RealMental

Motherfucking hell I thought in my head when I left my Doctor’s office. My thyroid levels are worse, not better.

He doubles the dosage, then I come back in two months to repeat the process of getting blood work, followed up a week later with another appointment with him to check the levels again. When I left his office, I was feeling very low, maybe even depressed.

There are so many disturbing eruptions happening in my life that I can barely piece myself together to be present for my son. Can I just tell you that these issues are not of my own making?

See, I have my shit together. I have scraped and clawed my way into life, I overcame and rose above. Then I fucking got married. Do I sound resentful? You bet, I am very fucking resentful.

The side effects of dealing with grown ups that have no idea how to be a mature and independent adult. A person with a grandchild, still being spoon fed by her mommy and her third husband, a person with such severe mental illness I fear she can never recover from all the damage she’s created. A person that has severely damaged her very own child with her undiagnosed mental illness.

The effexor, armour thyroid, hormone creams, and the supplements that stare at me each morning as I go from bottle to bottle taking the amount prescribed and wonder if this is any kind of life for a person to live. It really isn’t any kind of life for me to live, or you for that matter.

I often wonder how long I will be able to function like this, knowing that things are not improving and the burdens becoming much too heavy to bare. I suited up for my life and showed up, I can support myself, I am a survivor that doesn’t need bleed other people dry like a fucking vampire.

I struggle with reaching out to others based on the severity of my personal conditions. No one really wants to hear it after five or eight years of hearing it. In fact, I’m beyond hearing about it, or living it.

Similar to when a person dies, people are very helpful for the first few months, but soon after they stop calling as much and god forbid if you shed a tear. They want to just get over it, stop wallowing in the past. I too, want to just get over it.

They don’t know what else to say, they cannot be shouted at or cursed.

Something inside of me is screaming very loudly, it’s like a trapped animal in a cage suffering innumerable pain and discomforts. Part of me would like to try and figure out what is being said, so that I can respond in kind to the violent screaming. Eventually, trying to figure it out becomes much too hard and I try and distract myself with activities that I know I must perform in order to put that whole one foot in front of the other.

This is what I keep doing, one foot in front of the other. Just like the big snow monster in that old Christmas movie.

**After re-reading this, I very much wanted to delete the post, to pretend like it never happened.  I struggled with removing it, lest you think bad of me.  Embarrassed with my immature ramblings in the middle of an attack of my ego.  (Or, as my therapist would say, “lack of ego”.)

Instead, I’ll leave it here and tell you what bothers me most, “See, I have my shit together.” Not that I expected anyone to believe me, but this is the crap that I try to tell myself when in the middle of an attack.

Then I remembered one of the reasons that Real Mental exists, to allow me a safe writing place.  My hope is that I do not offend, nor to have a person take this personally.  I struggle with how much to reveal sometimes, I question myself, I do the whole second guessing game, and generally make myself sick over it when that isn’t why I wanted to be a part of this to begin with.

Don’t let my anger, (or is it passion?) scare you, we all have the right to say and write “ugly” things, if only to use it as a tool to get to what is really underneath it all.  It’s just another layer.  Not one I am proud of but one that must be acknowledged in order to move on.

Brain waves scrambling at lightening speeds, stomach feeling like there is an egg frying in it; bubbling, popping, greasy, and hot.

There is no way to prepare yourself for all of life’s gunshots. Situations that have your heart wrapped up like a Vietnamese summer roll, nice and tight.

My recourse, my comfort has been to write, and asking others for help. I’m not good with the asking for help part, never have been. So far, I haven’t asked anyone for help but I know I am supposed to.

There are some things that not one person can help with, putting me in the boat of “beyond human aid”. I know that boat, and I know where to take it when I’m floating in it.

I remember the old adage, “tie a knot and hang on” and wonder if it came about from a person attempting to hang themselves. Or, how about “this too shall pass”? That’s a given, days will pass whether we like it or not.

It doesn’t remove the need to actually process the emotions that come up during times of darkness. The way of the Buddha, to embrace the feelings we have, no matter their internal temperature. Trying to remember to accept my life for what it is, rather than how I think it should be. Sure, that’s easy enough right?

Right, it is really that simple.

Find the gratitude, it’s always present right underneath the clouds.

Be here now.

Love.

Give.

Live.

Move forward, careful not to peek too much into the past.

Heal.

Love.

Write.

