RealMental

By StormyBluez

I haven’t had a psychiatric app. in about 10 years. 11 years ago it was Prozac. I was 13. I felt that the Prozac robbed me of my creativity I remember it making me feel very empty. I stopped after 4 weeks and rebelled against all help psychiatric.

Ive always drank far too much- insecurity I guess, helps me creates a fake atmosphere. I may have done too many street drugs that possibly added fuel to my internal fire. Heroin was what helped better that all the others – my sister was diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder in late 2003, my doses were increased and I really had a iron clad reason to hate the world now. Not just my own ugly worthless forgotten demons. She was not hospitalized, they wanted to but my mother would not allow it.

I remember coming home in the rain one night not being able to feel my mind or legs. I sat beside her bedside as she slept and contemplated burning the house down, stop everyones suffering. I felt SO selfish and worthless- here my sister incapable of controlling her mind. Really literally Mentally unable. And me abusing my capability of control. Because I CAN no matter how deep and suicidal my episode is – I am capable to stop, acknowledged my actions and thoughts. So I stopped shooting-up and decreased my drinking.

My sister went through so many medications. 3 years to find the right ones. She’s ok now, although she is not the same she is and wants to survive. She is a huge inspiration. I’m clean now- about 3 years, don’t even smoke cigarettes. But I am deeply sad, I feel alone stupid and worthless ungrateful & suicidal. I have a therapist app. on Halloween. I don’t want to go I’m scared of myself. I think its a man. I don’t think I can be honest with a man. maybe I shouldn’t go. Damn this is gonna be hard, I want to listen to the better half of me, I want to be able to love myself, but can’t even get dressed today.

I wrote this part 6 weeks ago:

tonight i am not drunk. i started to drink and ran out of booze. that is probably best since it’s a school day and i want to be sure i’m up for that. every day i make promises to myself to not give up life, not leave my family behind in a mess of blood and tears. i have been close many times to planning it out, and as of late, i do believe that drugs should be had. the ones that will make me happy. every day i promise myself i will call the doctor and have that sit down with her – but last time went so badly and i do not agree with her choices. how do i trust a doctor who sleeps with her prescription pad under her pillow? i’d be better off re-joining the gym and getting stronger. i hope to do that soon. my body craves the movement and god knows i need to take that time for me.

i have been on those happy pills before, but they make me gain considerable weight and being fat, especially for me, given my history of abuse, is devastating and comes with bone crushing sadness. i can’t be fat. i have nothing against fat people – in fact, i tend to gravitate to them. they are safe to me – people i can relate to and be raw with. i can’t explain it, but fat people are considered safe and more loved by me. i distrust skinny people, completely.

the only father figure i have recently asked me when i was getting divorced. i was really surprised at the question since we are happy, but then he followed up with, “guys don’t dig fat chicks.” i repeat it every goddamn time i look in the mirror. i shouldn’t let it get to me but he was one of few ‘safe’ family members. it’s killing me to think about it all the time but i’m obsessed with being thin.

the last time i went to the doctor, i refused drugs. i was going through a horrible relapse with anorexia and never slept. i was public about it and was quickly shut down by hateful emails. since that time i have kept things more under control, especially since my husband had me under a microscope and made me ‘express my feelings’ and ‘open up.’

what he heard unnerved him i think, but he loves me. he knows most of what i deal with privately is a mental hell. still, i haven’t ever said everything i wanted to say. no one knows me inside and out. no one.

i doubt i will ever trust anyone fully. even after years and years of a great marriage, i find i am staring at the sky, waiting for it to fall. it happens all the time – couples fight, lose interest, cheat, lie, whatever. we haven’t gone there. it’s been good, really good. i should be happy.

that feeling of ‘should be happy’ makes it worse. my life ‘should’ make me happy – i have everything i want in terms of material things and of loving arms around me all the time, well, when he is here. i’m alone a lot and miss him so much i ache. so then i feel guilty for not being happy – i feel shitty about starving myself and needing the happy pills but am afraid to get fat, dependent, or deemed weak, by anyone. these 2 cycles have their hands around my neck and the grip has only gotten tighter.

i can’t swallow anymore. i feel very much alone and afraid. writing here might make everything worse. i confided in another writer here about how opening up some of these old wounds might make it worse. i bury things. it works for me.

so i pen this post as ‘blue’ and hope that one day i work through some of this shit . sounds cliche, i’m glad to be here, writing with people who know more, and understand me. it’s a really good start, and i’m hopeful for a whole lot more “every days.”.

