RealMental

As my handle states, I’m a lawyer. Even worse, I’m a litigator– I go to court a lot, file lawsuits, get high on the charge of arguing my case before a judge or a jury. I handle a blend of straightforward and more complex cases, and it’s the complicated ones that I really love. It’s how I get to show my smarts, prove my abilities, and feel recognized, acknowledged for my talents. I aspire to be a well-known, scary smart litigator on the cover of SuperLawyers and reported in the Top Verdicts and Settlements report every year. I want to be queen of my corner of the legal world.Actually, that’s not true. Or more accurately, I should say that this whole paragraph should have been written in the past tense, except for the “I’m a lawyer” part. And maybe not even that. Because I am realizing that the way I chose my online handle, BipolarLawyerCook, has more meaning in the order of the words than I could have thought.

See, Bipolar comes first. It’s taken me a while to realize this, despite the fact that I type my online handle nearly every day. Let me repeat that. Bipolar comes first. It doesn’t mean that I walk around with a big scarlet B attached to my coat. What it does mean is that I need to take my bipolar into consideration when I am making decisions about what will keep me healthy, and therefore happy. If I ignore my hard-acquired self-knowledge about my triggers, my mental knee-jerk habits, if I fail to avoid people, places, and situations that back me into a corner where I curl up into a little ball, and just give up, then all I am is bipolar, and worse, a crazy bipolar. If I remember, and adapt, then there is plenty of room for any other descriptors I want to tag on after bipolar– so long as the terms can all coexist with bipolar, and take turns as need be.

When I was first diagnosed, eons ago in 2005, I was relieved– finally, an explanation, and one that did not implicate some moral weakness on my part. I started taking my meds, went religiously to therapy, worked on my triggers, was a model patient. But not really– because I made the mistake of believing that I would now be able to do all the things I’d wanted to, but couldn’t. Despite knowing better, I assumed that the meds and the therapy would cure me, and that I could do whatever I set my now-stable mind to.

Not so– the meds control, don’t cure. If I overtax myself, then all my crazy predispositions come roaring back. But more importantly, and fortunately without quite the same variety of mental ups and downs, I am finally coming to realize that litigation as a practice is mostly insane. Whether or not you’re officially crazy, the pace, the hours, the adversarial climate and lack of civility are all enough to drive the sanest person nuts. And I’m realizing that it does drive everyone crazy, eventually. Maybe you become a screamer, or a drunk, or you cheat on your spouse, or your kids hate you because you were never home, or your colleagues and opponents will never give you a break because you never give them one– there are a thousand different ways to fail as a person, if not so obviously as a litigator.

I recently took some time off, since I needed to switch mood stabilizers, was exhausted and depressed, and was therefore on the brink of messing something up again at work. The time off has been a revelation in more than one way. First, I’ve had even more ideas to write, and took the leap to start pitching ideas for freelance assignments. Second, I realized that the charge that I get from the ritualized combat of litigation comes with a price, and that I was ignoring the law of mental gravity: what comes up must come down. Add to that the slow dawning acceptance that my energy reserves are shallow, and I’ve come to accept that my flame burns bright, but burns out quickly. I need to find work that is more sustainable, less full press– and to do that, I need to give up my Queen Litigator dreams. This became less difficult when I had my third realization, while lunching with a coworker, who was stressed beyond belief. I didn’t want to go back– and not just to that office. Worries about the future aside, I was happy.

I was sharing this with my therapist, and she asked me who I was proving myself to with my SuperLawyer fantasy. When I realized that I was trying to get approval from those who will never give it, it because so much easier to step to the side, and understand that my dreams of worldly success would not make me happy, even if I had the mental resources to achieve them. I also realized that setting aside the fantasy isn’t failure, no matter what other litigators might think.

Having realized this, it becomes easier to think about walking away from the practice of litigation, or to at least think in a more clear-eyed manner about what will make me happy, and how I can best sustain that happiness. In compiling my list of things that make me happy, I’ve come up with: cooking, taking pictures, being with friends, writing for writing’s sake, having quiet time to myself, blogging for sharing’s sake, having quiet time with my husband, reading everything in sight, learning new things, and helping other people learn new things. I’m looking forward to adding more things to that list– and maybe more and different things to my handle.

