Is This Mania or is This Normal

I have been really struggling the last few months. I have been highly irritable, exhausted, unable to do simple things at home. I have been negative, hopeless, and stressed to the tenth degree. It has been extremely hard to function long enough to make it through the work day. 

Then I would collapse, stare at the tv that was turned off, and I felt like it would never pass. I could not shower, I could not make a meal, and it was extremely difficult to interact. My anxiety was beyond the ceiling. I was disassociating from my body and my words. When I would speak I would hear every word as an outsider. I was not in my body. 

I was given more medication which I did not take. I was sick of the pills. I was sick of being bipolar. I was sick of the weird hollow feeling like I was on some bad psychedelic trip. 

I started to feel a little better last week. After working 6 full days I came home and cleaned my house. I even attacked some piles. This never happens. When something like this happens I unfortunately have to ask myself if I am acting normal or if this is the beginning to a manic episode. 

Then this morning before work I made a meal, walked my dog, did my dishes, and mowed the lawn before work. This is all great and productive. I always have to be on guard when I get these bursts of productivity. I have to ask myself if my sleep is becoming disturbed, am I talking too fast, am I more impulsive, and is my mind going to a bizarre and reckless place. 

I want to be normal. I want to have consistency and feel good about tackling chores and making meals. Instead I have to be concerned. I have to pay careful attention. I have to keep my doctor on speed dial. 

The moment I need none to little sleep is when I know I am going into that hyper crazed place called mania. I sleep more than is recommended. Then suddenly I sleep two hours and am on a dangerous high. So I have learned to watch myself. 

Right now I do not know if I am getting healthier and on the up or if I am on a path towards chaos and hospitalization. I do not know, I just stand guard.

you are making a difference

I spent five weeks in an alcohol treatment facility last summer. To tell you that it was hard is to minimize how painful it was. It was emotional and it was physical. I went through a week of detox and then entered the treatment portion to learn about my addiction and replace it with coping skills. 

At the time I hated it. Drinking was my daily way of managing my out of control life. I was very high functioning, I held a job, paid my bills, and saw my psychiatrist. If I did not tell you how bad it was you would probably never know. That is not what this is about. 

I had counselors there but it was one shining light of a person that has had a lasting impact on me. She was a tech, I guess that was her position. She drove us back and forth to the facility, and she spent time with us at the house. On the van ride she would turn up the music and sing her heart out. 

At the time her optimism was not something I always welcomed. I was in pain. I was recovering from a decade of hard substance abuse. I was away from home, away from my dog, and all I wanted to do was to go home. I butted heads with my main counselor. I wanted to stay in bed. I was not ready, or I did not think I was ready for this life change. I did not want to go back to how I was but I also did. 

She was always there for a hug, always there to listen. If there is a person that has the perfect balance of listening and also knowing how and when to push it was her. I do not know if she realizes the impact she had on the house. I am sure it is draining dealing with a bunch of moody women in early recovery. 

Then she has to hear about those of us that fall back or go home to our addiction and die. I have learned that we are one of the hardest groups of people to deal with. You pour your heart out and may not see the results on the other side when someone continues in recovery. 

Statistically most do not, or they have to keep coming back, but at least they do. Jami, you were the best person for me. I did not realize it at the time and I know I was negative and frustrated. You never gave up. You kept being you. You are changing lives. You are saving lives. I know that even if I fell back you would be the last person to shake your finger at me. When I think back to Arizona, I think of you. I think of your smile and how you truly loved a group of "unlovable" women. You loved us right where we were at, you saw the good in us that we had long lost. Thank you.

Why Number Five

I had gone through the process of de-converting before this last loss. This was not the final straw as they say. But this was the day that I asked for a divorce and told John to get the fuck out. Our marriage was very rocky from the beginning and that is putting it lightly. I was trying to get out for at least a year. 

We were living in Southwestern Illinois. We decided to move back home to see if it would help our marriage. He knew without a doubt that I was hanging from a string with him. 

He asked me, begged me, to get pregnant again. I knew he was doing that to try to keep hold of me. I was angry that he was even suggesting it. He saw everything I went through. Sitting in the shower even while it was cold, bleeding and crying. I was a complete mess. I was so fed up with people telling me that god had a plan, everything happens for a reason, and offering suggestions.

I do not know why I agreed to do it, I knew what the outcome would be. I would lose it again. How could he ask me? How could he??? I think it was selfish and cruel. I told myself if and when I start to bleed then I am done. That is exactly what happened. 

So I began to lose the pregnancy when he was at work. I went to pick him up and I will never forget the look on his face. I did not even have to say it. Is this what you wanted? Is this what you wanted to see again? The hate I had for him in that moment was probably like none I have ever experienced. 

I lost my fifth pregnancy, I lost what I thought my life would be, I lashed out, I made him watch it to the bitter end. Then I made him leave and I filed for divorce. 

