RealMental

From guest writer Bipoar Notes

Today was rough.

A friend pointed out yesterday that my hands have started shaking. I looked at them and saw a tremor. Don’t know what that’s about, but today I started to feel agitated and a little angry.

Right now I am tense, a little upset, somewhat frightened by it. The fear creeps in; will it happen again? I have been doing so well; can’t it just stay this way?

The ephemeral stability. Never quite within my grasp, never able to be locked in, or protected, like a candle with glass around it.

No, my candle is open to the air, and the air is always gusty, at best — a gale force most of the time.

I am sometimes surprised I have been able to sustain romantic relationships. But then, none of them have lasted.

So often I feel like I am tricking the person in the beginning: “Here I am, I’m such a great package, so much to offer”, and then the truth comes out. “I am a nightmare”. “My life is a hellish vortex and you’ll be drawn into it”.

I try to warn them, but how do you warn someone about something they have no way of comprehending? “This will be like what it feels like to be submerged in icy water until you almost — but not quite — die; Instead you’ll have to endure this pain for as long as you are here on earth.”

How can they understand that, or prepare themselves for what is to follow in the weeks, months, years ahead?

I really feel sorry for them. I also feel guilty about what I put them through. I mostly only care about the one I have now, but I have some guilt about the other ones, the ones who were drawn in and couldn’t take it.

Sometimes I was very angry, though. “I can’t get out, how can you just leave me here and save yourself??”

I mean, when someone loves you, how can they leave you in that hell? It’s like, “Ok, well, there’s only one life jacket, and it’s my size; I have got to get out of this icy water.”

And I am angry; “I can’t get out. How can you save yourself knowing I will drown in this?”

But I also understand them. It is hell. The pain is unbearable. Wouldn’t I end it if it were at all humanly possible?

What is it like to love me? So often I have nothing to offer except anguish and despair. So often I feel empty, with nothing to give, as if someone opened the drain, and all the water ran out.

The rest of me, the beautiful me, the talented me, the unique and wonderful me – it’s not able to shine forth. My light — the unique and totally Julia light – is being obscured by this horrible illness.

It’s as if the rest of me is trapped inside, struggling to keep my head above this frigid water, a prisoner below the ice.

Please welcome Miriam, the latest writer to join us at RealMental.org. We are proud to have her here and know you will appreciate her candor and story. Welcome, Miriam!

I have sat struggling to come up with the perfect beginning to my first post here and as it turns out I can’t find it.  Should I provide a resume of crazy so you know I’m legit?  Lists of ridiculous occurrences from the last week that have made me want to leave town?  A full fledged essay regarding my thoughts on the state of mental health as it relates directly to my particular brand of nonsense?  So I am taking the easy way and doing the whole fourth grade composition version of a deus ex machina:  “…and then they woke up…and then they woke up again!”  Except that I am using it as a beginning.  So… then I woke up and I was here.

I’m happy to be posting here, to be writing each one of these words- but it comes with a requirement for a new set of rules.  I have to decide who knows what about me except the “who” is anybody with internet access.  I have managed to be crazy for 17 years (if we are to mark the “start” as when I was first directed towards doctors and pharmacists) without any one person knowing the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  I don’t think I am alone in that, especially among those of us who “struggle” and “cope” and are just plain batty.  Compartmentalizing is a skill that I didn’t think I had until I started to think about what I would write here.  I have compartmentalized my whole life.  Now I am choosing to let some stuff fly into the ether and hope that it is the right stuff.  Maybe what I am saying is that I am not yet as bold and strong as some of the great writers here who manage to be clear and concise, clever and unflinchingly upfront.  I have read blogs faithfully and watched through the paragraphs when someone’s words have led to fallout and then the writer gets back up.  I want to be as strong.  I haven’t found my rules for writing here yet and even though this paragraph started with “I’m happy” I should also mention that I am scared to bits.

Deep breath, hold your nose, close your eyes and jump in.

