Triggers suck.

Triggers, in case you don’t know, are things that set Bipolars or really anyone, off.

I got up this morning determined to put all my husband’s and my clean clothes away, make my bed, clean up our bedroom and then clean the rest of the house, you know be USEFUL instead of sitting around feeling like a waste of space and air like I have been feeling for the last week or more.

So I got the bed made, started some laundry, sorted my husband’s and my laundry out of all the clean laundry and then remembered I needed to call the WIC office to make an appointed for heating assistance. Got on the phone with that bitch and she triggered me automatically. She was meaner then snot and she talked faster then a manic on speed. She told me a list of things I would have to bring with me and I asked her to slow down so I could right them down and she got even nastier and told me it was all standard and then I told her I couldn’t get some of the things she told me I had to have and to just forget it and she made me an appointment any way at the end of FEBRUARY, well I won’t need heating assistance then!

SO I hung up and sat here and cried. I was shaking, I shot straight down to the bottom of the damned depression pit and couldn’t even move from this damned chair.

I called her back, still crying and told her I wanted to cancel the appointment. She got nicer then and told me people to go see if I got another disconnect notice on my heating bill and said she was going to keep the appointment and we’d do what we could do and that I didn’t need all that stuff. *sigh* Then why did she say that I did? Why did she have to make me cry? I told her up front that I was Bipolar and agoraphobic when the topic arose. DO they just not give a damn or do they get some sick pleasure in pushing us to see how long it takes them to push us over the edge? *sigh*

Now I am back to feeling like a waste of space and air and all I want to do is d*e. I’m of no use to anyone. I haven’t been for a very long time. What do I do? Nothing. It sucks.

I remember the woman who used to clean, cook, go outside and play with her kids, have fun with her family, joke around with her husband, live a normal, well, almost normal life. I want to be her again.

For those that want to know. I was diagnosed when I was 17 but I’ve always been up and down in moods since I was born, that’s what earned me my name, Stormy. But I was officially dx’ed at 17. I’ll be 34 this year. You can do the math.

Right now… I am on a med cocktail. I have up and down days. The last several have been down. Right now and even what I wrote in my journal last night before laying down to go to sleep….

I’m a waste of space and air. I wish I would just d*e.

Another visit with the pdoc tomorrow, but working on the questions for Social Security will take up the entire session, so I am going to ask him if I can come back in a week instead of two. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I will just keep journaling and going to my about.com support group and tossing and turning and letting it all get to me and losing my flippin mind and hurting all those around me like I have been doing for the last several days now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They say the ones closest to you are the ones you hurt the most. Well brother I am the fucking poster child for that saying here lately!

I hurt two of my best friends and my husband within three weeks of each other and ruined Christmas for my husband and everything. It just all SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate being like this! I hate my life! Yes, I am taking my meds, but I hate them too! I just want to lay down and never wake up again!

And I feel like that but I am trying to quit smoking! Oh yeah that’s real ingenious of me! Stop killing myself slowly with cigarettes just to wish I would die from something else! See? My mind is just scrambled!

Actually I want to live beyond 40. I want to see my three boys get married and have families of their own. I don’t want to have a stroke or a heart attack (which I’m not 100% positive, but I believe I had a silent heart attack over these last two weeks and it scared me)

So anyway, I have always said you have to WANT to quit smoking to actually quit smoking. Well now I actually WANT to quit. So I hope I am successful. I think I’m getting there. I’m a normal 2 pack a day smoker.  Today I only smoked 20 cigarettes. That is one full pack. Yesterday, I only smoked 17 cigarettes. Quite the accomplishment if I do say so myself.

But anyway. I am tired of hurting the ones I love and if I could disappear off the face of the earth and not hurt anyone in the process of doing it, I would do it in a New York second, just like I said on my other blog.

