RealMental

I’ve decided that if I think about changing my meds and the pain in the ass of titration down on one and up on the other as a science experiment, and keep detailed notes about my responses in the interests of the larger Crazy Community (and those poor, underfunded pharmaceutical companies), then it’s really not such a daunting prospect after all.

My mother’s coming to visit.  I’m very mixed in my feelings about it.  On the one hand, I’m hoping to confirm what our phone calls are telling me– that she’s worlds better than she’s been for decades, since this spring’s bipolar diagnosis.  On the other hand, I’ve got years of pent-up resentment and anger waiting to be triggered by the slightest irritation, and my struggle to keep it in check.  I usually do keep it in check– prior to the bipolar diagnosis, she had no insight on how she affects me, and it’s like kicking a puppy.  Sure, the damned thing just pissed on your brand new virgin cashmere kilim (or whatever), but it just couldn’t help itself.

Now?  I wonder about telling her how angry I am, how mixed up I am, how mixed up I may always be.  Because she allowed herself to stay depressed for thirty years.  Because unlike my dad, she didn’t use any of her rock bottom points as the impetus to change things.  Because she seemed to enjoy playing the victim of cold and critical parents, and the ex-wife of an (undiagnosed bipolar) alcoholic.  Because she didn’t want to work, and I grew up with the stigma of a fat, lazy mother, section 8 housing, food stamps and free lunch.  Because her refusal to do anything about her weight made me bulimic as a teen (even worse?  she never noticed, despite my losing 30 lbs.), and in possession of a fine set of food and weight phobias for the rest of my life.  Because, because, because.  I’ve a world of reasons for anger, for shame, for grudges.

Now I wonder if she has the insight now?  ever? to understand these things.  Or whether she’s been so long in her self-centered groove that she’ll never have the perspective.   Or maybe that she is, under all the new meds, still self-centered?

And I wonder if it’s worth it, in any event.  Would I feel satisfied?  Relieved?  Healed? to tell her all these things?  There’s nothing she can do about it at this point.  And is my anger even justified, if she’s been bipolar all these years?  Can I hold it against her?  I want to.  Or do I have to forgive her?  I don’t want to.  I had enough insight, and enough concern for the effect of my behavior on others, to seek help and get the diagnosis that has been such a blessing to me.  My dad had enough strength after his first drunk driving arrest to kick the alcohol.  Is it fair for me to believe that someone who’s smart enough to write a Ph.D. at Harvard and become an ordained minister should be smart enough to get some clearly-needed help?  Or does it come back to emotional maturity, a lack of self-centeredness, an inherent personality flaw, instead?  If that’s the case, then I’d just be banging my head on a brick wall, which gives me a headache, and leaves blood on the wall.

Plus, if she didn’t get it, then again, there’s the kicking a puppy thing.  She would be sad, noncomprehending, and hurt because I’d shattered her self-image as a caring person.  But here’s the deal– she’s “caring” because she wants to be thought of as caring.  At least that’s what my therapist and I think.  But at the same time, there’s no doubt that she did want to listen to the things I had to say as a teen, and that she did want us to succeed.  And in a way, I have.

I don’t want to forget, and I am not ready or able to let go yet.  Forgetting would mean that none of this stuff was important, negative as it is.  And it’s who I am, this stuff.  I can’t, I won’t forget it.

Right now, I’m leaning towards just keeping my mouth shut, except for the bare minimum inquiries to make sure she’s taking her meds, starting talk therapy, and working well with her new shrink.  I’ll have a horrible stress migraine after she’s gone, probably get a cold, and fall exhausted into bed every night that she’s here by, like, 7:00 pm, but the self-inflicted harm at this degree is still better than staving in that poor puppy’s ribcage, so hard is my urge to kick right now.

Here’s to hoping I can let go at some future point.

I got a message from my mom today. She said my uncle just had five shock treatments and she was happy to report that this had “snapped him right out of it…for now.”

