Tornado in My Brain

Ok, So I stayed up all night last night, crying. I thought I was feeling better and then it hit me. I am so anxious, worried, and sick over this house buying business with my husband, that I am literally filled with fire...I have such heartburn it is crazy. I am completely incapable of calming my racing thoughts. I am so exhausted from my crazy brain, yet I just cant relax! I am beginning to wonder what on Earth I am doing here?! I have ruined my life in so many ways and did this only in a matter of less that 4 years...(since I turned 18). I take the wrong turn with every move I make. I make the worst decisions when I make them on my own...and my husband doesnt like to tell me no...well I neeeeeeed him to tell me no sometimes...I really do.

Anyway my mood is outrageously out of whack today...I am sad, ANGRY, confused, lethargic, and frankly I am ready to sleep for the next 100 years...please, just let me rest! I cant take my mind anymore...its like I am in there but I am inside a tornado...my rational, intelligent, sane me is in there its just being washed out by all these crazy ideas, emotions, and out of whack reality. I want to SCREAM, or punch someone...Gah...please make it stop!

I am Sick, get used to it!

The world around me seems a blur the past couple of days. I am sitting here in this real world, this real life, this real body....yet I feel like I am behind a window looking in. I feel like the world around me has become so unfamiliar. Its like looking through binoculars you see something you know its real, but you also know its too far away to do anything about whatever it is your looking at.

Anyway, a friend of mine texted me today...well she wants to hang out and has been hinting around hanging out for a couple weekends now. She has expressed to me before about other friends making excuses and not just saying to her "I don't wanna go." So since that conversation...I have been rather afraid of telling her just why I cant or don't feel like it. To her it will only be an excuse. How do I explain to someone I am sick today...if I obviously have nothing "physically" wrong, no flu, no cold, no tumors, etc....but someone with Cancer could easily say I am having a bad reaction to treatment today or I don't feel like it today I am too weak...and it would be perfectly acceptable and even maybe bring that said person to feel bad for them (rightfully so) but how is this any different. I AM SICK, I DON'T FEEL GOOD, MY MEDICATIONS AREN'T WORKING YET, I AM HAVING THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE PLEASE LEAVE ME TO REST....it is an illness and one that doesn't completely go away. Sooo, my choices are offend her potentially and just say "I don't feel good" (thought bubble EXCUSES EXCUSES), or I can make her mad and push her away even more and just ignore her. Either way I am judged, I hurt or make someone mad, and both ways I am not understood.

So again I am faced with the dilemma, that I cannot lead a normal life. How is it possible, I am constantly having to explain myself, be it doctors, employers, the government, family, friends, EVERYONE! It gets so old and annoying. I almost just wanna say forget everyone, as sad as it makes me it would be so much simpler that dealing with this shit everyday. It's so exhausting, to explain why all the time...because its to the same people over and over. Let me ask a few questions for a change! How about: "Why cant you get it through your tiny pee brains and skulls that, I AM SICK? Why cant you instead of asking me all the time why why why, read a book or an article about it??? Why, If it concerns you so much, dont you go to the support groups for family and friends I have told you about???? or, Why is it so hard to just be a good friend or relative and just understand that this is who I am, take it or leave it?" I know the answer to all of these questions....its because the really DON'T CARE (and are lying saying that they do) or they DON't BELIEVE ME.

I love my friends and I love my family, but why cant they see they are killing me faster than Bipolar itself??????

The Bleak Road Ahead of Me...OH Joy!

For months now I have been on this path to "wellness". Despite my hard work and efforts I find myself in a familiar place, yet again. I may have been diagnosed only a year ago with Bipolar disorder, but I have been this way for so long...oh but, yay! I have a debilitating name to go with it now.

The past couple of days have been me reading, educating myself, about this genetic deformity in my brain. It is a relief in some sense that it has medical reasoning behind it and I am not making it up or alone in the matter...but at the same time it is absolutely devastating to read things and see examples of these horrific truths. These truths are things I never dreamed of.

Bipolar never is cured with or without meds, only regulated WTF? Never knew that. Some of my behavior is psychotic? WTF? That that was just part of who I am...psychotic??! As I read down a legit check list of symptoms and the categories that come along with them...I start checking the things i experience and suddenly down the page i see nothing but black check marks?! Am I really this bad, this far gone, this CRAZY?!

Okay, so I read for two days finished a book, started another....then I decided to write my letter for my pdoc, an assignment he gave my first session. He wanted me to list my symptoms, how they make me feel, and examples. Yes, please doctor send me into a whirlwind of emotions....anyway i start to go back to that checklist write them on paper...and think back on my life recent and long ago...and well damn I have a story for all of them...how do I write this on paper? All of it??! How do i even express some of this shit? Will he even read this all the way through? So it began...

Dr.X,

You asked that I write my symptoms and how they make me feel. I took this assignment seriously. I have read articles, blogs, and books about my disorder. I compared my symptoms to what I read, and I came up with a list. Of course, some of my experiences with these symptoms do differ from the ones i have read in the book. I talked a lot of this over with my husband to be sure I listed every possible ailment I experience.

