One Of My Favorite "Break Up" Songs

I am still having a bit of difficulty getting my subconscious to get over my last relationship which pretty much fucked my whole self-image, and what I expect from a relationship. Now it is seeping into my conscious. Not good. I am not used to being or feeling loved. That was not what mt marriage was about. I was there to cook, clean, and ignore my husband’s little habit. Meanwhile, he thinks our divorce was mutual and blames me for having bipolar disorder which is his excuse for why it didn’t work. No, it was not my having bipolar disorder; it was his propensity for spending entire days and sometimes nights watching weird internet porn. This is a habit he continues to this day. That’s why I divorced him. He was abusive emotionally and mentally, and I am pretty sure has attachment disorder. 

So anyway, one of my favorite songs about being the rebound relationship: Everclear “Santa Monica”

I Have A New Tattoo ~ Yea!

About a week ago a good friend of mine forwarded an article to me she had read, and thought I might be interested in. She knows about the struggle I have just to make it through a day without wanting to just give up. Believe me, I have tried to give up…..nearly 11 times that I can remember, and many others I do not remember. I was 12 when I was diagnosed with Major Depression…..it also happened to be the age that I first tried to commit suicide. The article my friend forwarded to me was about Project Semi-Colon. I had heard of the organization through the AGORA crisis center at UNM, and I had seen several of these tattoos.

As soon as I read the article explaining what these tattoos meant, I mustered up what little money I had, Googled semi-colon tattoo, and picked out a simple black tattoo about an inch and 1/2 in height. I took the bus and walked a few blocks to the tattoo shop where I had received my first tattoo many years ago. I left with a deep black tattoo on the back of my neck. Since I wear my hair short, it will always be visible. 

This was my tattoo pattern.

The semi-colon tattoo represents those who are struggling with mental illness or other type of debilitating mental problem, and refuse to give in to the illness. The semi-colon when used in writing means the author has written but not yet finished a sentence, and a standard conjunction wouldn’t be appropriate. The tattoo symbolizes never giving up the fight against depression,  suicide, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and the battle against mental illness in general. It means that your story isn’t over, nor will you let it end. I wish I could get a good picture of the tattoo as it is the most meaningful tattoo that I have and the most visible. 

If anyone is interested the website is Project Semi-Colon. I have been dealing with mental illness for a very long time; about 31 years. Although, I have tried many times to just go to sleep and stay that way, something has always prevented me from carrying through with it. I am proud to have this tattooed on my body as it represents my own struggle against my particular cocktail of mental health problems.

Insomnia

Insomnia

Insomnia has got to be one of my least favorite symptoms of the Bipolar/PTSD/Various Anxiety disorders filled world that I live in. I hate not being able to sleep, although I have had this problem since I was a child (I was the kid reading under the covers until the wee hours).

I know all the things one is supposed to do, but sometimes I just cannot sleep. I try not to take naps, I have a sleep/wake cycle; But, no, sleep gets irritable and refuses to drop by until the  alarm goes off., and by then it is too late. Another foggy day; and although coffee is the nectar of the sleepy, there isn’t enough caffeine to make up for missed sleep.

Apparently, two of the meds that keep the world safe from me cause sleep disturbance. What’s the point of having relatively benign mood swings if your sleep patterns change? Changes in my sleep/wake cycle have been known to cause minor psychoses; it doesn’t seem to matter if I am in a depressed downward spiral, or if I am manic and just do not need the sleep. The outcome is the same; the world looks at me as if I have polka dots, and I view the world and the people in it as threats. PTSD would like to thank the Academy. Oh, let’s not forget the vital role that ADD has in this lack of my dreamworld. Which leads me to the question: Why do you wake up just as the dream is getting interesting? That just doesn’t seem quite fair.

However, I digress. My father suffers from insomnia, and has as long as I have been here (so I would assume he had it before). I wonder if it is genetic like so many other mental issues. Yes, I consider insomnia a mental health issue. There are many people for whom sleep is necessary and vital to their well-being. I am not talking about the occasional sleepless night, but days of no sleep. If you are in a manic swing up, you start to believe that you can rule the world, you call people at wildly inappropriate times, and, for me, I clean. For a while, this great burst of energy is euphoric (like being on Ecstasy; don’t know never tried it). After a few days of this, you almost welcome the inevitable crash to the floor.

At least when I crash and burn from a manic episode, I can usually sleep for a few hours at a time. But, I am always up by 6am no matter how hard I try for just one more hour; the hour eludes me like the tail end of a slipstream that I am surfing. (I tend to liken mood swings to the ocean; it is either calm or it is not).

Right now, I am running on about 4 hours of very fitful sleep, and I have to ride my bike about 4 miles home. I do not like riding tired because your attention is not great and navigation is important when dealing with cars. The people in this city simply cannot drive: half are going at least 10 mph over the limit, another group is 10 mph below the speed limit, and the rest think it is the autobahn. That’s a lot of sensory input when you haven’t slept well. Meanwhile, my boyfriend is snoring away without a care in the world (at the moment; that comes upon waking). I, myself, woke up at 4:38 am after sleeping for maybe 4 non-contiguous hours. My eyes feel as they have been ground with sandpaper or maybe a Dremel tool.

