Its Been a Long Time

It has been a long time since I have written on my blog.

A lot has happened since then. I committed myself to the psych ward. I am sure it came to a shock to some people that there was actually something wrong with me. I don't know how to express the happiness I felt when they actually kept me longer than the normal 3 day hold. It kinda felt like an "I told you so."

After years of trying to tell people that I had issues, yes they are indeed all in my head, just not the way those people were thinking.  I am not normal, and I am not lazy or unwilling to do things that normal people do, I am unable to do them.  I would love to have the perfect life where I go to the park with my children, clean house regularly, keep appointments, go grocery shopping, sleep normal hours of the day, and actually be a responsible adult.  However, my life is not so clear cut. Instead I have severe mood swings, paranoia, and social anxiety issues. I would love to do all of the things a normal person does.



Instead I have periods of depression followed by periods of seeming normalcy if it weren't for the feeling that I have to change myself. I don't mean make my life better, I mean ME, who I am completely. I dye my hair different colors, neon pinks and purples. I get piercings which I later take out. I go out and act like a normal person without a care in the world for what might happen later. I go to bars and drink, in the past I would sleep with people, simply because I wanted to at that moment. I would buy sexy tight clothes. These are all uncontrollable urges.  I wear make-up.  Spend money that I don't really have to spend on make-up and hair products, and strangely enough cleaning or office supplies.

The depression is worse than those periods of course. I have to deal with the consequences of my energetic phase.  The fried hair from bleaching and coloring, the scars from piercings or tattoos.  Money on clothes that I would only wear to party in.  Not to mention the sexual partners that can't seem to understand why I don't want anything to do with them. The boyfriends who can't stand the ups and downs that I have. I also start to get very angry, paranoid, and suicidal. I will spend hours sitting on my couch, all of a sudden getting into an angry rage, crying the next wondering why I can't just die.  Begging anyone to just make it all stop. Going through all of it knowing that it will stop, maybe not by dying, but when my mood swing changes back to the semi normal stage in between the energetic and depressed.  However, simply knowing it will stop because of the mood swing makes it worse, because I know after the energetic  phase I will be depressed again.  Its during those severe down periods where you know its a never ending cycle that I wanted to die the most. I want to stop the cycles. I wanted help. Sadly I could never make myself get help, because I was convinced that it was so hopeless that even the doctors couldn't make the roller-coaster stop either. Yet, when I was in a energetic phase I felt too good. I was untouchable. I didn't want help then.  I mean why should I get help, this would last forever, the depression was just a phase right, brought on by PMS or something.  I would convince myself that everything was great.  That I hadn't just spent a week trying to will myself to die so that I wouldn't even have to make the effort to slit my own wrists open.  It was after one of those down periods, when I was still down enough that I knew I needed help and could't do it alone, and I wasn't going to be lucky enough for a random stranger to off me, that I decided to get help before I was untouchable.

So I bit the bullet so to speak, and went to the hospital, told them I was having suicidal thoughts. I was hoping that at the very least they would keep me three days and send me on my way saying I was fine, and everyone was like this.  Or, just maybe they would finally tell me what was wrong with me.  Luckily they did. Against all odds and my family telling me that there was nothing wrong with me, telling me that everyone went through what I do, I was finally diagnosed as Bi Polar (not sure if its I or II) and put on medication.  I spent ten days before they deemed me fit enough to leave.

I have now been on medication for a month. Amazingly enough I am starting to feel a little better. I don't cry all the time,  I still have some issues of course. I still hear things and have trouble going out in public.  I always find it interesting that its easier for me to go out in public when I am in one of my manic phases than when I am in a depressive one. I find this odd because I always have a fear of groups of people along with my paranoia, it seems that when I am manic I am able to block the fear out a little bit.

I am starting to wear makeup again, and I got the hair dye out tonight. I have been cleaning for the last week so the signs all point  to, yep you guessed it, a manic phase. I am trying to resist the urge to dye my hair, because it really is fried at the moment.  I am using the extra energy to clean. I cleaned my whole room today as well as cleaned all the dishes yesterday. I will try and try to use this extra energy for something good not evil.

Manic phases make me feel like I have drunk about 20 cups of coffee and instead of getting a tummy ache I just can't sit still. Like I am sitting in a sling shot just waiting to be shot. I keep thinking of going places, just driving. I want to get my hair cut, I want to dye it. I feel like I shouldn't sit down, that I should be moving, doing something. It's weird though because once I start doing something, I feel like its not the right thing and just want to do something else. I am trying my hardest to not think about what comes next after the manic phase. I am hoping that by the times I reach the peak of this one and start to go down the other side of the proverbial roller-coaster that I have had enough medication in my system for long enough to lessen the depressive phase.

The medication has its own drawbacks as well.  I am having trouble with my short term memory, often forgetting that I took my medication minutes after I took it.  I put it in three pill reminders so that I can look and see if I did indeed take one of my morning, noon, or night doses. I am always thirsty, so I am always drinking some form of liquid, which also means numerous trips to the restroom.  I have some muscle twitches in my hands, although I am not quite sure if its from medication, or from my herniated disc in my neck.

On the whole I am doing a little better and I hope to keep improving. I will never be cured, as there isn't a cure for Bi Polar, I am however optimistic about eventually getting to where I might be able to function normally.  Normal for me would be able to go out in public without the paranoia and fear. I don't want to hear voices anymore. I want to have a stable mood and not be constantly going up and down.  I want to dye my hair because I want to not because I feel compelled to do it.

I would love to be able to get my children back. I want to get better for them. To be a mother to them. I want to be able to take them shopping and to the park. I WANT TO BE HEALTHY AND HAPPY FOR MY KIDS AND FOR ME.