One of the worst parts about spending the majority of your life as a “sick” or “crazy” person is that you always have to wonder if you are actively sick or crazy, about to be sick or crazy, almost past sick or crazy, or not sick or crazy at the time.  I say sick because that has always been the easiest way to explain absences from school, jobs or social events.  In basic conversation I usually just say crazy.  I don’t mean either term in a derogatory manner it is just easier on the brain to lump some things together and to laugh at some things.  It is how I have managed to breathe, even if it’s hyperventilating, for most of my life.  It is kind of like search and rescue missions.  They break the area into grids because if they just looked at the whole 100 square miles it would seem impossible to have hope.  If I can laugh at something, make light of the very serious than I am roping off an area in my head.  I don’t think I would find much levity if I were to look at the whole thing laid out.  But that makes my paragraph end very darkly so I will also say that labeling what happens in my head or with me is empowering in a way.  Too many different diagnoses over 17 years wear a person down.  So I hereby diagnose myself as crazy.  I do not expect it to go away entirely but with treatment I believe there is room for growth.  Ta da.  There you go freaky-too-old-for-long-hair therapist lady from high school!  And breathe.

I don’t know exactly where I am right now on the crazy/sick continuum.  I know that I have had a very difficult summer but that in many ways I’ve done well getting through it.  The people I sometimes pay to keep good track of me tend to agree and I trust them.  But then there are the non-players.  The sideliners.  The people who are stuck to me by law or magnetic force and watch me all the time.  It is awful when those are the people who provide you with the most telling evidence of your mental state.  It is a galaxy of stars more awful when that sideliner is your child.  Example:

I am helping my son and daughter clean their room.  They are 5 ½ and 3 ½ respectively.  It is 4:00PM and I am pretty pleased with the way my day has gone.  It’s been the kind of day that for the most part, my therapist would be pleased with and compliment me on for embracing my successes even when they’re small.  I am however still in my pajama shorts and a tank top and we actually haven’t left the house.  But we did a lot and I am doing well.  So I totally missed the whooshing sound of the arrows that were flying by about to pierce my heart.

My emotional sponge of a son asked me “Mommy, why do you wear so little so much?”

Before you start imagining me as a nudist or part-time stripper he meant my summer nightgowns and sleep/stay home clothes.  I started with reasons like there are some days that we don’t have to go anywhere and some that are too hot and then I realized he wasn’t really talking about that.  He had his hands in his lap and was looking only at me with those blue eyes that know too much to belong to someone who is only 5.  I told him that just like he does, some days when I don’t feel well I get to stay in my pajamas until I feel better.  And yes, in retrospect there have been a lot of those this summer.

“Do you mean like when your back or your belly hurts?”

I have chronic pain so he understands that but for sure that wasn’t always the reason.  But how could I say “No, Sweetie, the other kind of sick.  The sick where the bed is coated in super glue and all food tastes the same.  The sick where you wonder if you should be taking more of medicine X or less of medicine Y.  The kind of sick that puts me in a category with war veterans.  Multiple kinds of sick. The kind of sick that I have been for more than half my life and that you have had to watch and suffer the consequences of.  And oh yeah- chances are good that you should stock pile the Wellbutrin and Xanax now because the gene pool is deep.”

All I could say was that I that I thought things were getting better.  That was last week.  I did get dressed on Saturday but not Sunday.  I don’t know if he noticed.

Was I lying about things getting better?  Why am I wearing my pajamas?  Is a heat wave reason enough because last month it was the rain that meant we weren’t going out.  There is validity but I am starting to think that I am hiding behind half-truths.

“So how come you wear pajamas SO much of the time, like SO many days?”

Nuh uh. Can I respond with that?  He’s five so maybe that would be okay. My little boy who loves learning about everything and anything and can read anything you put in front of him seems to be half way to a therapist’s license- he is asking all the right questions.  Suddenly I am flooded and tingling and desperate for the phone to ring or a pipe to burst.  I would even take spontaneous nose bleeds or maybe an intruder.  There are people you can call for that.

“Well, I’m not entirely sure all the time but I am going to try to make that change.  I’ll try to make it better.  I love you.  I’m sorry.  I love you.”

I crawl under the bed with the pretense of looking for a lost library book.  I look for a long time even after grabbing it with my left hand.

I am keenly aware that my son knows crazy when he sees it no matter where it is on the continuum.  And that is my fault.  That is my fault.  I cannot help it or go back and change it but it is still my fault.  I would like to wake up now.

I’m a little late in saying this, but please join me in a warm welcome to our new writer AnotherChanceToGetItRight. She’s got a lot to share and is a wonderful addition to our RealMental writing staff.