It’s funny, how we can talk ourselves into how MUCH we want something, and do too good a job of it… so that the attainment of it can be anticlimactic. “Is this all there is to it? Isn’t there more? Why isn’t there fanfare?” At least, that’s what I’ve been thinking, going back to work. Why yes, I did want a friggin’ parade, apparently, though sane coworkers and interesting work ought to be enough. So it took me a few days to figure out I was unnecessarily bummed, and feeling sorry for myself because I was being let alone to just do my work– like they let everyone just do their work. It’ll take some getting used to. I’m used to working someplace dysfunctional where I was needed by folks without anyone else to turn to. It was ego-gratifying even as the dysfunction drove me nuts. Guess I will have to learn again the joys of a job well-done, and a workload that doesn’t have me waking up in the middle of the night– something that should be exciting and energy-boosting, not a feeling of being let down. This savior complex has got to go– because you know what? It gets exhausting every day, and I knew that before I stopped working there. But old habits are hard to break. I’ve got to work harder at working easier.

Second Chances was the name of his CD, the one in which he put a bunch of songs he wrote together, found a musician, and went into the studio to lay it down. The sad thing was that the musician and the studio were small time and they took a lot of his hard-earned money acquired by working two and three jobs for most of his life.

The music got airplay locally for a few months. I’ll never forget the first time I heard his song on the local country radio station. I was ecstatic and tried to call him, I was getting ready to go to work. He was a very humble man, but I knew that deep inside there was a little boy in there jumping up and down with excitement. I knew his dream was to be published as a songwriter, later in life he began to refer to himself as the scribe.

He only made it to the eighth grade, having to help his parents on the farm. They never had much in the way of possessions, but his memories were of a very idealistic childhood of farming and fishing. He was a simple man; kind and loving, always willing to listen to a person who needed a shoulder to cry on.

With his gentle nature, people were drawn to him and he always made time for people. Despite his lack of standard education, he was a very wise and intelligent man. A man of few words, but each one with a purpose to carry you along a little farther than where you were when you met him.

Shortly after the studio experience, he and my mom went to Nashville to “shop” the CD. To hear them describe it, they went door to door to every publishing place there, in addition to those smoke filled Nashville honky tonks. I’m not sure I’d ever seen him happier than for those few years, he lived on the hope of “making something of himself”.

The ending to the studio story is heartbreaking, I liken it to the stock market crash when folks were throwing themselves out of windows in tall buildings. Before it was over, he was nominated for an award. I remember him picking out his suit, new boots and a new western hat. He was a cowboy through and through. My dad took me along because my mom wasn’t in the best of health.

Walking into that fancy hotel in Nashville, I felt like a princess proud to be on the arm of my dad, nothing less than a saint. He beamed the whole night.

Nothing came of that awards show, and the hammer came down soon after that. The hammer of his dream being put in a coffin. The studio, and the musician were not really up for the challenge to take it as far as they could. I’ve since learned that some places like this studio have a habit of taking the money from the simple people with a dream.

He died on February 1st, 2006 from congestive heart failure. He’d been diagnosed with small cell lungcancer, emphysema, copd and leukemia. He’d had the leukemia for a few years at that point, but it seemed to lie in wait not causing him too many problems. I smile inwardly that it took four diseases that he knew about and one he didn’t, to kill him.

That was how the scribe was, he never gave up and he always managed to walk through everything in his life with courage and a smile. It took me a long time to come to peace with the fact that he just couldn’t go on any longer.

One of our last times together, he was sobbing due to the pain he was in and the side effects of chemotherapy. I hugged him really tight and i told him that if he needed to go, that it would be ok.

There are days that I miss him so much my insides ache, then there are the days when I *see* him and *feel* him with me. He will always live on inside of me, and of my children as I pass on the wisdom of the scribe.

This morning, I really did not wish to rise when the alarm clock beckoned me to do so.

I did anyway, as I do every time I have to answer to it in the morning. I mean, the seriousness in which I must awake to that alarm clock would blow your ability to believe in anything good ever again. A story that I cannot reveal in this post, the importance of that fucking alarm clock.

Once I actually get up in the morning, I’m on fire. I make coffee, send the puppy outside and feed the cats while I’m in the garage, come back in, begin picking out the boys’ clothes for school and calling his name gently to arouse him from his slumber. I swing by the TV in our bedroom, turn it on to help wake him up and go to pack his lunch.

Back to the kitchen to be sure the coffee is going as it is supposed to (sometimes it doesn’t and that’s fatal), then back to the boy. Rubbing his back, giving him kisses on his head to coax him into waking him up. I am careful to be gentle with him. Knowing, every morning the reason I am so gentle (maybe too gentle) is that as a child we were not aroused gently. We were screamed at, threatened, and terrified.

She couldn’t help it, she was so overwhelmed with three children and no husband to help out, or for that matter pay her child support. He left her without any money, while he went and bought new Harley Davidson motorcycles, boats, cars, alcohol and drugs. She had no other choice but to breed into us her hatred of him, and his selfishness. When you are scared, you do very unnecessary things.