Why don’t they warn you about the basics of your mental health cocktail? No one ever said that not sleeping was part of the deal. There should be flyers covering mental health conditions just the same as there are fliers about Diabetes, Heart Health, the dangers of smoking, etc. It would have been nice to know that my very own personal cluster-fuck (sorry) of diagnoses would include periodic bouts of NO SLEEP!! I feel like I am on speed and NyQuil all at the same time. I hate this particular facet of my meds and my little cluster-fuck of mental issues; here’s to sleeping before the psychosis sets in. I am already hearing things that aren’t there. That’s why I can’t sleep; sometimes the voices will just not shut up no matter how tired the mind and body are. I thought that was the purpose of anti-psychotics?

Sorry, I Am In Bipolar Song Mood ~ Would? Alice In Chains

When Layne Staley died of a heroin overdose (?), the world truly lost one half of an incredible duet with Jerry Cantrell.

Know me broken by my master

And teach thee on child of love hereafter

Into the flood again

Same old trip it was back then

So I made a big mistake

Tried to see it once my way

Drifting body, its sole desertion

Flying not yet quite the notion

Into the flood again

Same old trip it was back then

So I made a big mistake

Tried to see it once my way

Into the flood again

Same old trip it was back then

So I made a big mistake

Tried to see it once my way

And am I wrong?

Have I run too far to get home?

Have I gone?

Left you here alone

And if I am wrong

Have I run too far to get home? Yeah

Have I gone?

Left you here alone?

If I would, could you?

Deep Blue Indigo Funk

Me and My Little Sister

I can handle being labeled mentally ill. I can deal with being thought of as odd. I can sort of handle living in mixed episode world. What I cannot handle well are the deep blue indigo funks that accompany having Bipolar disorder and PTSD. I never know when they are going to come and completely derail any and all plans I may have had for the day. I cry for no reason at all, and this tendency toward depression has been a fixture in my life for more than 40 years. You would think I would have learned to handle it after so many years. However, each period of depression has its own life. It could last a day or two, or, in this case, several months. Many episodes sneak up on me. I do not see them coming until I am blind-sided. 

Clearly, the anti-depressants do not really work. I am sure they are of some use, but they can’t stop the indigo funks. They just make them more bearable, I suppose. It is like the rough edges of the depression are somehow blunted or shaved off creating rounded corners like a beveled wood frame. Somehow these periods of depression can sneak by the anti-psychotics that my doctor prescribes to stabilize my moods. And these aren’t the funny, ha-ha kind of medications that many people take for whatever ails them. They cause my brain to be constantly floating in a bath of psychotropic chemicals. I do not have any idea what the long-term effects of these drugs have, and I highly suspect the doctors don’t know either.

I look at pictures of myself as a little girl, and I see this sparkle in her eyes. I see a little girl who wanted to be an astronaut, a fighter pilot, a doctor, a researcher, and for some weird reason that is only know to that little girl, a Playboy bunny (go figure). I see unlimited potential and intelligence in her eyes. I look now, and that sparkle is gone along with a lot of other things; naivete is replaced with jaded cynicism and a profound sadness and anger at a disorder that kills relationships, that causes a person to isolate to the point that friends stop coming around. I rage impotently at something I cannot see, that I cannot touch, that is abstract and intangible. I wonder when that little girl got so lost. Where did she go? And why did she leave? 

STOLEN AND EDITED RULES FOR KEEPS

Please leave any and all comments on the original poster’s blog. Thank you 🙂

CELONA'S BLOG

I saw this 5 rules, somewhere, don’t know what they stand for and I am also sure I do not care where they lead and what they stand for.

This rules, sounds like cliché but one thing is certain, they make complete sense to me. Fresh!! I did like to call them.

I gained a lot from them, I thought I should share.

Hope they do make some kind of sense, ‘cos I felt they made complete sense to me. 🙂

The rules are as follows;

• REMEMBER, YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYBODY

If someone is bullying you, complaining about you, or dissing you, do not make it your mission to try to convince that person to like you.  This will only suck you deeper into that energy field and will make you energetically dependent on their opinion of you.

Not everyone is going to like you. Everyone on earth is living…

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The Battle Is Over But The War Is Not Yet Won (warning: potential trigger)

Thursday, I had my Disability Hearing. I really hope that I impressed upon the woman doing the hearing that I am too sick to work, and I am not malingering or lazy. Quite the opposite, I have a hard time finding enough things to keep me from going nuts. If I am not doing something, the voices in my head start talking to me, and they rarely, if ever, have nice things to say about me and/or the world we live in.