     Well, I am just not having a good day at all. The glue that holds my social mask of happiness on is being dissolved by the tears that refuse to stop leaking from my eyes.
     I hurt and ache all over, mentally, physically and emotionally. This time in 1985 I was at the hospital, holding my daddy’s hand. I was pregnant and 16 years old. My dad was 58. He was consumed with cancer… anywhere you can think of having cancer, he had it. He had emphyzema (excuse my misspelling), he was dying. He was in a coma.
     Every day this month I have been reliving December 1985, the month and year that I watched my daddy fade away and then die. It was the worse year in my life. Prior to December I had an Uncle and a cousin whom both completed suicide.
     I don’t know why I am reliving 1985 this year. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am living in a trailer that is set up much like the tralier that we lived in at that time. That is all I can chalk it up to.
     I am not going to go into the full details here except to say this has been one of the hardest months of my life since December 1985. Everyday, I live in 2002 as well as in 1985.
     I’ve cried an awful lot this month and the anti-depressants haven’t don’t much to help me this month, but that is because of external pain, not my chemical disorder. Gods, I would hate to see what a basketcase I would be if I were NOT on my meds!
     Stay on your meds kiddies! I’m here to tell you! They are the only thing saving me right now! I know that to be fact! My meds, my pdoc, my family and my friends…. that’s all that is saving me, but without the meds and the pdoc, my family and friends wouldn’t know what to do. They would try, I know that. They would do everything they could think of, but I would sink deeper and deeper. It wouldn’t be their faults. They would do everything they could and know how to do. But if you are Bipolar you HAVE TO TAKE YOUR MEDS! YOU HAVE TO SEE YOUR PDOC! Especially at this time of the year. This time of the year, Christmas time…. Winter, in general, is the hardest time of the year for bipolar disorder sufferers. SAD comes in and complicates matters even further. SAD is Seasonal Affective Disorder. I think I got the A part of it right. Anyway, its when things are darker, there’s not as much light during the day,…. the days are shorter, ect. Light has been proven to affect the mood. More light, better mood.
     Well folks, I have rambled on for far too long for one blog. Its been a bad ride this month and its getting worse for me. 10 more miserable day until this month and this year is over. Yep, I’m counting them down.
     ONE MOMENT AT A TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I went to my pdoc appointment today and today’s appointment was better then the last one was. My pdoc apologized for causing me to feel the way I did when I left our last session and reassured me that he wasn’t going to just drop me as a patient. Abandonment issues really suck.

I got my Wellbutrin upped to the max dosage (well he said it was the mas dose) of 400mgs a day and the Seroquel to 200mgs a day. Hopefully this will cause me to see even more improvement then I am seeing.

My next appointment is 12/30 and I am going to walk in and remind him right at the start, “SSI Questions!” Those will take almost then entire session, so I will have to wait another two weeks to see him, or maybe I can get in the following week instead of waiting another full two weeks. If I feel that I need to. We’ll see. My online BP community helps me a lot and my friend whom I email back and forth with now that I met in my BP community is like a Tdoc to me like you wouldn’t believe not to mention blogging here and getting your feedback and then going and reading your sites.

The picture you see on my last blog and on this blog is a sad looking Christmas picture, I know. But that’s how I feel. Christmas depresses me. Especially when I can’t get the kids what they want. Anything they want actually. *sigh* But let’s not get into that here. This is not the place nor the time. Ya know what I mean?

Okay, things are rough all over.  I’m back on the roller coaster in and out of the vortex and the abyss.

Walking in a Bipolar Land……

I’ve been having a pretty down weekend. Friday I was in mixed states all day long. I felt like Tigger. Saturday I was pretty much down all day and today I have felt even more depressed. It really sucks.

I have my pdoc appointment tomorrow afternoon and in all honesty I’m really not looking forward to it. Most of it, however, will be spent going over the questionaire from SSI, so I don’t really have to worry about getting into dealing with “me” per say.

I think I mentioned that my last appointment didn’t go well. He pissed me off and he scared me.  All because of that damned mood chart and I told him, “Well I think it would just be better if you read my journal instead of going by the damned moond chart!” So this time I have written short parapraghs on the back of the chart and then on paper, dating each entry and stapled it to the chart. Do you think he will take the time to read it? I doubt it. I’m starting to become unhappy with him suddenly and I don’t know why. Could it all stem from that one session last week? Or am I just getting paranoid or am I just dysphoric right now? GODS! ALL THESE QUESTIONS plague my brain and I am mad, I am sad, I am crying, I am screaming! I am so far down into the vortex of depression that I am wondering how long it will take to climb back up this time!

Is it due to the season? Is this due to the dreaded holiday that is coming (GODS I wish it were over already!)

Was it wrong of me to expect the ALMOST even days to continue? I was what I would consider almost even for three whole days, with an undercurrent of depression and then BAMM! Depression rears up and takes me down again! That’s just not fair! WHY?! WHY?!