What you don’t know—the memories are so vivid sometimes, they punch me in the stomach.  It’s always unexpected, something triggers them: a song I haven’t heard since 2006 or heat lightning that flashes across the sky or a lecturer, mentioning the common practice elsewhere of men turning the lit end of cigarettes in toward their mouths.  It hits me from nowhere, lights a flame up through my viscera.

I call it conjuring.  The act of making something appear, something that you weren’t expecting.  Something bright and shiny and dangerous.

What you need to know—my dear one, tonight we stood at the ocean with our feet in the surf.  We rolled up our pants and took off our shoes, and we pointed to stars in the horizon.  It was so dark outside—the beach was a private one and we hadn’t expected to be there.  In the dark, I reached back and took your hand.  The waves rolled up on my feet, and I closed my eyes, and it hit me.  Punched me in the stomach.

Suddenly, brilliantly—I conjured up the feeling of you turning me around on a beach down the shore from where we stood tonight.  That night, you swooped down and I turned and you were on one knee.  Things got fucked up after that, but that night was so beautiful and perfect.  And so were you.  And so are you.

My dearest, I conjured you.

About three months ago I made a decision to stop contact with a few of my family members.  Some very key members of my family that have helped to guide me, shape me, and make me want to cease contact with them at some point in my life.

I did not just wake up one day and decide, “gee, this is a good day to stop talking to some people”.  It was more of a culmination of items over a period of years that brought me to the decision.  I’d considered over the years.  Not something that I’ve ever done before, never thought I would ever be able to.

It feels weird to me.

Now that I’ve gone and done it.

Stopped communication with a few of my family members.

At first, I could not believe how good I felt not being tethered to the legacy of unhealthy behavior that I’d convinced myself for all too long, that was “just how we are”.

Since the official “event”, I’ve happily reported to my therapist that I feel really good.  REALLY GOOD.  And, very free.

A very important thing to remember is that this is something I did for myself.  Not to punish anyone else, not because they are bad and evil.  It’s a road that I simply had to travel down in order to achieve some separation I so badly needed.

My history has been one of carrying other people’s anxiety.  No one asked me to do this, it’s just how I’m made.  Having spent many years going in the wrong direction for other people, I am learning how to go in my own direction.

This is something I’ve learned recently, by taking this action.  I can be influenced easily by others if I trust them.  This isn’t unusual –  it’s a common human behavior –  to be influenced by those we love and trust.  The key is to not forget who we are, and what our own story is.

Over the past few years I’ve had some almost insurmountable obstacles in my life, emotional pain that brought me to my knees and made me question everything that I thought I knew.

I could easily write about the huge injustices that have been “done” to me over the years, how unfairly I’ve been treated.  Sure, I could do that.  But what would it prove?  What would it solve?  What good could come of it?  Not any good, that’s how much.  I know this because I did spend too much time lamenting in that batch of unhealthy.

I suppose that was a necessary part of the process, until I realized that it wasn’t improving my quality of life in any way after my initial screams.

What IS important is how I process the events that happen in my own life.  What is important is what I DO with the events.  What is important is that I take responsibility for myself and my part in said events.

I love my family, I miss them.  I miss the good stuff, I miss the fact that they know me better sometimes than I know myself.  I hope they understand this, I hope they understand my need for solitude in order to find my way through this chapter.

I’m learning a lot, I’m gaining insight that previously eluded me, getting closer to the center, closer to knowing more.

About myself.

“It ought to make us all feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we talk about, when we talk about love.”          –Raymond Carter

The crazier I got—or perhaps, the longer I was crazy—the less boundaries I had.  Goodbye kisses on the forehead migrated down until a boy, not my fiancé, said goodbye on my lips.  Boys—other ones—snaked arms around my waist, across my chest.  On the same outside swing, I alternately cuddled, shotgunned marijuana, was felt up.

This used to be my fucked-up notion of intimacy.  When my synapses crossed and misfired and exploded, I thought that these things [they all felt like electricity] were what intimacy was all about.

I was being used.  I was using them.

I ought to have felt ashamed.  I do feel ashamed, now—a deep intense shame that spreads through my skin.

Flash-forward three years, now or almost.  I’ve traded in boys who push hair out of my face for boys who push me up staircases.  I’ve never hugged my friend Joe.  Despite two years of him being my best friend in medical school, we’ve never hugged.