However, all this preparing had a side effect that I had not thought of. My mom was with me because of all the people in the world (besides my therapist) no one really knows how sick I have been, and the state of my illness (god, I hate that word) now. She also happens to be a retired attorney. I dutifully wrote out the side effects that I experience from the medication that keeps everyone else sane, I wrote out a Residual Mental Capacity Report, I wrote the number of suicide attempts I have made and how I tried to end my life each time: medication overdose, suffocating one’s self; starting at age 12. I created an”anti” resume detailing all the little things I had done wrong that built up into a big thing which was ultimately my undoing. What I hadn’t thought of was the fact that my mother didn’t know some of these things, and that I was about to lay myself bare in front of her and a complete stranger.

How do you tell a complete stranger while sitting next to your mom, who has already been through so much with you, that you tied a bag around your head in an attempt to suffocate yourself? Telling a stranger that is one thing; having the woman who gave you life hear how you tried to take that life away is an entirely different thing altogether. And, I had written down not just one or two attempted suicides, but 11 attempts that I could remember. They were the ones that had stuck with me over the years; there are more than 11. I sat there and explained that the residual side effects from my medications made it difficult to work for x, y, and z reasons. I explained that while my major symptom clusters were managed by the medications, they were by no means under control. My mother agreed that medication does a good job of managing the mood swings, but that the other side effects such as confusion, difficulty with thinking and memory, dizziness, drowsiness, light headedness, and what not made it difficult to work in any situation be it skilled labor or unskilled labor. 

I calmly sat there and explained how I had lost all the jobs I had directly after college (the “anti” resume). And then my mother chimed in with this gem: “I used to be a supervising attorney for the city, and I hired and fired people over the course of my career. I would not hire her for any position in the office.” Ouch! And, this one, “When the Third Party Functioning report asked if she could drive a car, I decided that she didn’t have the concentration to drive. So, no, I do not believe she can drive a car.” Double ouch!! She also told me that at one point, she and her husband were going out of town for a few days, and had asked me to watch their cats. She then dropped this on me: “We decided you were too unreliable, and asked someone else to do it.” That has just about killed me, figuratively. I wasn’t considered reliable enough to feed a couple of cats for a few days.

Actually, everything my mother said about me are things I know about myself, but to hear them from a parent is disheartening; most people try very hard to earn their parent’s respect and to discover that this is how your mother sees you is difficult, at best. To find out the negative things about you that you try so hard to hide are visible to others is discouraging. Your “normalcy” mask has definitely slipped. Better get it back in place quickly lest you are thought to be mad after all. My mother also told me outside of the hearing that she and my father had known there was something “wrong” with me from the time I was a child. Why is it “wrong” to be different than other people? She could have said that I was “different” from other children my age. 

Needless to say, I have begun to drop into my own version of hell: the rabbit hole. I am scrambling for purchase on walls that are thick with moss and other slippery flora trying to find a handhold.

And I was wrong about something: extra Klonopin did not work. It gave me the flat affect I was after, but did little else other than make me sleepy. And, my paper armor unraveled as I revealed parts of myself that I knew existed but never really wanted to explore. I did this in front of a stranger and my mother. If it had just been the woman conducting the hearing maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad. But, it was my mom who really did not need to hear all of that. I have hurt her enough. The battle may be won, but at what cost?

Nervous

Today is the day I have been waiting for for about 7 months, and I find that I do not feel relief. I find that I am extraordinarily anxious and scared. Today is the day that I get to tell my side of the Bipolar story. I have no idea who will be there. I do not know if it will be one person or a panel of people. The only thing I know is that the inquisition will begin promptly at 9 am, and if I get there by 8:30 am, I can view the other side’s case file. I really do not like the fact that I get exactly 1/2 hour of “discovery” while if this were a hearing in a court of law, I would have received the case file long before this day. 

I have prepared myself. Off I go armed with a list of all the suicide attempts I can remember, the medications and the side effects, the list of jobs I have been fired from over the past few years and why, the reasons I can’t work due to a cluster of fucked up mental issues. Please pardon my use of a curse word, but how else do you describe having Bipolar I with psychotic features, PTSD, ADD, and Panic disorder with and without Agoraphobia. I am certain there are others who have it much worse than I do, but right now it feels like me against the world (or the bureaucratic Social Security system that is supposed to provide for people like me and the others who suffer everyday.)

Well, the iPhone I just had to have is informing me that it is time to get ready to have my case weighed, tested, and hopefully, not found wanting. I had better go make myself presentable but not “well groomed” as it seems that if one is “well groomed” that means not disabled when nothing could be further from the truth. I would like to see them try to live in my shoes for just a few days to see what it is like to live in mixed episode world with a healthy dose of anxiety thrown in for good measure. As if having Bipolar disorder was not enough. Oh well, off I go armed with paper and no chainmail or sword. Maybe a healthy dose of Klonopin would suffice.

Another Random Poem

Love ~ Czeslaw Milosz

Love means to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees it that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills --
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.

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