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I've been devouring any and all books about living with mental illness or living with someone with mental illness that I can get my hands on. I want to try to understand how others are coping with the cards they've been dealt. All the books I've read have been quite good, and some of the books by authors who have lived with bipolar disorder talk about some things that ring big bells in my head. The most recent read was "Manic" by Terri Cheney. The book consists of vignettes from her life as a bipolar woman and covers her highs, lows, and eventually stabilization. I don't believe I'm flat-out bipolar, but her description of a mixed state made me go, oh my god, I've been there. Several times in my life, including the time I was experiencing the paradoxical reaction. My current diagnosis is Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Diagnoses are so funny, you know? They are a snapshot of what a doctor knows of a person at a certain place and time. You go in and talk to the doctor/NP and they ask you questions, which you answer as best you can, but what if they're not quite the right questions? What if you have answers you don't know you have?

Ego v. Reality

Paradoxical reactions to benzodiazepines are rare but considered most likely to happen in the aging population. As it turns out, they can and do happen in other age groups. When the anxiety got too great and I asked for something to help manage it, clonazepam seemed like a reasonable solution - long half-life, less easily abused than some of the other bennys. I took it as prescribed for one week and had a suicidal breakdown. I spent a few days in a behavioral health unit to stabilize and get medication management, then discovered that the antidepressant I was already taking samples of was not going to be covered by my insurance, thus necessitating the change in that medication as well.

I had been angry and upset at the prescribing doctor for a few weeks before the clonazepam debacle because I felt like a science experiment, but if we're calling a spade a spade, that's what any of us are when we're trying to find a medication regimen that works for us. There's no way she could have foreseen how my brain reacted to that medication.

The day I was released from the hospital, I was so grateful to be going home feeling somewhat improved. I had this unexpected desire to speak with my mother, which I thankfully resisted. I wish I had the family I could talk to about this, and some day I'll talk to my sister about it, but not yet. It's enough I have a supportive husband and kids.

The current meds seem to be okay. I'm frightened as hell about what would happen if they suddenly began to not work, if I got thrown back into mind-hell, with the anger, irritability, depression, and anxiety. There is nothing I fear more than that.

I always prided myself on being able to do everything on my own. I felt like I couldn't trust anyone to help me. I was wrong.

The first couple of days in the hospital, I was eaten alive by humiliation. I hated that I bought into the stigma, that I was in a psych unit, that nothing would ever be the same, but I couldn't quit beating myself up. I'm forcing my viewpoint to perform a complete 180, still fighting with myself, but coming to an understanding that humiliation should be humility. There was no palpable difference between myself and the others who were hospitalized, and no difference between them and the people I meet everyday on the street, in my workplace, at a restaurant, living their lives as best they can. We are alone together.

Checking In

A couple nights ago, N mother called me and let the phone ring and ring and ring until I shut the ringer off. I panicked, went back to the old anxiety. I don't think that'll ever go away. I'll have to be okay with that. It's a good reflex to have, maybe, like pulling your hand back when you touch a hot pan. Keeps you from getting badly hurt.

The stuff that happened since the last time I posted is too personal to post right now. Therapy has been good for me, but only in conjunction with medication. I had to remind myself of that the hard way, and it's been a real kick in the ass.

If you are out there trying to figure out what to do about the narcissist you are dealing with, I don't have any hard and fast answers, but I can give you some advise from my journey. Just keep protecting yourself. Guilt will be your enemy. A poor sense of self will also be your enemy. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, and it'll probably take you a long time to figure out what it is you do want. But when you figure it out, don't apologize for it. Seek the help you need, which may not be the help others think you need, and don't apologize for it. You might get torn down to build yourself back the way you want. Your story is not lying to you. Another person's story does not negate your own. Walk through the dark days and try not to carry them with you. If you do, try to remember you are not alone, though you'll feel that way sometimes. Maybe more often than sometimes. Don't close the door on options because you're worried about a social stigma. Don't let ego overcome necessity. Trust your definition of forgiveness.

What Does It Mean?

Christ on a cracker. I had hoped my mental health would be improving as years go by, but I'm sort of fucked up right now.

Not drunk or high or anything like that, which might be more acceptable to me. Just that my mind is not working correctly and I think some diagnosis may be forthcoming that I have been ignoring for a long time.

All the things that I have been proud of myself for hinge on my apparent resiliency in any given situation. I think I've been faking it. Just a big fucking faker.