He’s the third of my mother and her siblings to be diagnosed with bipolar. All later in adulthood. All after a stressful event in their lives. No real symptoms before that. Or at least none that I know of. Add that to my grandmother’s long-standing diagnosis and if you got that side of the family together to have a potluck and only asked the non-bipolar people to bring the food, there would be a mere two dishes on the table.

This scares the hell out of me. I know this disease is hereditary. I know that biology is stacked against me. I can’t help but feel as though there is a ticking time bomb in my head, just waiting for the right combination of stress and circumstance.

Reading this site has helped me see this diagnosis in a different light. I can see that there are so many people out there living with this and doing quite well, thank you very much. It’s not a death sentence. It’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a regular and happy life.

But it doesn’t sound fun. And while depression and anxiety seem to have found acceptance in our society because they have become so prevalent, bipolar still caries a whole load of stigma along with it. People don’t understand it. They’re scared of it. And all they see in the media are the really extreme cases, the ones that reinforce the stereotype of bipolar people as crazy, crazy, crazy. And dangerous. Don’t forget dangerous.

So, thank you for telling your stories. Thank you for showing everyone out there that is struggling with this disease or the possibility of this disease that they are not alone. It makes it a little easier to face, to deal with.

I’m still scared, though.

I’m in a box in my head. It’s padded and not completely uncomfortable. It’s really not anything. I’m really not anything.

I can totally understand why people get off their meds. My meds are doing precisely what my shrink told me they would: they have allowed me to be one step removed from my actions. I have plenty of time to sit back and look at my emotions before I feel them. I don’t really feel them even as I examine them. I feel weighted. Heavy. But I don’t really care.

Even as I write this, I don’t really care. I remember caring. And I remember what it used to feel like being in a manic-up stage and feeling like I was invincible. And I do miss that. But only kind of. I also kind of remember feeling super sad. But was it really THAT bad? Now I’m not so sure. And I’m tempted to stop taking these pills to find out.

I recognize this as the trap people fall in. I know I need to stay on my meds and keep going to therapy. But I don’t know if I care enough to do all the work. I don’t really mind either way, though.

By CP

I am listening to The Cult and some other Post Punk Era bullshit music. I love this shit. I can wallow in it’s inane banality all night long if allowed. It brings back some amazing memories for me.

It brings back the mania that I love so much.

I remember being 18 years old and going out to Club Spanky or to Spize and dancing my fucking ass off while shoving mountains of cocaine up my Jewish nose. I was all over Long Island back then, running around to “New Wave” clubs with my half shaven blue hair and my Madonna rubber bracelets. I wore fishnets and combat boots back then. Everything I owned was black. My nails and my lipstick were black. I wasn’t “goth” or anything like that. I was a kid that was desperate to find where she fit in. I loved the post punk era music like The Cure, The Cult, New Order, the Smiths, The Ramones, etc. I wanted to emulate those bands and pay homage to them through my manner of attire. I wrote poetry, deep poetry as I always have, but didn’t share them with anyone. I kept all of that for myself, lest I become a “poser” and be known as someone who was chronically depressed and on the verge of suicide. I wasn’t. I was extremely happy being miserable, taking chances, doing spontaneous things that were definite no no’s for college kids like me.

And there lies the difference. College kid. In school, you would never know about the other life I was leading. Designer jeans, trendy blouses, high heels, pink nail polish and my hair in a ponytail so you couldn’t tell that it was shaved on one side. Yes, the blue streak still showed, but it was the 80’s and no one questioned colorful hair.

It was around this time I think I realized something was wrong with me.

All kids go through phases. I know that. I respect that about youth. I know most of them experiment with drugs, alcohol, sex and that sort of shit. I took everything to the extreme. I was entirely too promiscuous. I slept with more men back then than most women do in a lifetime. Actually, probably more than 10 women have in a lifetime. It wasn’t the sex, it was the control. I said when. I said where. I said how. I said why. And it was never “normal” sex. It always involved some sort of knife play, asphyxiation or blood letting. This is why it pleased me so much to live amongst the night creatures at the punk clubs. I scared the shit out of most of the men I had been with. Eventually it circulated that if you were into insane practices during sex, I was the person to see. I cut myself during sex to watch myself bleed. If the man or woman I was with joined me in doing this, I was all the more thrilled.