The thing is that this entire time I thought something was wrong with my body. I felt like I was poison, my body hated me. I found out a couple of years ago his new wife was having problems. They went for testing and it turned out John had a chromosome abnormality. No one bothered to contact me to inform me. 

I lived all of that time thinking my body is just a fucking graveyard. But No, it was him. I was so angry when I heard that through an old mutual friend years after he knew the truth. It would not have taken much effort for someone in that family to care enough to let me know. Put my mind at ease. Offer me some healing and condolence. I guess that was just too much work. I guess none of them cared even the slightest bit for what I had gone through and how I felt. They say you should forgive. I do not believe in unconditional forgiveness. That bridge is not only burnt, it is like it never existed in the first place.

Number Five

Was it number five? I honestly had so many miscarriages while with my ex that I lost count. The first one was probably the worst. We had not been married more than a few months. We were so excited. Living five hours away from family I mailed tiny babies to my Grandparents to open up on Thanksgiving with the due date. 

I was immediately in Mother mode reading everything I could. I found an obgyn that I loved right away. We were having a baby. But we did not. 

We went home for Christmas, the day before I began to bleed. I laid on the couch not getting up for anything. I was at my Aunt and Uncle's. My Aunt totally took care of me and comforted me. The next day, Christmas, the bleeding continued. By evening I was in crippling pain and went to the ER. 

I was told I was miscarrying. There was nothing that could be done. The shock and devastation was unreal. A few hours later, at the house, I was experiencing contractions and crying. Everything took its course. I expelled into the toilet and I remember taking it out. That changed me for life. 

Then I had four more after that. I read everything I could find on coping with pregnancy loss. After the first one or two I was reading about women who had multiples. So many of them said they got used to it after a certain number. They got jaded. It still hurt but in a different way from the first one or the second one. A few years later I was one of those women. 

When I would hear about someone having just one I would find myself thinking so what, try four, try five. Then come and cry with me. This experience contributed to my divorce. I will come back to that later, and the fifth one, and how it was so significant. 

I was the woman that wanted five kids. I loved kids, I still love them, but I do not want to ever be pregnant again. The thought actually repulses me. There is so much more to say about what happened during those five years, and how the church treated me with my multiple pregnancy losses. 

This also contributed to my deconversion. I will come back to that too. The first one and the fifth one were the most traumatic. Because of how they altered my life. The fifth one completed while I was at work, and it did not phase me. I did not cry, I left the bathroom and got back on task. I filed for divorce. 

Losing Faith

I spent almost ten years in the church. I know that my experience does not speak for everyone, and I try my best to not be hostile. It was not all bad. However, what was bad for me, was very bad. 

This will be the first of many times I sit down to talk to myself about this. When I lost my faith it was not overnight. It was a process but when it finally broke I literally lost my mind. It was the first time I was hospitalized in a mental institution. Everything I had built my life upon, the entire structure of my life and thinking collapsed. 

I tried so hard to hold it together and keep the faith as they say. All you need is the faith of a mustard seed. I could not hold on anymore, I could not believe it anymore. It did not make sense to me, it became foreign, repulsive, and I had a moment where I lost my sanity. 

I was terrified that I ever believed in the first place. I was not in a church that was just on Sunday. It infiltrated my daily life, how I thought, what I listened to, what I watched, who I married, and how I was to deal with my mental illness. The answer was prayer. The answer was it is god's will. The answer was read your bible and give all of your energy to the mission. It was authoritative. It was controlling. 

I guess for a time I was so messed up that I really needed someone on the outside to control me and decide for me. Not anymore. 

Now I am dealing with the trauma ten years later. I am dealing with being cornered into a marriage that was toxic. I am dealing with being discouraged from seeking psychiatric help that I desperately needed. On more than one occasion I pleaded regarding my symptoms. I was told to pray and focus on god. I did everything that they told me to do. 

I never needed a miracle I just needed some relief and comfort. I never got that. god never met me half way like they said. If god were real why could he not pick me up, that poem everyone loves about the footprints, that is not god carrying me. Those are my footprints. Those are mine, pushing on, fighting for my life.

Dear Jeff...

I was told over a year ago to do this. I have thought about it a lot. As I begin I am not even sure that I can finish. I am sure this will not be completed in one sitting. 

You knew how much I loved to write and you saw so much of it. You also saw when I stopped. I could not even count the amount of times you had asked if I had been writing. You even got me a special notebook and pencils. I stared at it for over a year. 

My life will never be the same without you. You were going to be my partner in old age. We were both so strange in many of the same ways. I can hear your laugh, I can hear your excitement and passion when you talked about conspiracies and issues. 

You were my late night texting buddy, the person I could be honest with in all of my ugliness. Jeff, there really will never be another you. I always thought at some place over the rainbow we would find ourselves together. Either one of us or both of us were not adding up at the same time. 

