Kindness
social
Life Used To Be Simpler
My life used to be simple. I woke up, had some coffee then grabbed my bike and headed off for school. During the time when only my fiancé was working and I
was going to school, I used to mountain bike every morning without fail. I always went out between 9 am and 11 am (I am fair skinned, and the sun is still low enough in the sky that you won’t get burned as badly). Nothing beats the thrill of coming down that bitch of a hill that killed your legs going up. Especially if it is winding. It seems that I have always felt better on a bike.
I remember one ride where I actually hit the “zone” that athletes are always talking about. My then fiancé and I were up in the mountains and it started to storm quite seriously. I am talking about lightning and thunder at the same time. That’s how close the lightning was to us, and all I could think about was getting the heck out of there because my bike is made of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is an electrical super conductor. So, I just started to haul ass out of there. I wasn’t into getting fried that day. It was the most amazing ride. I was one with the bike (which never happened), I was not thinking about how I was going to make a turn or over a log, I just found a way, and it worked. All I was really thinking about was, OMG mountain storm! Get out now! I think it was my favorite ride ever. I wish it were possible to use words to describe the experience of riding your bike through the mountains with all this lightning and thunder and hail and rain. It is one of the most exhilarating thing ever, And yes, it even beat sex.
Life was just so much simpler in those times. I was happy, I was in school and doing well, I was in love, and I had a great best friend that I used to go to the mountains with after school was out. He and I were like little kids, we explored everything that looked like it might be a trail. We were joined at the hip. If one of us showed up somewhere, it was a safe bet the other was not far behind. The sun is coming up, and the sky is turning pink. It is beautiful.
Anyway, this was long before the “diagnosis” and the medication-go-round that I ended up on. This was long before I got married which I am still trying to decide if that was big mistake or not. I love my husband, please do not get me wrong, it is just sometimes he can be incredibly difficult to deal with. He doesn’t seem to want to learn about what bipolar really is; he’d prefer to rely on his past 2 experiences with bipolar women, and both were total tramps. One was a “I’ll try anything once” type, the other one just cheated on him a lot. And neither one of them would stay on their medication so they were constantly going up and down. I, on the other hand, am medication compliant, and actually start to freak out when I have run out of medication because I know what happens when I do. It is simple, take your meds, and the mood swings will be closer to those that normal people have. It really isn’t rocket science nor does it require an advanced degree in physics.
What I think is that he cannot face his own depression. He has never received treatment for it until now when we finally reach a point where marriage counseling has become necessary, and they have a treatment plan that has us doing marriage counseling every two weeks and him doing one on one therapy every two weeks. He says that he has looked at himself and knows who and what he is. Therapy will fix that. Therapy forces you to look at yourself in a new light. He is going to finally have to confront the ugly in his nature. At least he will if he is honest with himself and the therapist. If he isn’t then therapy will do him no good. Therapy can be very scary. You will have to talk about things that you have buried so deeply it can take years to work your way through the maze of emotions surrounding the issue. I do not think he gets that. I have been in therapy for about 8 1/2 years, but I had some very dark things I had to take care of. I remember one session where I spent the entire session in a fetal ball (this was a few years ago). Something had triggered me. That’s another thing he needs to learn about: triggers. Once you can recognize them, you can control how you react to them, or at the very least manage not to let them set you off.
I swear life used to be so simple.
Another Rant About How the Mentally Ill Are Treated in This Country
I recently finished a memoir entitled Manic: A Memoir written by a woman named Terrie Cheney. Her experience with mental illness, manic depression to be specific, landed her in jail where she was denied her phone call to her attorney for almost 6 hours, was denied access to her medication (which she carried with her), and she was starting to cycle into full blown mania. So, they kept her locked in a cell for several hours at a time, and finally moved her to a “private” holding cell because she was so disruptive. While in jail, she was badly beaten by a female guard who was trying to “subdue” her, however, she was attempting to subdue her with a nightstick. She was in jail for 14 hours growing more and more manic with each hour. She asked for her meds, they wouldn’t give them to her, they gave her sporadic access to the phone, and basically, treated her as if she were on something. If they had payed any attention at all, they would’ve realized, she wasn’t on something, she was off something; the medications that helped bring her down. She finally reaches her attorney, and is released. She, was very lucky, however. She could afford the high priced attorney. She was a high priced attorney herself.