The rage still burns my insides up, boils my brain, makes me feel dark and red at the same time. I want to cry and vomit and scream it all out, but it won't leave.

I put on my facade and go to work and pretend I'm doing ok. I pretend at home, too. My husband knows I'm not feeling well, but he has no idea. The fact is there is no one in my personal life I can trust to help me through this because I feel like I have to be the one that has to be strong for everyone else, and it fucking sucks. I feel trapped. I am trapped.

I know I need help. I have decided to go back to therapy to try to understand things, to try to cope. My problem is presenting as a problem of acceptance. I cannot accept the way certain people are, why the world is the way it is. Thought my attitude was getting better, but it's not. Telling me to brush it off and let it go feels impossible. Why don't more people CARE? Why does it have to be like this??? Why can't people be good parents? Why are people so content to let others raise their children, to provide for their families? Why won't people keep sex offenders away from their children? Doesn't anybody give a shit??

The world seems impossible. Life feels like a bunch of disjointed motions. What is the point?

Is the only answer really medicating myself into happy? I fear that's so, and it's necessary to be a good mother to my children. But the medicine I'm taking now is not helping and I'm disheartened because the search for the right medicine/combination of medicines is so frightening.

I desperately want to feel better.

A Circle Completed?

Finally got level. Hope it lasts. Nearly two weeks after my last posting, I finally started to feel some sort of relief. It took the full six weeks to get there. That was a long, long time. I had to put myself in the position of feeling like shit before I could appreciate how shitty it really was.

Big step this last weekend. Went to my nephew's baptism and saw mom for the first time in nearly a year. Christ, she's so weird. I knew she was fucking weirdo, but it took the distance to really see it. No one will be shocked that absolutely nothing has changed about her. Blank eyes, a ghoulish love of sharing the misfortune of others. She is full of nothing. She was at that baptism because, of course, it was AN IMPORTANT EVENT and a CHRISTLY event that she should attend, but I not once saw her address her little grandson who was baptized except to insist that she get her picture taken with my sister and baby boy.

Directly after the event, my sister & her fam had to leave because they were having a reception at their home, which mom wasn't attending. I'm sure she would've, but no one would give her a ride there and drive her the hour and a half back to her place at her convenience. Too bad, eh? My sister was aware that I wasn't terribly comfortable with mom and lingered until I told her to go on ahead, that I would wait until mom's ride got there from "just down the road." My husband and boy went on to our car, because it was windy as fuck and not super pleasant outside, and I didn't need her fawning over my guys and being stupider than usual. So, we're standing there, and her ride doesn't come and doesn't come. I'm starting to resent standing there with her because I feel like somehow her ride didn't really want to come back and get her, and I wasn't about to offer to take her anywhere. Half an hour later, her ride arrives, after she's gleefully recited all the bad news she can possibly store in her wanting warehouse of a mind. Her ride is her brother and sis-in-law. They finally fucking pull up, and mom just stands outside with me in the wind instead of making a farewell gesture to me and walking to their vehicle. So, uncle awkwardly exits the car and gives me an awkward hug, and so does auntie, and dumbass mom asks them if they want to walk over and say hi to my family who are sitting in a car at the other end of the lot ON PURPOSE. I simply said that wasn't necessary and I needed to leave, which I did.

So, because of mom, I was much later to this family event than I wanted to be, but overall, I felt pretty positive about how things played out. She couldn't manipulate me into taking her anywhere, despite what may possibly (probably) have been a planned delay in her ride getting there. My decision to stay there with her was made to benefit my sister. Mom couldn't manipulate my guys because they got the fuck out of the way. And all I saw when I listened to her bullshit, and in the way she hugged me and whispered, "I really do love you, you know," while ignoring her grandbaby, is how ridiculous it all is. She is a shadow. She's a shell who seems to spark on the giving of bad news, the almost Munchausen-by-Proxy way she loves to tell a sad story belonging to someone else. All the drama that I've caused myself over whether I was making the right decision to go NC/LC has made absolutely no difference, except that now I see more clearly. All the feelings I attributed to her were mine. She might truly be deeply happy with me if I kicked the bucket and she got to tell a bunch of people, preferably in a church situation. Oh, the time I spent giving a shit.

"Coincidentally," a former friend of mine called me out of the blue today and asked me to go to a rock concert with her. I love rock music, but I have no compunction to body-surf with the young and gorgeous at an alt-rock concert mid-week with a person I've talked to maybe once in the past two years. Thanks, but no thanks. Strange, you know? I'm being challenged to step up and just say no to people who I rarely used to say no to. In less than 24 hours, two of 'em.