I lost you and you held the deepest place. It is not just a hole, I just know that will never happen again. I will never connect like that again. That was my time and that time is gone. I was a horrible alcoholic mess leading up to your death. I knew you were distancing yourself from me, I was hard to deal with, hard to see like that. 

I got home from rehab and I found out the next day you had died. 

You know I was always telling you that I loved you all of the time. Sometimes you would say it back but usually not. I did not need you to say it. 

The year you died I remember very specifically you said that you know I always said it, you were sorry that you do not reply, but that you wanted me to know how much you loved me and what I meant to you. I remember being in my kitchen when I got that text. 

We were kinda hot and cold there to the end for several reasons. I wish I could tell you just one more time how I felt about you. I wish I was not such a drunk sabotaging my life and taking time away from our friendship. 

I have so many regrets and now the brutal truth is it's all too late. I got sober too late, I did not realize that you were at risk yourself. I knew what you were doing, I just did not see it like it was. I wish I could believe in life after death and that I will see you again. I cannot believe in it just to soothe myself. Dust to dust.

Just One Drink...

Drinking did not take for me until my very late twenties. I grew up using a lot of drugs, but I stayed away from drinking. I was one of those people that once I started I was almost face down into the bottle every night. On the weekends I would start drinking as soon as I got up. I was not waking up in bed with a cup of coffee, I had vodka and whiskey. 

I think from the moment I started it was only casual for a few short months. It became an impulse and obsession very quickly. If I could not be drinking then I did not want to do it. I finally found something that silenced my inner storm. 

Sometimes on my way home from work I could not even wait and had to stop for a strong one. It became the driving force of my life. I went to work on no sleep, I went to work in a fog or still buzzed, and I thought about it all day. It cured my anxiety, it stopped the racing thoughts, it put me at home in my skin for once. 

I always said no, I will not let alcohol be a part of my life. I took one drink and it was literally over from that point. I am stressed so I drink, I am celebrating so I drink, I am bored and I drink, I am spinning out of control so I drink. There was always an excuse. There was always a reason. 

I drank alone, I went out alone, I was in a lot of compromising situations, I said a lot that I have no memory of. I found a way to survive, yet it was chipping more and more away at my being. I began to live in guilt, I began to live in shame. I became increasingly suicidal and attempted a few times under the influence. 

A very large percentage of people with bipolar self medicate with alcohol. Many suicides are completed by people hurting and under the influence. If I were not drunk maybe I would have called the hot lines, drove to a safe place, found a way to cope. The alcohol which I felt was my closest friend had taken absolute control over me. 

It is hard to explain and hard for some to understand. They say just stop, do not do it, do not buy it, do not stop at the bar and the liquor store on the way home. I would tell myself I am going straight home but before I knew it I was making the right hand turn just like I did every single night. 

I probably lived in a nine year binge. There were maybe a day every three or four weeks that I did not drink. I was blacking out every night. I would wake up and think what did I do, what did I say? Did I let my dog out? Did I feed her? 

It has been over a year that I have lived sober. I do not miss the drinking but I do miss the relief. Then I remember the relief toward the end was only for a flash of time. Maybe after the third or fourth glass of wine, maybe after the first pint, but then the switch was flipped. The torment came back just as bad and just as strong. Maybe it was even worst. I do not know. It all seems like a series of nightmares, I wake up, the sun is shining, but then it gets too close and I am burning and trying to escape all over again.

Bipolar Life

I am not doing well. It has been a few months now. Things are getting worst. I use to think the depression was the hardest part of this. Now I think it is the manic symptoms. I used to like the mania. I was super energized, did not need sleep, had an answer in half a second, I was wild and reckless but invincible. I felt immune to every consequence, on top of the world, on top of my life. My place was spotless, I worked two jobs, I ran almost every day.

Now, the manic symptoms are torture. I am riddled with anxiety, I shake, I talk faster than my thoughts. I feel hollow and every word I say is fast and it echoes inside of me. I feel out of body. I feel like I do not have control and that at any moment I will be arrested for something I did so fast ahead of myself.

I feel like everyone is looking at me, I am paranoid, I can hear everything around me at maximum volume. I use all of the effort I have to keep myself in check. I am on plenty of medications, I do not want to take another pill. I do not want to go back to the hospital. My mind is a wormhole of scenarios.

 I cannot live in the moment, the present is a terrifying feeling. It makes me feel like I am on drugs and that someone or something is fighting to take control of me. I have to function, I have to work. I have to eat. I have to shower.

These tasks are all such a heavy burden, I am looking at the mountain. Someone behind me is screaming to climb. Someone in front of me is screaming to hide. The inner conflict is to function long enough and normal enough so that no one can see this. I feel like they can see it. They are waiting for me to fall into a bunch of scattered pieces. It is hell living with myself.