Another instance of Bipolar mania had her convinced that her car was stronger than the tree in her yard, and so she drove into it. Totaling her car landed her in a psychiatric facility. That was one time. Another included the swallowing of handfuls of benzodiazepines, and stelazine while she was trying to work up the nerve and get rid of the anxiety she felt over telling her father that his cancer had spread; he had only months to live. She overdosed on those pills, and her exterminator found her on the floor barely conscious. When she awoke she was in four point restraints, and had to use the bathroom. A doctor and a bunch of residents came in to her padded room, and tried to convince her that she had attempted suicide. She hadn’t consciously done so, and she told the doctor she really needed to pee. He refused to let her until she admitted that she was suicidal. She did not believe that she was, and the doctor left without providing her with even a bedpan; she ended up peeing on herself. A nurse came in and changed the sheets, but left her on the urine soaked mattress, all the while berating her for doing what she had done. In order to get off that mattress and out of the padded cell, she finally told the doctor what he wanted to hear; yes she had tried to kill herself, but, no she wasn’t currently suicidal. The whole time she was in that room they kept her sedated with the “conventional” anti-psychotic haldol. This was only part of the experience of a manic depressive of means. Can you imagine how the down and out homeless are treated?
I am now reading a book titled Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness. His son experiences a psychotic break in his senior year of college. His son is in his late teens/early twenties when most mental illness will present in the form of a psychotic episode, a manic episode, or a severe depressive episode. (For my self, it was a severe depressive episode unlike any I had previously experienced; something was very wrong). His son is given the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and put on anti-psychotic medication which he refused to take calling it “poison.” His son was convinced there were secret messages hidden in signs and movies, particularly Oliver Stone’s Heaven and Earth. His parents tried to have him held in a psychiatric facility after having taken him to the emergency room. They were told nothing could be done because he was an adult, and he had the right to refuse treatment if he so chose, that that was the law. He couldn’t be forced to take medication, not could he be forced into a mental health facility. It was only after he was arrested for breaking into a neighbor’s house and taking a bubble bath that he was taken to a psychiatric unit on a 72 hour hold. He could, however, still refuse treatment. So, his behavior became more and more odd. His father came up with the idea that since he had been arrested it proved he was not safe; that he was, in fact, a danger to himself and others. The argument worked. His son was being charged with two felonies in relation to the break-in. So, he took his medication for a couple of days, and got sort of right in the head. The idea was that he would be booked on charges but then released to his parents so he could continue the day program he was in. The only stipulation was that he had to continue his medication and the program, and he could plead to one felony count. What was unfortunate about this was that the state Law of Virginia prohibited ex felons to work at specific jobs, and one of them was the occupation his son had just finished school for. So, all his hard work in college was washed away in the blink of the eye known as mental illness.
His parents managed to get him to voluntarily commit himself after being put in a mental hospital following another episode (he still wouldn’t take the medicine that he considered poison; his father even tried hiding it in his food). There was even a commitment hearing which was a joke because the longest they could hold him for as a voluntary patient was five days after which he could walk right back out. His insurance company was after the hospital to release him because once stabilized all their little charts and graphs said that he could continue his recovery at home or in an outpatient program. Don’t even get me going on the HMO’s in this country who play God and Doctor, and decide what the patient needs which commonly overrides the doctor and even plain common sense. I could go on for hours on that subject. His father, a well known journalist called the insurance company that was trying to kick his son out of the hospital, and informed that he used to work for the Washington Post, knew Mike Wallace, and that he would be calling both to do an expose on their company policy regarding mental health. The insurance company backed off.