All those things I thought I knew about intimacy, all those secrets I thought the world was whispering to me about love: I had no idea what I was talking about when I talked about love.  But when I stopped equating physicality with intimacy, my ideas about love expanded.

I discovered that: sometimes “I love you” sounds a lot more like “If I had ping-pong paddle hands, I would beat the shit out of you.”  Sometimes, someone wraps their arms around you to pick you up, and you flail against them and kick their shins, but they don’t let go—a metaphor, one I pick up because I’ve had too many people let go when I flailed.  Given the choice between singing the words, “Me and you, and you and me—no matter how they tossed the dice, it had to be” in four-part synchrony and a goodbye kiss on the forehead, I will chose the former every single time.

A few months ago, I called Joe on the phone after arguing with Joey, my boyfriend.  I was upset, so upset I reverted back to my “crazy” way of dealing with things:  I had been driving over bridges, crying and screaming the words to Everclear’s “You Make Me Feel Like A Whore” until I was hoarse and no less hysterical.  I felt raw and vulnerable.  I texted to ask if I could come over for a minute—it was test week and I knew he was still up.

After I had calmed down, I apologized profusely for interrupting his late evening.  “It doesn’t matter, don’t apologize,” he said over and over, but I kept saying I was sorry.  He switched on me:

“There were times when I could have left,” he reminded me, “but I didn’t.”  The implication was that he had known what he was getting into, with this friendship.  That he had signed up for hysterical phone calls, for the sound of my sobs resonating out of his staircase, for me showing up at midnight with tears soaked into my face.

“There will be more times,” I said.  More times he could leave, more times he has to deal with me leaking out of my head.

“Probably.”

“And will you leave then?”

“I don’t think so.”

He talked me down, told me that Joey was handling his feelings in a good way, that he’d been smart.  He put a mug of water in the microwave.  He pulled it out and I watched him [like I always do] slip a few pieces of ice into it so I could drink it immediately.  He searched his boxes of tea, pulled out one and prepared it for me to drink.  “Go home, and go to bed,” he said, “this will help you sleep.”

I watch the two of us, sometimes, and I am reminded how little I knew about the love of friendship before.  Knowing him has made me a better person, a better friend to others and a better girlfriend to Joey.  When Joe turns his hand slightly to receive my car keys, when he reads my mind, when we remember the same obscure SNL reference or fight to see who can get out one of “our” quotes first, when we sing duets in his car—I can think of nothing more intimate.  I know now that I know what I talk about when I talk about love.

It comes with no warning, I was just sitting in a chair when I felt my insides begin to melt.  My first thought was to wonder if I was getting sick.

I don’t have “sick” symptoms, which means it’s the sickness in my head, thereby named “the ick”.  It’s when that visitor from the deep recesses of my mind comes out to tell me how fucked up and stupid I am, that I should just crawl into a cave and die.

The visitor isn’t welcome here, but it leaves things behind giving it the idea that it qualifies under squatter’s rights to torture me periodically.

Everything I look at around me is scary, the house is a mess, the floors need a sweep, vacuum and good cleaning.  The cushions are crooked on the couches again and that spot in the garage where the cat threw up a week ago is still there.

Why am I the only one that can see this type of chaos?  This isn’t how it was supposed to be.  Sure, it was supposed to be hard but THIS HARD?  Seriously?  Why?  Why do we do this?  Who came up with the idea that living with other people with totally different habits is enjoyable?

Sometimes I can send the visitor away by changing my thoughts, reading something inspirational, talking to someone on the phone, or writing about it.  Sometimes it happens quickly, sometimes slowly.

No matter how many times I bid it goodbye, I know that it will keep coming to check in on me.  Just in case I’ve decided to let it move in permanently taking me to depths of despair and depression that I never imagined possible.  Not ready to be it’s bitch yet.

There is no permanent cure, there’s only a daily reprieve that helps keep it manageable most of the time.  After each visit, I become changed.  Mostly for the better, always a little stronger, always a little more enlightened, sometimes weaker.

The benefits gained don’t make it any easier to accept.

Over the years I have gotten a great deal from attendace at CoDA meetings. I think one of my favorite aspects of that have been the affirmations.

I’ve put together a page on realmental, realmental.org/affirmations site to provide you with random affirmations that may be of use. Click to view another affirmations. I hope you will get as much value from them as I have.

Thank you for reading.