All I want for Christmas is ONE FLIPPIN NORMAL DAY! Is that so much to ask? One day that I don’t feel ANY depression at all and one day that I don’t feel any form of mania at all and preferably both of these on the same flippin day! JUST ONE DAMNED DAY! WHY is that so hard!?

Yeah, I sure sound like I’m stable tonight, eh? Sounds like the meds are really working tonight, eh? Yes, I took the meds today. I take the stupid meds everyday. Unfortunately they don’t prevent backslides all the time. Sometimes the social mask slips because the tears make the glue melt.

I’m under the barrel tonight, where I have been all day and it SUCKS!

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be in the vortex. I don’t want to be in December. 

I want to go to bed and not get up again until January 6, 2003!

Oh man, I’ve got to remember to keep paying my month to month fee to keep this, Bipolar site, on the Premium service! That’s what I get for not coming here everyday to blog. *sigh*

Well, it’s just going to have to wait because I don’t have the money this month.

I really do believe that I am stablizing and that is a good thing, but I’m still battling the mixed states. I mean one day I am at the bottom of the barrel, no, I’m UNDER the barrel, then the next day I’m just floating in the middle of it, then I’m floating at the top and then I’m on the edge. I guess I’m living in and on a barrel. Well that kindof sucks, doesn’t it? Viewing life as some big pickle barrel.

But then I guess we people that deal with our bipolar disorders view life differently all the time. Sometimes as pickle barrels, sometimes as roller coasters, sometimes as an abyss, as a vortex… there are so many ways to view our lives and it also goes along with our state of minds of course.

During my last session with Dr. J, he asked me a question that I am not sure how to answer. I may have brought this up in my last blog and if I did, please forgive me, but he asked me how I seem different to myself and others when I’m stable and on an even keel. He also asked me how that relates to our goals there and what are we trying to accomplish there.

Okay, the last question, I can answer that pretty well, but that first question. That blows me away and its really bothered me because the more I think about it the more I realize that I don’t EVER remember EVER being what I would consider *EVEN*! I’ve either been very energized, going like the energizer bunny and active as hell or very down, just slogging through things or so down that I can’t do anything except drag myself out of bed to the bathroom and back. So yeah, I’m having problems answering that question.

Maybe I will answer him just like that. I mean, that’s honest. What the hell *IS* EVEN anyway?

June Cleaver…. THAT is EVEN. Moms of the 50′s as depicted on TV, that’s what even is.

Hmm…. idealization? Is that another one of my flaws?

What do you think?

BTW, sorry I haven’t blogged in so long. This month has got me yo’yo-ing like you wouldn’t believe, well maybe you would believe it.

I hate the whole month of December. I hate winter. I hate this month because this is the month I watched cancer of EVERYTHING destroy my dad and I watched him fade away and then pass away on Dec. 23 with his viewing being on the 24th and then his funeral on the 25th. Then there is the whole thing about xmas and the money and all that. *heavy sigh*

Okay I just don’t want to bring anyone else down. I just don’t like this month or anything associated with and if I could I would skip the whole month and everything associated with it.

Okay, on that note, I’ll close for now. Sorry to be so depressing. 

I think I’m becoming a little more stable. Not completely, but some. I’m not as down as I was but I’ve not had any hypomanic or full blown manic periods either and to be quite honest, I would really welcome either of those right now.

I have been, I guess, more or less as “stable” as to be expected for now. The doc did up my Wellbutrin and I’m still on all the other meds so maybe, just maybe we have come across the right cocktail for now. That would be sooooooooooo nice.

Agoraphobia is getting worse though. It takes a LOT out of me if I have to go out somewhere and normally, the ONLY time I go out at all now is to go to my pdoc appointments by way of medical transport, which I hate, but it’s not as bad as it could be since I know the couple that run it and who do the driving. That makes it somewhat easier for me to go with them. But I still hate it.

Not being able to post here really bothered me, so I wrote in a journal here at home. I really wrote a lot, but I doubt that I will ever get the gumption to transcribe it here. I did some posting on my BP community as well. I worked on some poetry and a couple of short stories so I am regaining my concentration to an extent.

One of my best friends sent me a book by Kay Jamison called “Touched with Fire” and its about Bipolar and Artists and how the two intertwine. It’s fasinating and I highly recommend it! Its taking me awhile to read due to concentration problems for me, but what I have read so far is amazing!