Since I was young I have always been criticized for not being "normal". I was teased and bullied, not only by classmates, but friends and close family. MY anxiety, fears, paranoia, emotional swings, loud outbursts of yelling, crazy laughter for no reason, and struggle to concentrate, were all contributors to this relentless teasing, scolding, and comprehension in my young life.

As I have gotten older these symptoms increased, as well as multiplied into more complex and different symptoms than before. The symptoms that have developed more slowly and later in my life are as follows: all of the above listed plus...extreme sexuality (masturbation and premature sexual commitment in new relationships, including cheating or cheating thoughts etc.), inability to finish projects for school (including reading), hypochondria, overwhelming feelings, "strange" thoughts and ideas, delusions, night terrors that result in waking hallucinations that can last anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes, self mutilation, physically abusive behavior towards family, friends, and my spouse, wreck less driving (induced by rage, sadness, or excitement), suicidal thoughts, ideas, and planned attempts, outrageous spending (maxing credit cards), rash decision making, racing thoughts, clouded thoughts including confusion, sleepless nights or excessive sleeping, pessimism, hopelessness, sadness, crying outbursts, screaming fits, lack of interest, lethargy, urges to annoy people- to a compulsion (singing, calling repeatedly even at odd hours, making obnoxious noises and animal sounds, pinching, poking, etc) to the point where i literally am in pain if i dont do these things, lack of interest in anything ( now to the point where i have almost no interests or hobbies)..........

I then stop...look at my husband and fall into tears. I am suddenly stricken again with the reality of all this. I cry loudly and without want for consoling. "I am so angry! Why do I have to do this?! Everyday, its the same...I have to consider my bipolar in every aspect of my life, in ever decision that i make! I have to take my meds everyday, follow up with doctors, make plans around doctors and med refills. I have to everyday be reminded that I am defective because everyday this medication shoves the reality of it all down my throat!! Its never ending, despite all my efforts it will never go away. The meds I am on now, are taking their time and may not be working at all, the side effects drive me crazy! If this is true than more waiting will be in place, more time to sit unemployed with no income, no life, and for what?! What is the point?! Why is this happening to me or to anyone? It isn't Fair!! My life will never be anything more than a guessing game, and a constant eggshell race to the end. I am terrified to work, and don't even know who would take me with the limitations and hesitations I have, the temper I have or the poor work ethic I recently have acquired. Why should I bother, I have already messed up this life, no I take it back Bipolar messed my life up, not seeing signs sooner, not telling the truth the first go around....I have ruined every potential I have. I doubt I will be accepted for disability, why would I be!? What is the point of moving forward, so I stabilize, so what? I still have the inevitability that I will swing one way or another at some point, and who knows what that will come with. My dreams have been flushed down the toilet, along with my will to carry on. I am afraid of being old!? When I am old I will be homeless, I haven't put years into work force, there for no retirement, no savings, no SSI. Just another reason to end it before it gets even worse. I look down this bleak empty road I face..and ask myself why even bother, WHY?! I am so sick of this everyday, everyday, everyday...I am nothing, but a useless body that needs support at every angle of life. I at times feel like I am just a vessel filled with evil, and no soul. I dont even know if I want to be "fixed" and stabilized...when that happens I become a drone...in denial of everything I know to be true at this moment right now...I don't want to forget this anger... I want to remember how angry insurance, doctors, nay sayers, and the government makes me....because the moment I am reprogrammed with medication and therapy I will become their ideation of normal! I want to remember, yet I would rather not exist at all." My husband tells me, if you kill yourself you will just be another statistic...and I said "maybe that will be the one statistic to open their eyes!" truth is it wont be nothing ever will. I said maybe thats what everyone else needs, a sense of this eye opening truth i feel inside of me about the world about the healthcare system, about it all...maybe then people would stand up together for what is right and what is true! Things might get done. Maybe this is ridiculous to think, but it is so real in my head and so true...how can 30 minutes a month tell the doctor who i am, or an hour a month for the therapist? How will this tell them what I feel everyday, what I go through, how can they possibly see how in depth this is for me? When I go to the doctor, I am so anxious I cant even share things like I can here or at home with my husband, I cant even cry. I am overwhelmed with stress and anxiety of the appointment my mind goes blank..Anyway, long story short...What is the point of going on, if there is only more of this to look forward to?