****
I wrote this part last night:

these days, things are a little better. i joined a gym and got rid of some of the things that i felt had a serious hold on me. i feel freer, healthier, most of the time. as long as i get moving, my head doesn’t want to bend and swoop, diving down into the darkness. some days are alright.

i quit drinking too. not completely, but i forbid myself to drink during the week. i haven’t drank in nearly 3 weeks. i’m proud of that, and most nights, i don’t think about it. i don’t think i was addicted to alcohol so much as the wallowing in self-pity or the high points – though i never knew which way things would go.

i’m still abusing coffee and my body. i’d like to talk about that more but i think food deserves it’s own post.) if you made it this far, thank you.

~ blue

By StormyBluez

today was bad-

feel Alone-

my tears feel like acid

I want a gun NOW

I’m lame

my body’s lame

Heart’s _BLACK_

Mind’s sick

Soul – saturated in gasoline (waiting)

I want a vile of poison NOW

To sleep forever

Dream of what I could love

escape this wallow of pity

Strike me with lightning NOW

I’m just not made up to survive.

Spectacle to burn and fall.

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.

I’m depressed.

I know that doesn’t sound like a monumental statement, especially here on RealMental, but for me, it is.

I’m depressed.

It’s not like I haven’t been depressed before. I’ve certainly been more depressed than I am now. I’ve been suicidal depressed, wanting to scream my head off depressed, crying, crying, crying hard everyday for weeks and weeks depressed, and wanting to hurt myself just so the pain could be physical instead of inside my head depressed.

But each one of those times, I could point to something that made me feel that way. Coming to terms with childhood sexual abuse. Someone whom I loved and trusted betraying my trust and breaking my heart. My mother trying to kill herself. Being in an extremely abusive workplace that was stifling my soul, my body, my mind. There was always a reason, and usually a very good one.

Not this time. I’m…just depressed.

There isn’t a reason. My life is really great by anyone’s standards. I am smart. I have an education. I have a job that I’m good at, with nice people who appreciate what I do and support me and believe in me, even when I don’t believe in myself. I have incredible friends who love me. I have a soul mate who worships me, whom I adore, and who is actually moving here to be with me. I have a house and a car and a dog and two cats who like to cuddle. I have debt that’s manageable. I’m cute. I’m funny. And I know how to write.

What more could you want?

Maybe to be not depressed?

In the past, I could always point to what was going on and say, “Anyone who found themselves in this situation would be depressed.” I even had therapists say those very words to me. There was always a reason, an excuse, something to explain it all away, something external.

And now, there’s nothing. The only reason left is that I have a chemical imbalance in my brain. That I need to take drugs. Because there’s nothing more I can change about my life. I’ve quit all the extra activities that seemed to be draining my energy. I’ve cut all the negative, poisonous, judgemental and passive aggressive people out of my life. I even turned down a promotion because I was concerned about what the extra stress would do to me.

But none of that made a real difference. It didn’t pull me out of the depths. It just left me treading water. Barely keeping my head above the waves.

And so, I put my faith in this drug. This little white pill that I’m hoping can help me swim. And I wait for it to start working.

Because that’s all I can do.

By She She

There is so much of my twenties that I don’t remember. I wanted so desperately to feel something authentic but did everything possible to make sure I didn’t feel anything at all. I drank and engaged in all sorts of risky behavior, but personally, I was risk-averse. I was shy, awkward, depressed and afraid. And my fears kept me safe, but they also kept me from experience. I think this is why I can barely remember so many of these years. I ghostwalked through them, never feeling more than I had to. A non-participant in my own life.