During the day, I was chaste, pristine and untouched. I listened to Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson because it was the thing to do. It was what the “normal” kids did. I listened to Great White and Poison too, lest the rockers I hung out with thought I wasn’t cool either. I hated every second of it. It was lies, all lies and that is what my life amounts to. I kept this charade up for years, even after the birth of my first child. Mommy by day, vampire by night. The two lives never met. Never. My daughter didn’t know of my antics and my psychos never knew I had a daughter. I did mescaline, quaaludes, acid…everything but smoke pot, because somehow, I associated smoking weed with being a loser.

Can you imagine? Like I had room to judge someone else.

There were days/nights when I felt too mentally exhausted to keep up with this dual lifestyle and I started to fray at the edges. Eventually, the two worlds did collide and I realized what I had been all along.

I was bipolar, living my mania and my depression in two completely separate and individual lifestyles. My psychiatrist agrees that it is a passive form of schizophrenia. I hear things. I hallucinate sometimes, but I am forever hearing things that aren’t there. Sometimes, they are in the form of whispers. They tell me what to do and I do them. The logic is fallible of course, but to me, it always made sense. Do what the whispers say and no one gets hurt…

at least not right away.

I never felt as happy as I did when I was cutting myself, abusing myself or allowing others to abuse me. It made me feel alive. Even years later, when I was in a relationship that was drowned in domestic violence, there was a certain safety factor there. Everytime he beat me, everytime I saw blood flow from some orifice, I was okay. I was alive and when I didn’t die, I was invincible…a very bad frame of mind for the manic depressive. No one is invincible, but don’t expect me to have believed that.

I think, in a lot of ways, I still live my life this way…the black and the white. Even my blogs are very different. One blog is all white, pretty, shiny and full of silly thoughts and amiable rants. It’s extremely public. The other? Dark, dreary, private and I could give two shits less about what anyone who reads this one thinks of me. On the other one, I do care…because I want the world to see the changes I have made in myself.

Have I changed? I don’t know.

I know a part of me still yearns to break free of the Mommy/Wife/Nurse life. It’s not that I don’t love my family. I do, probably moreso than most. I love being a nurse. I love my children with every fiber of my being and I couldn’t breathe without my husband. But, there are times when I just want to walk away from it all because I feel like I don’t belong. I don’t fit in. I am not ordinary. I am extraordinary and I know this. I am a walking contradiction and it breaks my heart that I can’t be completely content like other people are. I try to count my blessings like a good girl should, but I can’t see them sometimes. I know this makes me sound like an ingrate. I resemble that remark. There are people in the world that would kill for my life.

And still, there is the side of me that needs to bleed.

I hurt myself all the time, just to make sure that I am still in existance. I don’t take a razor to my arms anymore. I don’t gash myself with knives any longer. What I do, I do passively. I rip the cuticles from my nails in one swift move, knowing it is going to hurt like crazy and bleed. I leave my hair dye on a little too long so my scalp burns. I take showers in water that would make other people blister. I make myself sick, physically…like a sick form of Münchhausen Syndrome. I will do things that make me suffer because it is the only way I can feel. I hurt myself emotionally too, setting myself up for disappointment over and over again. I betray myself constantly. I set myself up to be fired from jobs I love because I don’t feel worthy of keeping them. I keep very high expectations of people and then, knowing full well they couldn’t possibly measure up to them…I allow it to disappoint and discourage me. It gives me a reason to be angry at someone…

someone other than myself.

If you met me on the street, you wouldn’t have a clue about this girl. Not one iota. You would think I am the most well adjusted human being on the planet. I am funny. I have a great sense of humor and sense of self when put in all sorts of situations. I am full of grandiosity. I am humble and nice. I am polite and respectful of others.

And I am suppressing the beast inside.