Republished from BipolarLawyerCook.

By Dad Gone Mad

I’m sitting here this morning wondering when our senses of compassion and respect deteriorated to this point.

When did we become so callous and heartless that we started to view a young mother struggling with a mental illness as entertainment?

When did we stop trying to empathize?

When did we find ourselves so miserable with our own existences that we started to distract ourselves by watching someone else fall apart live on TMZ?

I hear the feeble attempts at logic.

When she decided to become an entertainer, she gave up her right to privacy.

Oh, I see. So because she’s makes her living in a spotlight, she can never leave it. Even when that light irrefutably reveals that she’s unwell, that she needs help, that the decent and humane thing to do would be to turn the light off and leave her alone, we refuse.

And let’s not stop at simply broadcasting her breakdown; let’s taunt her on her way down. Let’s call her “Unfitney” and repost pictures of her crotch and act as though we have been personally effected by someone else’s breakdown.

If it bleeds, it leads.

Better her than me.

I’m sitting here this morning wondering if anyone else sees more than one tragedy here.

Originally posted here.

I am a classic Adult Child. I need to please everybody, and my self-worth is measured by my ability to make everybody happy/calm/sober/sane. Between my alcoholic dad and my depressed nonfunctional mom, I was the adult of the family. I spent a lot of time being quiet, being good, being busy, being helpful growing up, but it didn’t make a dent in my parents’ behavior. All it did was make me wonder why they didn’t love me enough to see how hard I was working to make them happy– which then, of course, made me both more depressed and more determined to be better, smarter, nicer, more. (And really, really, angry. But it took me years to figure that part out.) I tried to take care of my younger brother, and mothered/smothered him right into resentment, which is only now beginning to heal. I tried to take care of my mother, but those attempts bounced off the teflon shield of her narcissism. And I tried to please my dad– though this, in part, was “rewarded,” and kept me coming back for more.

None of this helps me have healthy relationships. I am the best, most caring, most sympathetic friend ever, until you don’t reciprocate in a perceived hour of need, when I, exhausted, heart-hurt, depressed and angry, will lash out at you in a sobbing, choking, waterfall of grief and accusation. I am the ideal employee, until the father-figure mentor falls short of my expectations in some way, at which point I will cease to give a shit and start self-sabotaging. I work myself into the grave, then get exhausted, manic/depressed, and start messing stuff up, all the while lacking perspective because I was trying to be perfect and denying that I was falling short. I’m the best boss– always available to help you sort a situation out, giving credit where credit is due, and being truly constructive with my criticism– until I fall apart and am utterly unavailable to you. And I am a pretty good wife, mothering, cleaning up, nudging along, until I get pissed off at whatever it is that I’m annoyed by, because isn’t it enough that I work, and do the shopping, and do the cooking, and do the family organizing, do I have to do everything? All of these traps are hard to avoid, and keeping out of them is as much work as remembering to take my pills every day. That’s why practicing the fine art of Letting Go has been so crucial to keeping my sanity.

Before I met the Better Half, long before my bipolar II diagnosis, it would be safe to say that I was a Serious Person, well on my way to being a Bitter Bitch. I was a prime candidate for a Sense of Humor Transplant. But the Better Half made me laugh, makes me laugh, helped me rediscover my laugh and my sense of humor. And the joy that he brings me every day allows me to lighten up, to realize that my house doesn’t have to be perfect, to let the dishes sit another day, and to air my grievances in a way that will not win me Battleaxe of the Year. It’s still a struggle– decades of being a Control Freak are not easy to let go, and a little bit of perfectionism is OK. But maintaining the balance? Oof. Letting go of getting it right, and just practicing, even if I never make perfect– that’s what’s needed.

Republished from BipolarLawyerCook.