Looking back, it’s like a movie that I kind of remember seeing. I have a vague plot line, but I can’t really remember individual scenes. It’s scattershot. Sometimes someone will tell a story from that time, and I’ll nod and say, “Oh, yes, I remember that now.” Or, “I don’t remember that at all. You’re sure I was there?”

A few weeks ago, I thought of one moment that brought me a small twinge of pain and regret.

I had traveled to Paris to visit a friend over the Christmas break. She’d been invited to a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s estate in the country. I hadn’t packed a party dress, so Claire lent me a sweater and one of her black work skirts, which I wore with my black biker boots. Between being underdressed and not speaking the language very well, I felt conspicuous and self-conscious.

After we arrived, Claire left me to mingle with her friends. The music was loud, and I could barely understand a word people were saying. One young man asked me to dance. He really wouldn’t take no for an answer. He tugged my hand gently and said in his lovely accent, “C’mon. Let’s dance. I want to dance with you. Please. Dance with me.” I backed away. “No, no. I don’t want to dance now. No, thank you. I don’t want to dance.” I felt so self-conscious, alone, and out of my league with these young socialites. I’d never felt so far from home. I just wanted to leave. Finally, he kissed my cheek and walked away to ask someone else.

I want to tell my 22 year old self, Go! Dance! Say yes! There are some things you will never get a second chance to do.

But I don’t dance. I don’t say yes. Instead, I sit at a table on the side watching the whirling, laughing figures while a dour young Frenchman harangues me for an hour about how evil America is. Mmmm-hmmm. Yes. Oh. Americans bombed Canadians at Dieppe on purpose, you say? Oh. Well. Yes, that’s awful. What’s that? Yes, I would like another drink.

I’ve turned this memory over so many times in my mind over the last few weeks that there are very few sharp edges of regret left.

So I’ll put one in the column of Opportunities Lost. And I’ll put one in the column of Lessons Learned. And I’ll try not to be the girl who won’t dance.

Original post here.

By CP

There comes a point when you have to forgive yourself.

I spend so much time dwelling on the things I have done wrong in this life. I spent the first 40 years of my life being cruel, calculating and deceitful. I didn’t know any other way to be. No one taught me to be this way…it just was. I never questioned why I was so different than everyone else. I assumed I was one big character flaw. I was a continuous disappointment to my parents. They read my diary and were shocked by the things I revealed there. To be perfectly honest, I almost wanted them to read it. It would save me the trouble of lying. They grounded me. I climbed out of my window and continued to live my life. I was reckless as a child and more reckless as an adult. I have done some very cruel things to people I care(d) about. It is only now, while well medicated, that I can see the forest for the trees.

How many times do I have to try to
tell you that Im sorry for the things I’ve done.
And when I start to try to tell you that’s when
you have to tell me Hey, this kind of trouble
has only just begun.
I tell myself too many times why don’t you
ever learn to keep your big mouth shut.
That’s why it hurts so bad to hear the words
that keep falling from your mouth…
tell me…why?

I embraced my kind of crazy. I never thought of it that way. I just thought that I was an extraordinary kind of human being with little emotion, or sometimes, way too much emotion. I spent most of my days turned inside out because I never knew what I could expect next from myself. Everyday was a new show, like flipping channels. Hundreds of channels, but nothing is ever on. And no one understood me. I preferred it that way. There was no one to have to answer to that way. I could be diabolical one day, sweet and loving the next and never would I have to explain myself. It was just me, take it or leave it.

Yet, during those times, I said and did a lot of things that were hurtful. And, it is only now, now that the medication has given me some clarity, that I want to go back to each of those people and fix my mistakes. I care now, which is a very large burden to bear. Sometimes I think it is easier to be manic and just not care…or be so depressed that no one else exists but you. You could care less about anyone else, because in your own mind…you are three quarters of the way to dead inside.