All of this prompted his father to begin looking into what really happens to the mentally ill in this country, and what he found is not pretty. He began calling around to different courts and jails to find out what the laws were in that state. He finally settled in a section of Miami where there was a judge that was active in the Mental Health reform movement, and met the psychiatrist at the local jail which housed quite a few mentally ill inmates. He states in his book that it took the doctor approximately 19 minutes to do rounds and talk to all the people considered suicide risks. There were 92 people on the psychiatric floor. The author writes: “That was 12.7 seconds per inmate.”
Around the turn of the 20th century, the mentally ill were housed in a similar manner. Naked, or with nothing more than rags for clothes, they were held in the jails and
prisons often with far more people than a cell can hold. A reform movement began after a woman named Dorothea Dix saw this for herself and began a movement to build State Mental Hospitals. The states responded under pressure to do exactly that. However, conditions in the hospitals were not much better than the jails and prisons. The movement continued until some left wingers thought that the conditions in the hospital were so horrific that as long as these patients were stabilized, why couldn’t they be released back into society? Bless the left wingers, they really thought they were doing a good thing by releasing these patients. So began the de-institutionalization movement, and the state hospitals began to shut down. This was in the early 1960’s.
Well, guess what happens when a mentally ill patient forgets to take their medication? The destabilize. They become incapable of holding a job, having a home, taking meds on a regular basis, etc. They do not know they are sick again. This lands them in the streets, homeless and ill, where they are picked up usually for some minor infraction, but sometimes for more serious offenses. We are back where we started; housing the mentally ill in our jails and prisons. And the laws permit this by not requiring more hospitalization, the HMO’s are complicit in that they start asking that people be released after a couple of days on an inpatient ward. They figure using their little graphs and charts that it takes about that long to “stabilize” someone. I know from personal experience, it takes a hell of a lot longer than that. And, that is if the patient is med compliant.
I could go on and on and on about how this country treats the mentally ill. The politicians and HMO’s would never dare deny a heart patient access to medical care, nor would they not allow a diabetic their insulin. So, what the bleep makes mental health such a huge freaking issue? Is it because it involves the brain? Is it because people are inherently afraid of “going nuts?” We are not nuts, crazy, bonkers or any of those lovely terms that are used to describe someone with an organic, medically treatable disease. Manic Depression, Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, all of these are treatable and people who are treated can become functioning members of society. So, we are a little different than the average person. Who gives a flying F&*^! The mentally ill should be treated with the same respect and dignity as everyone else. There are a whole host of people some famous and others not so much who have suffered from or do suffer from some mental illness. This country recognizes alcoholism and drug abuse as treatable diseases, so what’s up with the mentally ill being so scary? I had better stop. I am getting angry.
More Morrie ~ I Find Him Very Inspirational
On Maintaining an Active Involvement in Life: “Resist the temptation to think of yourself as useless. it will only lead to depression. Find your own ways of being and feeling useful.”
He continues: “One of the great dangers when you are seriously ill is you can begin to feel purposeless…..if you don’t have purpose, you become depressed and start to wonder why you should bother getting up in the morning….it is very important to set goals for yourself, even if they are very small…..Don’t think that just because you are sick, you can’t have goals. Select your own objectives and get to work on them, no matter how slight they may appear to be….”
From page 66 ~ “….I started writing these aphorisms for my own benefit. It was a way for me to distance myself from my illness and remind myself of what I needed to do to maintain my composure throughout my illness. I wanted to get a hold on what was happening to me, and I wrote down what I was going through because it helped me objectify my experiences and be a witness to my own process.”
