ridiculous photos. It is my Christmas tradition. Piss off the dog. Laugh at the photos. (Relax. No animals are harmed. Monsiour Bark-a-lot is tortured for all of 30 seconds and then given a bone for his troubles). Truth be told I’d probably dress Master D up as well if he was still young enough accept all clothes choices I didn’t give him. Hell, sometimes I even dress myself up. But hey, we won’t go into that. Back to the matter at hand. Dogs.

Sadly, the Monsiour’s traditional reindeer horns (ok. ANTLERS, as Master D always has to correct me) had gone missing. So I lent him my Christmas hat which I thought was exceedingly generous seeing as he probably has fleas, and I probably don’t.

As always, as soon as I put the hat on him he started getting all wild. The situation was not helped by both my Mum’s dogs barking at him and trying to attack him, clearly saying “What the hell, man! Red is NOT your colour!” So, all I got was this photo, where it looks like I’m the handler of some kind of rabid beast with a vaguely disproportionate tail size (Monsiour bark-a-lot would now like to inform you that his tail is both of adequate size and functionality).

So I asked again nicely. And he was all “Dude…do I HAVE to? This happens every year!”

And I was like “Seriously. Last week during a family dinner you ran away. I chased you for fifteen minutes around the street, in a dress, in full view of our neighbours who I only ever seem to converse with in passing while I am chasing you. You tried to get into someone else’s house. You peed on my neighbours letterbox. It was only when I threw my hands in the air and gave up that you finally returned. Then you barked at the front door to be let in, took a dump on the doorstep and ran off again. You owe me one, buddy. Big time.”

So he let me take the photo. Another happy Christmas snap.

I hate you.

But I didn’t stop there. A few days later at Kmart I saw a doggy elf suit for only $5. Which I thought was a bargain, because let’s face it, you can’t put a price on doggy elf suits.

I tried it on, and he actually seemed to kind of like it. He kept proudly stretching with this kind of “come hither” expression on his face. Maybe elf costumes are like the dog version of “suiting up”. So I managed to get this photo of him, which, if you could see under his killer eyebrows, you would notice him staring serenely into middle distance.

Of course I did find him later trying to maul the costume in a particularly vicious manner. So who knows what dogs think.

Happy Holidays from the slightly eccentric Finding My Sunshine family!

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/bipolar-disorder-ellen-forney_n_5823138.html.

About 2.6 percent of American adults — nearly 6 million people — have bipolar disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). But the disease, characterized by significant and severe mood changes, is still dangerously misunderstood.

Bipolar disorder is vastly different from the normal ups and downs of everyday life, but many have co-opted the term to refer to any old change in thoughts or feelings. The mood swings in someone with bipolar disorder, sometimes also called manic depression, can damage relationships and hurt job performance. It has been estimated that anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of people with bipolar disorder attempt suicide at least once.

Artist Ellen Forney detailed her diagnosis with bipolar disorder in the graphic memoir Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and  Me. Forney previously shared her story with us, specifically detailing how her bipolar disorder has affected her creative work.

Below are some poignant pages from the memoir, the memoir, along with unique commentary into how these panels came to be and what they mean to Forney, in her own words.