I can’t go back and fix all the wrong I have done. Therein lies the problem.

I have to start to forgive myself. This is a nearly impossible task because I am my own worst critic. No one is harder on me than I am. And if I was to leave the crimes of my mania to the jury of my depression, I’d be swinging from the gallows without hesitation.

When can you start to forgive yourself for transgressions gone by?

I take my medications like a good girl, every night, without fail. The thought of not taking them scares me. Then again, the thought of taking them daily makes me feel defeated. Why can other people function daily without pills to pull them through but I cannot? Again, I put myself on trial and submit to a life sentence on a daily basis. I hate swallowing those pills, but I also know that I am scared to death of the woman I am when I don’t take them. I never used to be afraid of her, but that was because she was cloaked in the disguise of me. When I looked in the mirror back then, I saw only one person…one very damaged person. Now when I look in the mirror, I see all the pieces of me, all the very different individuals. So many facets to one person and yet, I couldn’t bring them all together to make them whole without the help of these pills.

Two white ones. One white capsule. Four blue capsules.

How am I ever gonna get through this,
back to myself again.
Say it isn’t so.
Watch me falling, see me falling
through the vortex of a sky.
Darkness and light,
that’s what’s in side.

I rely so heavily on these pills to make me right, whole and complete that I never actually give myself credit for my own accomplishments. I mean, are my accomplishments my own, or are they a product of the manufacturer of my drugs? Tiny little pieces of me that come in a bottle. The finished product comes when I swallow them. I drain the life force out of these pills for 24 hours til it comes time to take more. I hurt myself over and again, batter myself emotionally for having to be so reliant on these mass produced pharmaceuticals. But I remember the girl I was before them and frankly, she scares me still. The person I owe the most apologies to is myself, for all the times I let myself down. All the bad choices that I made. And sure, you don’t need to be bipolar to make bad choices. That’s not exclusive to those with mental illness. I supposed in some ways, we are all sick. We all need help.

The problem is when you cannot recognize yourself in the mirror. The problem is when you are standing with glass in your hands, blood dripping from your fingers and you have no idea how or why…or even whose blood is on your hands. The same girl that I love so much is the very same girl I despise so. It is so hard to love yourself when you scarcely know who you are. And the times that I would love myself? They were more frightening than the times I thought I didn’t. Manic. I would show my love for myself in the most dangerous of ways. What I want, when I wanted it…no thought of consequence.

And sometimes, I ache for that. I pine for it like a long lost lover.

So I am undertaking the task of apologizing to myself in lieu of all the others that I can never say I am sorry to. The people I hurt physically. The people I hurt emotionally. The people who tried to help me whose hand I closed in a door, both figuratively and literally. I want to send all of them notes…forgive me, for she knows not what she hath done. But I can’t and I add this to my list of failures.

Again, I am harder on myself than anyone else could possibly be. When I strive for perfection, I succeed in the eyes of others and fail miserably by my own decree. So where is the happy medium for someone who is used to doing everything in excess? How does someone who has been bipolar for their entire life suddenly go about putting out the fires that she caused?

Maybe I’m still searching,
but I don’t know what it means.
All the fires and destruction are
still burning in my dreams.
There is no water that can wash away
this longing to come clean.

I hate nights like this. I hate when I analyze myself right before swallowing these pills. My Lamictal. My Prozac. My Geodon. My life. I can’t live without them and they can’t live without me. They want me to be their walking, talking demonstration of how well they work. I am a disappointment to them as well.

What I ache for the most is something that I will never have. Peace. Pure and simple peace. A life lived. Not just existing, but living, understanding and realizing that we are all just pieces on a gameboard. I want to be set free and fly away from myself, but I cannot. I am stuck here, on permanent hold. I can’t be me, because I no longer know who “me” is. Am I the girl I was before the medicine or am I the creation of these pills? Was this me all along, trying to get out of a reckless body and mind? Or am I just fooling myself right now?