As I get older, it gets a little easier, but not much. The medications have helped a lot. I don’t feel as angry all the time. I don’t want to hurt myself too much anymore…but I still have moments, like this one, right now where I wish I didn’t have to answer to anyone. I wish I could cut myself or someone else. My husband, my beautiful and perfect husband doesn’t understand this part of me. He accepts it, but he doesn’t understand it. It’s not part of who he is. He suffers in a different way…a more logical and realistic way. He will throw himself into his work or do a chore that helps him to let off some steam. Sometimes, he will smoke a joint to relax. Whatever works for you. Me? I’d rather engage in painful activities. I want to have sex often, hard and brutally. My husband slaps me on my ass when we fuck. I enjoy that, but if he knew how hard I wished he would hit me, I think it would sicken him. I told him once to grab me around the neck when he is behind me. He will, but only for a moment or so before letting go. The man is not capable of hurting me, not physically or emotionally. That’s probably a good thing, because I tend to do that all on my own.

“You shut your mouth
how can you say,
I go about things the wrong way.
I am human and I need to be loved,
just like everybody else does.”

There is salvation in being alone sometimes. I have the house to myself tonight. I want to take some valium, percocet or vicodin, have a drink or two and then come back and re-read this article. I will dare myself not to erase it. Just another form of hurting myself without cutting into my forearms or my thighs. I need the pain of knowing that I wrote all this down and someone will be disgusted or disappointed by what I have to say. But, I will wake up in the morning, throw on my dress attire for work, pick up my child from school and make dinner at night. No one will be the wiser. It will keep me the perfectly pristine housewife and mother that way and the PTA will never know my dirty little secrets.

I wish my husband was home. I miss who I am when he is around.

Originally posted here.

I won’t mince words initially.  The psychiatrist I have been seeing since late 1998 is part of my past.  She helped me I first started to see her, she understood things no one else seemed to.  She could peg me when I sometimes said only a few things or struggled with words.  The medication she gave me seemed to work.  Sure, she was always late.  LATE.  1, 2, 3 or more hours late.  At  first I didn’t care, I mean I was not at work and had more free time.  I would bring a book or magazines and settle in for a little “me” time.  As time went on it became more irritating, disrespectful.  She briefly referred me to another Psychiatrist to treat my eating disorder (binge eating disorder).  Now this Psychiatrist almost proved herself initially helpful.  We talked about me and some new things I discovered that helped me deal with things.  After a few months she started to break appropriate doctor/patient boundaries.  She asked me to volunteer with her eating disorder education program, which was initially ok and even enjoyable.  The lines became blurry.  She called me at home a lot.  She hosting candle selling parties and invited me (seriously).  I was becoming more and more involved in the volunteer work and when I has appointments we never talked about me and my issues. Eventually I quit her, and realized that is was a horrible relationship.

I went back to making-me-wait-doctor.  At least I trusted her.  Fast forward, same shit different pile.  I saw waiting-doctor about 2 weeks ago what I think will be our final meeting.  We were talking, and all of a sudden she started flipping through my file, from late 1998 until now.  Quickly flipping.  She started muttering about “history of migraines” (no longer), and a history of “brittle” hypertension (wrong, it was high, then treated and just before I saw here, I was taken off said medication), and said “you know, your short term memory has never been very good (me: barooo?), “I think I will send you for a MRI of your head”. AN MRI OF MY HEAD.  She suspected that all these things she described were indicative of me having TIAs (Transient Ischemic Attacks) “ http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tia/tia.htm a transient stroke that lasts only a few minutes.” What the of the to the fuck?  I laughed!  I said, I sometimes struggle for words, but when she sees me at my PSYCHIATRIST appointment, I am not taking an IQ test.  You don’t know me personally, but “TIAs manifested by major symptoms such as dense paralysis or severe language disorder” and “Drooling, imbalance, decreased alertness, difficulty swallowing”, “Confusion, headache, seizure”.  SERIOUSLY?  I knew instantly she was way off base.  She said she has ALWAYS thought my short term memory was bad.  I know, since I am crazy, this may sound weird, but I seriously though she was bat shit crazy.