Writing down your experiences as a person who has (not is) Bipolar Disorder is incredibly helpful. Not only can you go back a re-read what you just wrote, you can go back years (depending on how long you’ve been writing), and see your progress from a person who just got hit with a heavy diagnosis to someone who is coping with and managing that illness. It can be very empowering to go back and read how far you’ve come, the progress that you have made, the mistakes you have learned from (and some are hard won lessons). I really encourage people to keep journals. I have about 12 that I write in, and I have been keeping them for years. Periodically I will choose one, and see what I wrote in that one (they have no sequence), and see how far I have come from that point. Keeping a journal is also a wonderful way of letting feelings out in an appropriate manner, and thereby removing them from our selves so we can examine what caused the pain, the hurt or the joy from a more objective view rather than the objective we have while experiencing the feeling. It is what Morrie called being a witness to your own process. Everyone processes bad news differently, and it is important to your recovery that you identify how you process your life as a Bipolar (remember it is only part of who you are, and it is certainly not the core of who you are).
Relating to Others: “Keep your heart open for as long as you can, as wide as you can, for others and especially for yourself. Be generous, decent and welcoming.”
From page 71: ” Wanting to be different is just the beginning. There is no single way to go about changing the way you relate to others…..Identify what behavior you’d like to change; try to be specific….. then you need to identify things you can do toward accomplishing your goal……When you act like a kind and generous person, you eventually become one.”
From page 77: “Talk openly about your illness with those who’ll listen. It will help them cope with their own vulnerabilities as well as your own.”
I have always been an advocate of discussing Bipolar Disorder with anyone and everyone who will listen. It educates them, and allows you to let your feelings about it out. You do not have to get personal, but a little bit of personal experience does not hurt. You can talk about it in a clinical manner if that makes you more comfortable. I have had both types of conversations, it just really depends on who your audience is. Don’t keep what you are going through bottled up inside you. Don’t shut out other people. It is also handy if people know in case you need to go the hospital.
From page 80 (this one is important): “Maintain and continue a support system, individually and collectively, of people who care about you and vice versa. Do not make demands that others are not ready or willing to fulfill. You may drive them away. Accept their refusal graciously.”
This is very important. While you can manage bipolar on your own, what are you going to do in those times when your illness has crept up on you, and you really need to talk to someone. However, don’t wear them out because the possibility of them withdrawing from you is realistic. I had that happen with my own mother who refused to see me, talk to me, anything to do with me for almost a year. I had exhausted her with my neediness and clingyness. After about 6 months, i was no longer homicidally angry with her, and we began to very slowly rebuild our relationship. Now, I do not call family or friends unless I really need to. If it is a baby depression, I just ride it out. If I find that it is developing into a full-fledged depression, then I will talk with someone. But, it is important to grow and maintain those relationships. They can save your life, quite literally.
From page 109: “If possible, find and develop a spiritual connection and practice that comforts you.”
I think this is very important in keeping yourself stable. I have what I call the “trifecta” against my Bipolar Disorder, and it is having very good doctors, having good medications, and practicing Nichiren Buddhism. Nichiren Buddhism is a very compassionate, pacifistic, humanitarian life philosophy. If you are interested in knowing more, then follow this link: Nichiren Buddhist Practice.
I have found that having strong faith and practice keeps me calm and grounded in the moment and does not really allow for self-pity. It is about the present and the future, and your happiness is your responsibility. We view obstacles and life struggles as opportunities to grow as human beings. So, Bipolar Disorder becomes one big growth opportunity for me instead of a reason to feel sorry for myself (which I still do on occasion.)
Writing down your experiences as a person who has (not is) Bipolar Disorder is incredibly helpful. Not only can you go back a re-read what you just wrote, you can go back years (depending on how long you’ve been writing), and see your progress from a person who just got hit with a heavy diagnosis to someone who is coping with and managing that illness. It can be very empowering to go back and read how far you’ve come, the progress that you have made, the mistakes you have learned from (and some are hard won lessons). I really encourage people to keep journals. I have about 12 that I write in, and I have been keeping them for years. Periodically I will choose one, and see what I wrote in that one (they have no sequence), and see how far I have come from that point. Keeping a journal is also a wonderful way of letting feelings out in an appropriate manner, and thereby removing them from our selves so we can examine what caused the pain, the hurt or the joy from a more objective view rather than the objective we have while experiencing the feeling. It is what Morrie called being a witness to your own process. Everyone processes bad news differently, and it is important to your recovery that you identify how you process your life as a Bipolar (remember it is only part of who you are, and it is certainly not the core of who you are).