By coolbeans

It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen my dad in person. While I was out with my daughter today, I saw a man who looked a lot like my dad. It was startling how much. I kept glancing over, trying to decide if that’s what my dad would look like with shorter hair and carrying a little more weight.

My brain twisted around and around looking for the answer. I finally asked my daughter to look. “Who is that man?” She looked and said, “I don’t know.” I asked, “Is that your grandpa?” She looked again. “No. He looks like him, though.”

The man got up and left and I was suddenly unable to hide the fact that I was trembling. I put my head down and started to cry. My daughter was perplexed. “Why are you crying?” I told her I didn’t know exactly. That I thought it might really be him.

She said, “I would think I’d be glad to see my dad if I were you.” Then she said something else. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it made me think she believes I don’t see him because of something I did.

I’ve felt shaken all day. I can’t stop crying and I feel lost. I didn’t realize why until just now. I was afraid to confront him and tell people what he did to me because I thought they would see me as a troublemaker. A grudge-holder. A tattletale. Maybe even a liar. I’ve dealt with other people in my life being unable to see why I don’t just “let it go”, but I didn’t think my little girl saw it quite like this. She doesn’t blame me and she’s not upset with me, but she does see me as the instigator. As much as she accepts me and allows my problems to be mine, if it weren’t for what I did, it wouldn’t be a big deal to run into my dad when we stop to get a burger and fries.

She’s not yet ten years old. I don’t want to tell her everything so she’ll be on “my side”. I’m on her side, and being on her side is more important than having her on mine. So I’m telling you. It’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything wrong. I only made it stop.

Originally posted here.

The good news is that I have my new new official theme song. “Because I’m Awesome” by The Dollyrots. That’s my new motherfucking theme song: You’re stronger, faster and can spell. Yes, thanks, but I would use a serial comma after that penultimate item. And that sentence isn’t parallel. But whatever. It’s rock.

Anyhow, I especially like the little bratty spoken part at the end, which sounds exactly like me when I’m unmedicated. And hey guess what? Not medicated. And guess what? Not enjoying this. I called the doctor and discovered–here’s more good news–that I had an appointment today. I thought it was last week and I missed it. Then I realized that I had no fucking idea what day it was today.

I seriously had the following exchange at the office:

OTHER GUY: Hey, were you here on Friday?

ME: I have no idea.

The weekend was like trying to stand up in a squall, topped off by the unexpected arrival of a totally random four-year-old who came over and stayed for six hours on Saturday. He was with his dad, who was doing some work for my neighbor, next door. And I guess he needed some kind of supervision and it takes a village and all that, but sometimes the kids in the village need to stay out of the hut of the Crazy Lady until she gets her Depakote.

Incredibly, I found in the doctor’s waiting room a woman who was more fucked up than I was. She was having some difficulty affording her mental health care, and it was a really bad scene. The receptionist had her on the phone with some kind of agency. The doctor wanted her to come back in three weeks (anything above monthly is a big deal in our practice), but she couldn’t afford to. That’s how people slip through and get lost.

I stopped her as she was leaving. I told her I didn’t want to get up in her business, but I gave her a $20 because that’s what I had. Use it for whatever. She took it and looked at it like she was going to have to figure out what it was. Then she gave it back.

I go back in two weeks.

Originally published at Baldo.

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.

I’d upped my Effexor XR recently, and was achieving nice results at 112.5, but went up to 150 at the recommendation of my shrink. Two weeks in, I was feeling even bouncier. And then … anxiety in whole-body washes of hot, and cold, and tingles. Hyper-focused attention, impatience, inattention to idle conversation, and spaciness–verging on what I associate with my hypomania. Nausea and acid stomach if I ate more than 1/2 cup of food at a time. Nightmares. Ugh. No thank you. I called my shrink and left a voice mail with my symptoms and that I was going to knock it back down to 112.5 and see how I did. 12 hours in, I am feeling less verge-of-hypomanic, not so nauseous, and able to eat 3/4 cup of food at a time. Whoopee! I need a plateau, I really do.

Republished from BipolarLawyerCook.