You project your issues onto your children, without even realizing it. Sometimes not until they are adults do you see your anger, your resentments, your pride, your ego coming out of them. Rather than pass along that nice family trait of making mornings a living hell for those in my home, I try to be gentle. Not so much with myself.

Old habits are hard to let go of, after all we are made from our little crazy gremlins that we carry around in our heads. It took me years to realize what was happening to me in the mornings.
Before I even had children, I would berate myself for the minimum of an hour (the time it took me to get ready and out of the house to work). It wasn’t until I heard a man telling his story many years ago and he described the morning madness.

He described it like this; “it would wait for me all night on the bed frame”. as soon as I would awake it would say, “you’re awake! I’ve been waiting for you”. He goes on, “within five minutes my brain would have me broke, homeless, and jobless”.

I remember the moment my ears first heard this man speak, something in me said, “YES!” This is exactly what happens to me.

On this particular morning, as I was twittering around I realized that I had forgotten to do something. My heart started pumping so hard I could almost hear it and my brain was saying “OH NO! OH NO! OH NO!” over and over again. My son heard me say aloud, “OH MY GOD” so he asked what was the matter and I told him I’d forgotten to do something and it was due today.

It was “homework” from school to help out his teachers, just cutting out shapes to create a project or a book. I ran into the garage (thinking that if I do it while smoking I’ll get done faster) and began clippingout the seahorses and clams.

My brain starts to process what my physical body is doing. And it dawns on me why my son is so afraid of “getting into trouble” at school. So far, he’s not been a behavior problem and people have always mentioned what a good kid he is. This was his first year in a “real school” kindergarten and I’ve noticed that he strives to not get into trouble, so much that I wondered if it was healthy.

I can hear myself saying to other people, “I have no idea why he is so terrified to get into trouble. I almost wish he would get into trouble in order to understand it isn’t the end of the world.”

It wasn’t until this very moment, on this very morning that I realized he could have picked this up from me.

Here I was, in a panic that I’d forgotten to do this, my brain was having a field day with the insults. It was just in that tiny moment that I realized that I have an issue with getting into trouble.

It may sound like a small discovery, but I assure you it is not. I never cease to be amazed with how much we can hide from ourselves, how certain thinking habits and behaviors are justified for so many years solely on the fact they were “grandfathered in”.

Despite this story, I have put a lot of effort into recognizing when those tapes begin to tell me how badly I suck at everything. I speak above them, telling them they have no place anymore, they no longer serve me.

Those thoughts will never permanently leave, but I believe the more I bring them out into the light, the less power they have over me, and the unknown factor of passing them down to my children.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve received a new round of Doctor’s appointments and physical exams. This post relates to the Hormone Therapy Seminar that I attended over a month ago. I had good intentions to jump right into it and get tested, but I put it off. A very bad habit of mine, to put these “things” last as Doctor visits tend to mess up my schedule and doesn’t give me the feeling of having accomplished anything.

As I typed that, it sounded silly. I know that taking care of your person is an important accomplishment. Perhaps it doesn’t contribute to the family unit or for the betterment of humanity. Whatever.

The first appointment would be an hour with the Hormone lady (one who conducted the seminar), and then a consultation with the general practitioner in the same office to perform a blood letting and schedule a physical. I was sent home with a saliva test kit to be completed on 5.19.08 and then mailed away to the scientists for results.

The first follow-up appointment confirmed that I do indeed have a thyroid malfunction, a slight cholesterol issue that can be corrected with the right diet and exercise. Other than that, I am very healthy. This is always surprising to me, that I am physically healthy. I left with a prescription for armour thyroid, and another appointment.

Two days later, I go back for the four vials of blood letting for food allergy testing. Once those results are in, they’ll call me for another appointment.

I’m not sure how I feel about the thyroid issue, part of me wants to be glad that there is a scientific explanation for lots and lots of very odd behavior that I’ve had over the past year. It’s not like I enjoyed thinking I was just a huge waste of space, that I just wasn’t trying hard enough.

It will eventually sink in, part of me is relieved that I have a physical issue that is the culprit for not being able to “just snap out of it”.

Having this knowledge, I was able to follow the physical reaction my body had from a simple phone call from our lawyer to schedule an appointment for Tuesday. We have a court hearing scheduled for Wednesday, but the docket isn’t anything huge (compared to the major issue we are anticipating). The way my body reacted, you would have thought I was about to be murdered.