Relating to Others: “Keep your heart open for as long as you can, as wide as you can, for others and especially for yourself. Be generous, decent and welcoming.”
From page 71: ” Wanting to be different is just the beginning. There is no single way to go about changing the way you relate to others…..Identify what behavior you’d like to change; try to be specific….. then you need to identify things you can do toward accomplishing your goal……When you act like a kind and generous person, you eventually become one.”
From page 77: “Talk openly about your illness with those who’ll listen. It will help them cope with their own vulnerabilities as well as your own.”
I have always been an advocate of discussing Bipolar Disorder with anyone and everyone who will listen. It educates them, and allows you to let your feelings about it out. You do not have to get personal, but a little bit of personal experience does not hurt. You can talk about it in a clinical manner if that makes you more comfortable. I have had both types of conversations, it just really depends on who your audience is. Don’t keep what you are going through bottled up inside you. Don’t shut out other people. It is also handy if people know in case you need to go the hospital.
From page 80 (this one is important): “Maintain and continue a support system, individually and collectively, of people who care about you and vice versa. Do not make demands that others are not ready or willing to fulfill. You may drive them away. Accept their refusal graciously.”
This is very important. While you can manage bipolar on your own, what are you going to do in those times when your illness has crept up on you, and you really need to talk to someone. However, don’t wear them out because the possibility of them withdrawing from you is realistic. I had that happen with my own mother who refused to see me, talk to me, anything to do with me for almost a year. I had exhausted her with my neediness and clingyness. After about 6 months, i was no longer homicidally angry with her, and we began to very slowly rebuild our relationship. Now, I do not call family or friends unless I really need to. If it is a baby depression, I just ride it out. If I find that it is developing into a full-fledged depression, then I will talk with someone. But, it is important to grow and maintain those relationships. They can save your life, quite literally.
From page 109: “If possible, find and develop a spiritual connection and practice that comforts you.”
I think this is very important in keeping yourself stable. I have what I call the “trifecta” against my Bipolar Disorder, and it is having very good doctors, having good medications, and practicing Nichiren Buddhism. Nichiren Buddhism is a very compassionate, pacifistic, humanitarian life philosophy. If you are interested in knowing more, then follow this link: Nichiren Buddhist Practice.
I have found that having strong faith and practice keeps me calm and grounded in the moment and does not really allow for self-pity. It is about the present and the future, and your happiness is your responsibility. We view obstacles and life struggles as opportunities to grow as human beings. So, Bipolar Disorder becomes one big growth opportunity for me instead of a reason to feel sorry for myself (which I still do on occasion.)
Friendships and Random Stuff
The last couple of weeks have been a roller coaster ride from okay to Saturday’s really not okay. As I look back, I do not understand where all that emotion came from. All I can think is that it was the culmination of trying to get to get my point across to someone who couldn’t listen but instead thought to insert their own interpretation of my words into their consciousness. I have never in m life seen such a wild “reading between the lines,” and it has ended a friendship for which I am very sorry, and which makes my heart heavy. It also brings to mind the question: “Why do the stronger prey upon the weaker?” because if my words were not written from 40 miles away, this would have been a verbal confrontation, and I am not sure who would have come out on top. Both of us are too skilled in psychological warfare from past confrontations. I forgot my coffee….bad at this time of morning. For me, anyway. now I am coughing up my lungs because one side effect of my medications is that I sometimes (a lot) swallow wrong….. not my favorite side effect, but one that I can live with. I have put that person’s email address into my blocked, junk mail folder because that is all it is, junk mail drivel, and a obvious attempt at the “misery loves company” gambit. It was the only thing I could do to protect myself from this person’s twisted logic and scathing words. And, if there is one thing I have learned about coming out of depressive episodes that send you running for the nearest funny farm, it is too protect myself at all costs because it is too easy to spiral back down the rabbit hole, and the Mad Hatter is always willing to have tea and biscuits.