Well, I know I should write more and I want to, I’m just really tired today. Maybe I will post something longer and more creative tomorrow.

I wanted to share this with you today and my thoughts are at the end of it…..

Today’s thought is:
Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of Harvest-home;
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin.
–Henry Alford

Those who celebrated the first Thanksgiving were
isolated, needy people who barely had a toehold in a
strange land. They knew that the battle was just
beginning, that they were looking down the long
barrel of a bitter winter.

They didn’t wait to give thanks until they had won.
They gave thanks for the success of survival–they
were still alive. They gave thanks for the possibility
of what could be, not that they had been spared
enormous suffering and effort–because they hadn’t.

As we sit in our easy chairs, smell the turkey
roasting in our self-cleaning ovens, and wait for the
football game on television, we might meditate for a
few minutes on the original thanksgiving. It may
put us in touch with the true spirit of the day.

Today, I give thanks for the chance to give thanks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today’s meditation comes from the book
Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty copyright 1987
available through our online bookstore at:
http://www.hazeldenbookplace.org/store/product.asp?sku=5024

_________________________

Okay, the following two paragraphs really struck home for me:

Those who celebrated the first Thanksgiving were
isolated, needy people who barely had a toehold in a
strange land. They knew that the battle was just
beginning, that they were looking down the long
barrel of a bitter winter.

They didn’t wait to give thanks until they had won.
They gave thanks for the success of survival–they
were still alive. They gave thanks for the possibility
of what could be, not that they had been spared
enormous suffering and effort–because they hadn’t.

The second paragraph above, where it says, “They gave thanks for the success of survival–they were still alive.” Boy, did that ever hit a home run with me today.

I’m getting these things in the mail because I signed up for this hazelden thought of the day and the meditation of the day but to get the ones that I do on any given day and have them so corelate with whatever it is that I am actually going through… well, it just sometimes spooks me, like someone out there is sending to me what it is that I need, I mean REALLY NEED to read/hear. Ya know?

Okay, kick me in the rump and tell me I am imagining things now and that I have totally lost it, okay? I just wanted to share this because it smacked me so hard today of all days when I listed all the things I was thankful for and one of those things were, “I’m thankful to be alive after all the stunts I have pulled to end it.”

Love,
Stormy

I try to write for myself
but it comes out all sad and blue

Its not how I want to write
especially when I write for you

The you I speak of is all who
read my work and all my sets

The average Joe, my friends
and those I haven’t even met

I want to make people smile
I want them all to feel good

So you see I can’t write all
that I feel, I’d be too misunderstood

The words that want to tumble forth
they’re not all happy and glad

Sometimes the words that seep out
are dark, gloomy and bad

If I share these feelings of
pain, despare and hardship too

Sometimes I get scared you’ll tire
of me and that I will lose you.

Here’s one I got in the email today that I feel that I need to start reminding myself of each and everyday. Maybe I should print this one out and hang it right over my desk where I have to read it every morning and maybe post it right next to the bathroom mirror where I brush my teeth each morning too…..

Today’s thought is:
[Suicide is] the severest form of self-criticism.
- Leonard Levinson

When we feel hopeless and despondent, suicide can seem like the best,
the easiest, and the fastest solution.

If we’re feeling hopeless and despondent because of our financial
situation or an addiction or both, we need to get help. Suicidal thoughts
are more common than we might expect. Those who live to tell about
their thoughts will tell us how grateful they are for getting through-
rather than abruptly ending-the pain. In retrospect, they realize that no
loss or pain is worth ending our lives over.

We think it through. Our religious beliefs may tell us that suicide is a
sin, that our souls will suffer in purgatory. Or maybe we believe in
reincarnation and envision coming back into this world only to have to
repeat the pain-to get through the lesson-so that we learn what our
Higher Power has put us here to learn.

Today I will know in my heart that life gets better; life can be
cherished. The deeper my pain the greater the joy to come.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today’s meditation comes from the book
Letting Go of Debt by Karen Casanova copyright 2000
available through our online bookstore at:
http://www.hazeldenbookplace.org/store/product.asp?sku=1202

I have reasons to live. My kids, my husband, my friends. I hate this dark place that I am in right now…. emotionally and finacially… mentally and physically, but man, I want to say it can’t get any worse, but I am scared to say that because I fear that it really can.

Sorry for the major downer enteries lately. Haven’t had any hypomanic or manic cycles lately.