New with Me

Ok, as you all know, my birthday was Monday. I got a digital voice recorder, something i have been wanting for like ever. It has been my buddy for the past couple days. I have been chatting it up with well, myself..using this recorder. Its another outlet, other than this blog. I do want to share some of my thoughts from the past few days, one to keep everyone updated on my emotional being and two so I can continue to have a record of my emotions..so when the time comes I can remember to share with my doctor.
I went with my dad and my husband to see that new movie Shutter Island. Like so many movies with similar, I guess the word would be themes??, (movies that make you think ALOT or trigger racing thoughts for me) it made my mind go nuts. It triggered alot of emotion and even tears. Alot of the thoughts I was having had alot to do with my illness. One of the characters in the movie had manic depression...and not to ruin the ending for anyone who wants to see it...but she drowns her kids...and its almost like with her its a game of pretend like what she did wasn't bad. Not that I feel i would ever do anything like this, but I am going to admit to all of you that I have some really really disturbing thoughts sometimes. They are even disturbing to me sometimes...I have never shared with anyone really about the detail of these thoughts, especially not a doctor. I want to tell you...Please don't judge me, because they are just thought I have never acted on them...my fear though is even if that was just a movie...what if i did act on them...it wouldn't chant the fact that it was wrong. Some of these thoughts are like things like hurting other people especially when i am mad at that person....I changed my mind i wont share in detail, but they are sometimes so bad i scare myself. I tried to talk to my husband about the feelings this movie gave me and the feelings that i get when i am having a "psychotic" moment (he slept thru the movie and our conversation :( .... ) But, maybe you can relate or just listen to what i have to say...When I am having a melt down such as: screaming , crying, pulling my hair out, hitting myself or whoever is closest to me at the time, throwing myself on the floor etc, It is like your brain is a circle and you cut it in half...the front half is me reacting crazily, thats the psychotic me...and then the back of my brain is the "sane" me sitting in a chair just observing telling myself to calm down, that I am acting like a complete fool...but its like that part of me has no control. Its not like split personalities..its just like I have thoughts that are contradicting and it seems that its always the bad thoughts that take over and control me. An example of this control is that...i think when i am having these breaks if i was holding scissors i think i could literally just stab myself all over and not feel pain...almost like the person in front of my brain would enjoy it and get release, but the one in back would be screaming NO or STOP....but the front always wins. Its almost like its better to act nuts than to let whatever is happening happen or continue...it feels so much better. Its like when the "tantrum" is over i feel almost refreshed and like nothing happened at all. This is one reason i know i need to go to see a doctor...and I am so afraid of going...not just bc of reasons i have given in the past posts, but also because i am so scared of medication. This is the example i give Mark...its like a person that is born with a sight problem (blurry vision)...they get older not knowing they see the world different than anyone else, because thats all they have ever known...but as time goes on people around them at school or home start to notice odd behavior...delayed reading, squinting etc....well the child is taken to the doctor he is fitted for glasses. When he receives these glasses its like seeing the world for the first time, just like everyone else...and there isn't a problem anymore. Its like with bipolar my thoughts have always been jumbled, scrambled, a mess, on one side or the other, or just opposite all the time changing. I just wish there were "glasses: for this disorder. I wish for one day i could think like some one without this condition. Then what someone might say is "well what about medicine?" My answer to that is, no matter if i am medicated or not...i still feel like something is missing...either i am off the wall in my thoughts and feelings or I am completely lethargic and blahh...either way this is not normal. While medicated i still have no motivation or even less than I did without it. The only thing that changes is that I sleep ALOT more and my thoughts slow down to almost no thoughts at all...spaced out almost, I'm not spastic or crazy, i'm just there, kind of a zombie if you will. Most people have something that gets them up in the morning, something they have to do or live for...medicated or not I never have that.

Sooo again these thoughts again have led me to thinking about the question...this chokes me up, makes me scared, bad to even feel this ways...could it be that someone like me..that has these bad thoughts about people that cross me or make me angry...could it be that someone like me that is vengeful and holds grudges...and hurts them self, and is so negative all the time whether i want to be or not...like am i meant to go to hell even though it feels like i don't mean it or want to be this way. Thats the thing thats weird...I almost feel like i do want to do it because of the release...then the other half just doesn't...like again I have no control....I mean thinking about when we die...people say your problems are gone no pain, suffering, or health problems, no worries everything is fixed all happiness, joy, warmth....if this is true could someone like me ever even exist in that world? Like, do i even have a real soul? I mean I am not ever one person...i mean i am me..but i am me interested in this or that or this or that...I am me who loves him or him or sometimes him, i am me all over the place...I am never one straight pathed person I am me everywhere...so if i have a soul...who is that person that will move on... I want to know her...i want to know who i am... i feel like i have no idea... from day to day i feel something different about everything...its always changing...from day to day i am a new emotion...its never the same. I have new beliefs everyday. Name it its different from day to day.Maybe i am just a bad person...maybe i am just F** up in the head.

I wish there was someone out there that i could meet in person nearby...that i could have to talk to that understands that knows...that i can relate to...someone that i can advocate for that can advocate for me...someone that i can call at 2am and cry and bitch and vice versa...someone that understands so i am not alone...I just want to talk and talk and talk and talk...its like all i can do everyday is just analyze everything...and then analyze my analyzations....there is a support group next week with NAMI, but thats for all types of disorders..depression, add, etc...i feel like it will be Woodridge all over again...the only one like me...surrounded by more people that dont understand...no one else who is bipolar.

more later....