Saturday I got what I hope is the last communication from this person, and it was so filled with anger and hate, the words were nearly steaming on my monitor. I am surprised the damn thing did not melt. The message might as well been written in capital letters, at least then I would have known for certain I was being yelled at. I have no intention of ever being friends with this person again. I simply cannot take the anger. It is visceral, almost sentient. In fact, I would say it is sentient. The anger and accompanying depression this person feels is beyond their control as is evidenced by the string of twisted emails. I would apologize for something, this person would turn it into I wanted some thing from them. There was nothing I wanted from them except to repair the damage to our friendship, but that was quite obviously lost on them. What I do not understand is that I read my emails, and the responses to them, and there is only one where I express any kind of offense or ire. The rest were apologetic in tone, and somehow in this person’s mind they got jumbled into I wanted something from them, I needed something they could not provide, yada, yada, yada….. Yeah, I wanted something. To repair the friendship, but that is not a cause for what this person did. The compassionate me says let it go, this person is miserable and depressed and angry. I was told they just wanted friends, and my very first thought, was if this is how they make and keep friends, then it is no wonder they find and lose them so fast. This person knows about cause and effect, and I definitely think that they are having the problems they are because all they ever do is make bad causes with people.
I guess the worst part of this is my support system is shaky at best, and non-existent at worst. Whenever I try to discuss how I am feeling, I get blown off. If I try to add a nuance to a story I have already told in one way, shape or another, I hear, “You’ve already told me that,” whereas he can tell me the same freaking thing over and over again, and I say nothing because there is always new information in the retelling. I always find some new piece of information that I did not know before. If he bothered to listen to me, or even pay me the most minimal amount of attention, I might not have gone off to have tea with my good friend the Mad Hatter and Red Queen. If he would just listen to me, he might find out more about how I think, how I see the world, what I think about, where I think my ideas come from, and so on and so forth. But, although he prides himself on being observant and an active listener, he really is just like everyone else. Waiting for their turn to talk. Because what he has to say is so much more important than anything I might have to say. I go whole days without talking because I have nothing “new” to say. Even my therapist of almost 9 years doesn’t think she has heard everything I have to say on a lot of subjects especially my family. So, I cannot talk to him about my feelings regarding this rather sad turn of events. I am stuck alone, in my head, in the not so green fields of sadness, ready to fall down the rabbit hole while I mull the whole thing over.
I know I should just “let it go,” but it just isn’t that simple. I lost something I valued. He loses shit from his storage locker that he doesn’t even remember, and it is a big ordeal. I lose a friend, and I am just supposed to blow that off? So what if he lost his stuff. He obviously didn’t need it or it would not have been in storage for as long as it was. And, stuff is replaceable, friendships are not. In my rather humble opinion, a friendship is a whole lot more important than a bunch of stuff. Stuff gets lost, people are not supposed to be disposed of as if they are so much flotsam and jetsam. When you move, you invariably will leave something behind, and remember it later, but by then it is gone. I realize that some things are sentimental; I have my own bunch of stuff that has traveled with me for 22 years. But, to just toss away a friendship is almost unforgivable, at least in my eyes. They are to be nurtured, cultivated, and cared for the same way you would a garden. You do not cultivate stuff; you collect it, and most of it you will never use, but you have it just in case (insert sarcasm here). I see what is happening. Because I am being denied the opportunity to talk this out with someone who is supposed to be my life partner, the anger and depression I feel at being tossed away is being transferred to him. I do not understand why he refuses to let me talk about it. He really ought to pay more attention to me and my moods than he does. He is the only one in a position to do that objectively. All my observations are subjective. I subjectively notice that I am not happy with a lot of things. If only people really cared about one another instead of paying lip service to compassion just to look good. The world would be a much more accepting place.