It started with heart palpitations, trembling, heart racing, and sweating. Panic attack, right? Then I got weak in the knees, all my energy sucked right out of me. (Originally, I’d had big plans for the day that consisted of getting stuff done.) My thinking got fuzzy, everything around me got bigger and I got smaller. Even email became too much of a task for me to perform.

This has been going on for months. Months, maybe even a year or two with a gradual increase in weird, unexplained symptoms. I’ve wondered why I couldn’t keep some things straight, often confused about certain details, and unable to show up anywhere on time. I’ve made so many apologies for just being out of it to friends and family, I have wondered how long it would take for them to just give up on me.

I am trying not to put too much into this one physical issue, it is important for me to take responsibility. In fact, I lean on the “too rigid” side too much of the time.

I’ll have two more follow-up appointments for the food allergy and the hormone tests, I’m hoping that if there are any issues, it’ll be easily controlled or regulated. I have a small piece of hope that the spinning of my wheels over the past couple of years will allow me to find my own balance. I’ve been missing my balance, tending to self harm (mentally) instead of wondering if maybe something were physically wrong with me.

I sure hope the thyroid kicks back in quickly. I have stuff to do.

It’s been a rough spring around our house. But at the same time, it’s been better than each one before it. So I feel like I should be grateful, and I feel guilty for feeling emotionally exhausted all the time, but there you have it. I feel what I feel, and it is what it is.

I belong to some support groups for “significant others” of people with bipolar disorder, and I can tell you from years of observation and experience that, among our ranks, May is a rough, rough month. In a bit of black humor, someone somewhere began referring to this month as “May-NIA,” and that stuck. Even my own spouse, who is faithful and dedicated to his mental wellness, and takes his meds and tries to stick to healthy routines, has periods of “breakthrough” hypomania in the spring. Do what we will, the force of springtime will not be denied. Every year I’m struck with jealousy over other people’s rejoicing in the coming of spring…they’re planning their flowerbeds, washing their windows, de-winterizing their mowers, while I’m monitoring the bank account, trying to keep things quiet, and generally just scattering a fresh layer of eggshells across the floor for us to walk on. I dread spring. And to be honest, I resent having to feel that way.

In the beginning of our journey with this illness, post-diagnosis, I lived in a state of wary watchfulness. In the first year, there was a significant relapse, so after that I was pretty much in constant readiness, watching for that sign that would indicate that everything was about to go south again. If he was 5 minutes late, or didn’t answer his cell phone one time, I just knew that “it was happening again;” that he’d disappeared, he’d “run,” and that, since that was the line I drew in the sand when we decided to stick this thing out together, that our marriage would, consequently, be over. I literally went through this entire thought process on a regular basis. It was a long, long time before I could make myself continue to breathe normally in the face of even a small unknown. But I learned, as time went on, how to focus on myself, to trust myself, and to breathe.

As more time went by with no full-blown episodes, something odd happened. I did manage to stop living mentally perched on the precipice of disaster. I remembered who I was before I ever tangled with bipolar disorder. I realized that I’m smart (enough), capable (enough), and tough (enough) to handle whatever it could throw at me. And with that knowledge, I relaxed. A lot. But I didn’t anticipate what came next–what has been happening for the last couple of years.

My husband has expressed to me, often, the irony of managing a mental illness well–that is, that since he stays on top of his medication regimen, sees his doctor regularly, performs well at a regular job, etc., that people tend to “forget” that he has bipolar disorder. Then, when there is an episode of breakthrough depression or hypomania, the reaction is one of disappointment, like, “I thought you had this thing beat.” No one understands that it’s an ongoing, daily battle, and that there is no magic pill that’s going to work all the time. We “tweak” his med cocktail once or twice a year, at the very minimum.

I have caught myself falling victim to this same phenomenon, in a way, and I’m not sure it’s any better than the way I used to live. Instead of being constantly on edge, expecting things to fall apart any second, I now let even a couple of weeks of good times lull me into near-total complacency, so that, when there is a bump in the road, as there most assuredly always will be, I’m left gobsmacked, the rug pulled entirely out from under my happy little world. Every time this happens, I feel so stupid, because, of course, I knew better. But it is so altogether soul-wearying to live in that watchtower, that sometimes I just desperately want to come down for a while. To stay up there, watching, watching, watching, is to admit defeat, in a way…but more than that, that sort of life is really no life to have. It’s not just emotionally tiring; I can feel it chipping away at my physical health, with all sorts of symptoms I never knew before I met bipolar disorder, like anxiety, panic, depression, irritable bowel, nausea…this disease that I don’t even have is shortening my life.

But the alternative–life without my husband? No, that’s no life for me, either. Somewhere, somehow, there must be a way to find balance. I wish this post were more about answers.