Continued

The last few weeks have been unfun, and I've had to take a good, hard look at myself.

For awhile late last year and earlier this year, I was all shiny-happy ridiculosity, and I'm still trying to decide if that is because of the medication I was taking or because I went no-contact, or because I was just a numbnuts. I keep fighting with myself, because I've started to believe that anyone who is consistently happy must be not very bright. This ain't nice. I know it. I am jaded and empty and sometimes more bitter than other times.

Started back on an antidepressant, which isn't really giving me happy back, but it's leveling me out. Though, if I got happy back, I'd have to think I was stupid because I couldn't see how the world REALLY is. But, if happy came back, I wouldn't give a fuck if I was dumber than a box of hair, cuz I'd be happy. Fuuuuuuck.

Maybe it's a midlife crisis. Questioning every decision I've made my entire life. Trapped. Unhappy. Not fulfilling what I should be capable of. It's my fault, so blame myself. Self-forgiveness seems a little too happy-crappy for my mindset.

I started having nightmares about my mother again when I realized that I'd have to see her if I chose to attend a nephew's baptism. I went through this same shit when my niece was baptized, but that was before I went NC. I had a dream the other night that I was walking through a big beautiful house that was my own, looking for a shower that had a curtain. All these great bathrooms, but no shower curtains! When I walked through the living room, my mother was sitting in a chair along with a woman who had been her one-time co-worker (who had also been my preschool teacher). I looked at my mother and asked, "What are you doing here?" She started talking about how she had gone to the doctor and gotten a PAP smear, the look on her face saying she was going to tell me she was dying, then she said, "I got a clean bill of health and I'm doing good." I really looked at her and noticed she was wearing shorts and her legs weren't discolored like they really are and she was standing fine and she looked physically good. I said, "I'm really glad you're doing well." Then she said she had something she wanted me to watch and turned on a TV station that was talking about people cannibalizing other people. Just the gruesome-est, most horrible story, and I asked her, "Do you know those people?" or something along that line, and she looked at me like I was an idiot and she said, "No!" Like, why would I even ask. Then I began screaming at her, saying that I have told her over and over I have anxiety issues and why was she showing me this awfulness, and she looked at me with that stupid blank look she gets and said, "You never told me that." The lady that was with her was sort of supporting her, very passively, and I told them both to get the fuck out of my house and to never come back. Christ, I was so angry, and I woke up angry, and I'm still angry enough to remember the details of this dream.

She had the audacity to come into this house (which was just what I would want, except for the shower curtains) that was MINE without invitation and begin her shit. I know what this means. It means I'm letting the bitch sneak into my brain again.

Can't Do It Alone

I've been weaning off of antidepressants (well, TRYING) since probably January of this year and had to go on another antidepressant to get off the 1st one. It's not working. My anxiety is through the roof and I'm sick with worry over things that I can't even define. Things that I would have been able to deal with in an appropriate manner now send me into tears. I couldn't sleep for 2 days straight, nor could I eat, and I can no longer remember why it seemed so important to me to go off of antidepressants in the first place. So, I called the doctor and got an appointment and got on a therapeutic dose of the 2nd antidepressant I was taking to get off the 1st. Oh, and something to sleep at night, until that SSRI kicks in.

The thing is, I remember this feeling as EXACTLY what I felt almost every day of my life from about 3rd grade on. This used to be my normal. No wonder I was so fucked up in my teenage years. After 10 or so years of normalcy, to go back to that was unbearable for even 3 days. No wonder I wanted to never wake up every single time I went to sleep. No wonder I was so sickly thin in my youth. Fuck. There is no way I can do that again.

I've read different internet articles wherein people speak about how you're not "living authentically" when you're on an antidepressant, that the reason you're depressed is because you need more therapy to deal with other shit you've repressed, that you should WELCOME the heightened emotions because it means you're ALIVE. Well, shit all over that. I firmly believe that the people who believe these things have not reached the same emotional depths that some of us have, the depths that have made me believe that hell is actually a state of mind.

I've done therapy, I've made the hardest change I never thought I could in going NC, I have a life that's worth living. I will be damned if I'll let my fucking brain ruin it. I will not let my faulty neurons make me into a selfish, sobbing wretch, steal me from my children, bludgeon any joy I see in this world. I will not let me be over because at some point I have convinced myself I didn't need the help that these medications give me.

I am weak, but I am going to be strong again.