Bipolar Gets Worse with Time ~ Why An Early Diagnosis is Important
Bipolar tends to be a lifelong illness. Very few people are ever considered “cured” which is one reason why early diagnosis and treatment are so vital. Most people with the disorder will continue to experience high and low episodes with periods that are nearly symptom free in between, although some people will continue to display some symptoms of the disorder. There are four types of Bipolar that are recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or DSM.
- Bipolar Type I: mainly defined by manic or mixed episodes that last at least seven days, or by manic symptoms that are so severe that the person needs immediate hospital care. Usually, the person also has depressive episodes, typically lasting at least two weeks. The symptoms of mania or depression must be a major change from the person’s normal behavior.
- Bipolar Type II: mainly defined by manic or mixed episodes that last at least seven days, or by manic symptoms that are so severe that the person needs immediate hospital care. Usually, the person also has depressive episodes, typically lasting at least two weeks. The symptoms of mania or depression must be a major change from the person’s normal behavior.
- Bipolar Not Otherwise Specified: is diagnosed when a person has symptoms of the illness that do not meet diagnostic criteria for either bipolar I or II. The symptoms may not last long enough, or the person may have too few symptoms, to be diagnosed with bipolar I or II. However, the symptoms are clearly out of the person’s normal range of behavior.
- Cyclothymia: a mild form of bipolar disorder. People who have cyclothymia have episodes of hypomania that shift back and forth with mild depression for at least two years. However, the symptoms do not meet the diagnostic requirements for any other type of bipolar disorder.
Bipolar illness tends to get worse over time. Time lost in getting the correct diagnosis and treatment can lead to more severe and more frequent episodes than in someone treated earlier in the disorder. The more frequent episodes tend to lead to significant impairment in social, work related and personal relationships.
Believe me, I know all about the social, work related and personal relationship malfunctions. I know for a fact that I have lost at least one job solely because I was not diagnosed or treated yet, and when I found out what was going on with me, I filed all my appeals and grievances on time. However, the bureaucratic jerks I was working for seemed to have no sense of their own policies and procedures. They filed their responses weeks late. I had all types of documentation pointing out their inconsistencies, but they brushed it off with a statement like “well, it was last year when that happened.” Do not go after a lawyer’s daughter if you do not have your ducks in a row. Especially not one whose mother was an attorney for 27 years. You learn things about documenting everything down to the very last detail. I had my ducks in several rows, but they were all dismissed with a nonchalant, ‘Well, that’s not how we remember it.” They were wrong, I knew I was right, but without an attorney, and not having filed a complaint with the EEOC, there wasn’t much I could do except watch my beloved job slip away because I could not “fulfill the essential functions of the job.” I was covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, but they found their way around that too. They were too powerful for me at that time. I had been diagnosed/hit by a Mack truck, and really was in no position to fight the way they were. They had attorneys. I did not. I did not have the strength to fight them. They were too strong and too evil, and I do not know how to battle hate.
I know for a fact that before my diagnosis, the illness contributed greatly to the loss of my first fiance. There were times I jut went off on him for no reason, and I was beginning to drink heavily to try and cope with the stress of being a full time student, employee, and “housewife.” He did absolutely nothing around the apartment. He worked full time as a bike mechanic. I had three full time jobs; school, my paying job, and him. It was too much. I quit my job as a waitress. Probably one of the sanest things I ever did, and I focused on school and him. but, in the end, the fighting got too bad, and it got too personal. We were not even fighting about anything in particular, we just fought. So, I am pretty sure illness cost me that relationship, and I can honestly say there are times that I wonder why my husband hangs around because I have been known to use him as a punching bag, or go into one of my paranoid phases and decide that he doesn’t love me any more. But, there is more to that story than I am willing to write; it is not completely my fault I feel that way sometimes. He has some less than desirable habits that really just offend me to the core of my moral being.