Longer story shorter.  I found a new psychotherapist for talk therapy and she found me a new Psychiatrist to take care of my meds, but not all my crazy talking/listening.  I did this all within 2 weeks and I RULE.  I interviewed two talk therapists/psychologists and I can’t decide, but I will next week.  I feel positive about all of these changes for the first time in a long long long time.  I think I just picked the short straw when I was assigned Psychiatrists.  Twice.  I think I was partially concerned that if I told the tales of my two mental health providers, my DOCTORS, people would think I was even crazier and not believe me.    I still know I have a list of things to fix in my messed up noggin, but having new support makes me feel awesome

I’ve been so anxious at work, so depressed at home, that I haven’t had time to think through what I’ve been going through beyond, “gotta get outta here” and “gotta try something different with the meds.” Both are right, but I’ve been feeling like I’ve been living in tunnel vision for weeks.

I had a brief talk with my immediate boss about the crazy and abusive behavior of the big boss, which has been the cause of my sleepless nights and anxious, teary days, and when posed the either/or of “should I take a leave, or just quit?” he was strongly in the leave camp, but added, “I have enough bad karma to be mad at you if you left. You have to decide what’s healthy, what you can put up with.” So that was a bit of a relief, because other things aside, I’d hate to never speak with him again if I left.

I also had some “progress” on the headache/dizziness/depression front, in that I had a head CT (negative) and a long talk with my lovely shrink about my past month & a half. She thinks it’s a metabolic reaction of the lamictal with the increased effexor. Since I’d had occasional migraines on the lamictal before this recent dose increase, she thinks I need to come off it. I’m not happy about that– because within four days of starting the lamictal last June, when I was in the depths of despair, it had kicked in, and literally was a lifesaver. I hate to let go of something to which I owe so much gratitude, sanity, creativity, and joy. But at the same time, it’s not working anymore. The headaches and dizziness are getting worse, not better, and I can’t tolerate them and try to work, or figure out what to do about work, at the same time. So we talked about other options, and she wants me to consider lithium or Depakote.

I’m frightened of both. Lithium, because my father had a girlfriend who was manic-depressive, on lithium, and still not controlled. I know I’m a different case, and that it’s the gold standard for a reason, but that past experience continues to taint me. At the same time, though? The weight gain effects of Depakote terrify me. I’m a former bulimic, have a huge comfort-eating problem, and a massive oral fixation to boot. No pen cap is safe around me. I will always have issues with my weight, even though I’ve been pretty ok the last 10 years. At the same time, though, my mother and my aunt, who if you saw us all together in a photo, you would automatically know we’re related? Both over 250 lbs. And that’s without Depakote. I’m terrified of what would happen, even with trying my best.

Also, a really whiny, self-indulgent part of me does not want to give up my nightly glass of wine. Alchohol is a lot more contraindicated with these two drugs than with the lamictal, and I just don’t want to give my wine up. But if I have to, I have to. I actually defended a doctor years ago in a case where a bipolar on lithium ended up with tardive dyskinesia, a parkinson’s like neurological deterioration, because she was an alcoholic and continued drinking all the years she took the lithium. She was pretty much wheelchair-bound by the time the case made it to trial.

And the last part? I am terrified about what will happen to my mood during the taper down. I have a lot of work scheduled in the next month– I don’t want to hand it off, because these are my personal clients, not the firm’s, and at this point, I sort of feel like they’re all that I’ve got. But at the same time, it’s going to suck, to put it mildly, decreasing the lamictal to zero, then starting the lithium. (She doesn’t want to do a “close taper,” because there isn’t a lot of research on it since lamictal is still new in the bipolar formulary.) My husband asked me if I was going to take the end of the lamictal taper off, and it tells you how tunnel-visioned I am that it simply didn’t occur to me to reschedule stuff that week, rather than hand it off. It’s true that “I will be out that week for medical reasons, and need to reschedule.” No one else needs to know more.

It’s all too much, or almost too much, but it’s got to be done anyway, and I am scared shitless. I just hope that in response to all the resumes I am sending out, I don’t get a crucial interview on what might turn out to be a dream job, the week I’m off my mood stabilizer, and starting another. That would be a little too interesting.