I don’t want the answer to that. I don’t want to know.

I can almost hear the rain falling.
Don’t you know it feels so good.
So lets go out into the rain again.
Just like we said we always would.

I want to get well. I want to stay well. I feel like I am backsliding though. I know the levels of my medicine need to be increased, but I am reticent to go back to a psychiatrist and let them know that what is saving me is now failing me. I see the symptoms, the signs. They are all laid bare before me yet I choose to ignore them because, quite frankly, mania feel so good. There is no drug high quite like it. It is a free falling feeling, like a roller coaster that just keeps diving and dipping and speeding and flying. It puts stars in your eyes and makes everything else just go away. You don’t care. Tomorrow doesn’t matter. You could die right here, right now and fear it not. You will die happy and content in your mania. It blinds you to what is real. It makes it all go away. A temporary fix, like a shot of heroin in your arm.

Or, a bandaid on a bullet hole.

And the more I miss the mania, the more swiftly it comes back for me. I yearn for it and it calls out to me. It tempts me and teases me. It is almost erotic in its persistance, like a outcast lover. It’s alluring, like silvery waters. It’s soothing like the wind.

And deadly. As deadly as anything else that can render you lifeless.

A depression is always sure to follow. A deep depression, one that feels like you are stuck in a grave. After coming off such a lofty high, any depression is going to feel like a death sentence. And again, like with mania, you could care less.

I am on the fast track backwards, so I want to get my apologies out of the way. I am sorry to the ex-husband that I had the affair on. Yet, I am not sorry, because it paved the way for me to be with the man I am now married to. I am sorry for all the times I made my children have to learn to live by themselves because I was holed up in my bed, rocking myself into a deeper state. Either that, or they had a mother with scissors who ran so eratically that she would never slow down long enough to help with homework. I apologize to the man I met online and hurt so deeply that his life was literally shattered by my actions. I apologize to my mother for the hell I put her through. She needed compassion because she was sick as well, but I didn’t know that…and if I had, I probably wouldn’t have cared anyway. I am sorry to my present husband for making him live with me for the first seven years without my pills. Sorry for yelling at him. Sorry for breaking things. Sorry for anger that came unexpectedly and without warning.

Sorry for so many things…but mostly for myself.

I swore I would never live a life of regret, but since these pills, it is all I can manage now.

I walk along the city streets so dark,
with rage and fear.
And I wish I could be that bird
and fly away from here.
I wish I had the wings to fly away from here.

In this aspect, I am burdened. The pills force me to take a long hard look at myself and the picture is not so pretty. Sure, a beautiful face stares back at me. 41 years old and barely a trace of time on this canvas. My face is truly a work of art. It lies without speaking. It’s a farce and a truth all at the same time, it depends on how you turn it and which side is facing the light. I was blessed with the good genes of my mother and her mother before her. Our faces are barely touched by time…but if you look long enough into our eyes, you will see something cold and insincere. I am trying so hard to soften my eyes, to bring out the warmth in them. It has proven a nearly impossible task, though my husband swears my eyes are warm and beautiful.

In many ways, I think he is more delusional than I.

Cold. It is how I have spent my whole life. And I am tired of it. Exhausted by it, in fact. I am so over it. So over the pain of my tears and the pain of my sidesplitting laughter. I am so tired of the extremes. My body is weary from trying to keep up with my mind. I am trying to hard to be a good person, like my husband is, that I am exhausted by it. It comes so naturally to him. With ease, with grace…he sails through his days with nary a worry to furrow his brow. I want to be that person. I yearn to be that person. I want to be someone’s rock.

Dying is easy,
it’s living that scares me to death.
I could be so content hearing
the sound of your breath.
Cold is the color of crystal,
the snow light that falls from the
heavenly sky.
Catch me and let me dive under
for I want to swim in the
pools of your eyes.

Since I am apologizing, let me add one more. I am sorry for trying to make myself into something I am not nor will I ever be. I am sick. I am diseased and I am only fooling myself.

Originally published here.