As for social relationships, they stayed more or less intact although they have cooled a bit. However, many of my friends are married, they have children, and normal lives.
So, in order to avoid all the misery I have put myself through and/or been put through, if you feel something is not right with you, you do not feel like your self, and the feelings last for more than two or three weeks and you aren’t “coming out of it” or “getting over it,” it is time to consider seeking help before you wreck your life like I did, and am constantly on the verge of doing. I just cannot help myself sometimes. I get these thoughts that just do not go away. If you are having the same issue, go get help. If you feel you fit any of the criteria above, by all means get thee to a therapist with all haste before everything you’ve built for yourself comes crashing down before your eyes, and you can not do a damn thing to stop it. It freaking sucks to have that happen, because then you have to start all over again, and sometimes there just isn’t a whole lot of time to do that.
Believe me, I know all about the social, work related and personal relationship malfunctions. I know for a fact that I have lost at least one job solely because I was not diagnosed or treated yet, and when I found out what was going on with me, I filed all my appeals and grievances on time. However, the bureaucratic jerks I was working for seemed to have no sense of their own policies and procedures. They filed their responses weeks late. I had all types of documentation pointing out their inconsistencies, but they brushed it off with a statement like “well, it was last year when that happened.” Do not go after a lawyer’s daughter if you do not have your ducks in a row. Especially not one whose mother was an attorney for 27 years. You learn things about documenting everything down to the very last detail. I had my ducks in several rows, but they were all dismissed with a nonchalant, ‘Well, that’s not how we remember it.” They were wrong, I knew I was right, but without an attorney, and not having filed a complaint with the EEOC, there wasn’t much I could do except watch my beloved job slip away because I could not “fulfill the essential functions of the job.” I was covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, but they found their way around that too. They were too powerful for me at that time. I had been diagnosed/hit by a Mack truck, and really was in no position to fight the way they were. They had attorneys. I did not. I did not have the strength to fight them. They were too strong and too evil, and I do not know how to battle hate.
I know for a fact that before my diagnosis, the illness contributed greatly to the loss of my first fiance. There were times I jut went off on him for no reason, and I was beginning to drink heavily to try and cope with the stress of being a full time student, employee, and “housewife.” He did absolutely nothing around the apartment. He worked full time as a bike mechanic. I had three full time jobs; school, my paying job, and him. It was too much. I quit my job as a waitress. Probably one of the sanest things I ever did, and I focused on school and him. but, in the end, the fighting got too bad, and it got too personal. We were not even fighting about anything in particular, we just fought. So, I am pretty sure illness cost me that relationship, and I can honestly say there are times that I wonder why my husband hangs around because I have been known to use him as a punching bag, or go into one of my paranoid phases and decide that he doesn’t love me any more. But, there is more to that story than I am willing to write; it is not completely my fault I feel that way sometimes. He has some less than desirable habits that really just offend me to the core of my moral being.
As for social relationships, they stayed more or less intact although they have cooled a bit. However, many of my friends are married, they have children, and normal lives.
So, in order to avoid all the misery I have put myself through and/or been put through, if you feel something is not right with you, you do not feel like your self, and the feelings last for more than two or three weeks and you aren’t “coming out of it” or “getting over it,” it is time to consider seeking help before you wreck your life like I did, and am constantly on the verge of doing. I just cannot help myself sometimes. I get these thoughts that just do not go away. If you are having the same issue, go get help. If you feel you fit any of the criteria above, by all means get thee to a therapist with all haste before everything you’ve built for yourself comes crashing down before your eyes, and you can not do a damn thing to stop it. It freaking sucks to have that happen, because then you have to start all over again, and sometimes there just isn’t a whole lot of time to do that.
A Bipolar Journey Through The Rabbit Hole 