Holy Hypomania!

I’ve been sitting here with my head in my hands trying not to cry.  Hypomania is back.  I got a one day respite (sort of) from my one week stint of severe hypomania.  I managed to book an emergency appointment with pdoc, so lucky, and she upped my mania medication.  And it worked.  For. One. Day.

Now, I’ve been up for hours giving me a total of 5 hours and change that I actually slept last night.  That’s not enough for a normal human, let alone one like me.  Hopefully, I’ll get a nap, but I seriously doubt it.

So far today, I’ve written in my “Blog Ideas & Thoughts” book, my “Political” book, my “Reminder” notebook and my “Therapy and Mood Notes” book.  I didn’t even have this many books until this morning.  I like the way it’s organized but I think the OCD tendencies have slipped some.  My “Blog Ideas & Thoughts” book has some interesting notes on racing thoughts, but I’ll get to that later.  In fact, every book has something in it.
I need my husband to get up.  Conversation with him really does help, at least most of the time.  But, I hear him snoring away, so it may be awhile.

In the meantime, I want to start every project under the sea.  I’m forcing myself to do this, but I could be clipping coupons or cleaning the desk or cleaning the shelves or cleaning the bathroom floor or watering/weeding my garden or any number of things from baking a cake to getting a shower.

The list is exhausting and random and I will do it till I’m exhausted and I will do it randomly.  And I will end the day feeling as though I got nothing done.  Which is almost the worst part.

Well, the worst part except for the lack of focus, and the irritability and the “I’m so tired I’m going to cry” parts.  They suck too.

There’s a lot more to say about hypomania, but it’s going to have to wait until I’m not hypomanic anymore.

 

 

 

The Red Thread

Tags

bipolar, bipolar blog, bipolar blogger, depression, suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts, suicide, suicide prevention

As I come closer to the one year anniversary of my most recent hospitalization for active suicidal ideation, my thoughts turn to what keeps stopping me from killing myself and how exactly it is that I manage to get help.  After all, I’m not the only one with this problem, and I already know too many who have not gotten help and committed suicide.

The reasons that I moved from fine, to passive thoughts of suicide to active suicidal thoughts aren’t incredibly important, but I’ll give you a quick run-down.  I say that these things aren’t incredibly important because the people in this story are not at fault.  My bipolar/depressed/anxious brain is at fault.

However, last year we opened our home to my husband’s son, my stepson.  My Mother-in-law had moved in 2 years before and our small home was already stretched to it’s limits.  However, my step-son had nowhere else to go, so we took him in.

Now, my stepson had his own pile of problems and the codependent part of me wanted to help fix them.  My husband and I had many disagreements on the right course of action and I felt rather powerless to do anything.  Until he got a job, my stepson planted himself on the couch all day, every day.  Once he got a job, we became his personal Uber service.

My nerves were stretched thin enough to use as strings for a guitar.  And then the depression set in.  It started as a feeling of uselessness, but the depression gained ground and started pushing me further and further down until I began to have passive suicidal thoughts.  I had no plan of action to kill myself, but the thoughts kept going through my brain.

When I mentioned these thoughts to my therapist, she upped my weekly visits from two to three. This kept me from going further into the ravine of depression for a couple of weeks.

However, yet one more argument between my husband and I sealed the deal.  I explained about the suicidal thoughts.  He told me that I needed to change my attitude or I would never feel better.  Again, not his fault.  He was terrified.  And his fear always presents as frustration or anger.  So, not his fault.  Not the most helpful piece of advice, but still, not his fault that I ended up where I did.

The worst day was July 1, 2016.  I woke up barely able to get out of bed.   But, anxiety forced me up to make coffee.  It was probably also the co-dependent side as well, because I couldn’t have my husband get up to no coffee.  My step-son was asleep on the couch.

When my husband finally does get up the silence between us is deafening.  Our conflicting ideas about what to do with my stepson, and his terror over my suicidal thoughts keep us quiet.

I rifle through my coping skills toolbox.  I don’t have enough concentration to color.  Or read.  Or write.  I can’t be bothered to weed the garden.  Nothing is working.  All of my tried and true coping skills are failing me all at once.  I don’t even have it in me to watch TV.  I tell my husband that it’s getting bad.  I don’t think I’m going to make it through today.  He reminds me that if I continue to think this way then that’s exactly what’s going to happen.  Looking back, I know that he was frantic.  At the time, I felt like the weight of me that he wore around his neck was just getting heavier.  Wouldn’t he be better off without a sick wife?  The worry could end.  The endless doctor visits and medication changes and refills would end.  There would be no guessing my mood and trying to adapt.  He would get that life insurance money from the policy he has on me through work.  He could pay off the house.  He could pay off the medical bills.  He could have money left over to supplement his paycheck.  The only paycheck that funds the lives of 4 people.  Because I can’t work.  Because the doctors say it will only propel me to this place I’m crashing towards anyway.

Active Suicidal Ideation.  Now, I have a plan.

A pair of scissors sits on the bathroom vanity, taunting me with my inability to just open a vein.  My plan of choice this time is my medication.  The very medication that is supposed to keep me together is now going to be my way out.

But out of the corner of my brain’s eye, I see the red thread.  I believe in God, so I choose to believe that He puts it there as my choice.  My choice to give in or to fight.  You may believe differently about how that choice comes to be, as long as you see the choice if this time ever comes to you.

I reach out and touch the red thread.  And I instantly know I need to lock up my medications.  So, into the safe they go.  Lock the safe.

I’m the only one with the combination.  So, probably not super helpful, but better than nothing.

I touch the red thread again.   And this time I go to the only place that I know I will be safe.  The pool.  I know I cannot drown myself.

I sit out there for a little while, but the craving to end my life is so strong.  I touch the red thread.  This time, I go back to the house and grab a couple of the cigarettes that I rolled for hubby.  I don’t smoke anymore.  I haven’t smoked for almost 2 years.  But the need to kill myself is too strong.  I need to occupy my hands.  So, I smoke.

It’s not helping.

I touch the red thread.  I call my therapist.  She doesn’t have a receptionist so I end up in voicemail.  I leave her a message, through tears, that I want to kill myself so badly.  My coping skills are not working.  I’m sitting by the pool, because I know I can’t drown myself.  I’m smoking.  Please call me back.

But, in my heart, I know she’s in session and won’t get back to me for a couple of hours at least.   Hubby comes out to let me know he’s leaving for work.   He works second shift and once he leaves, he won’t be back until midnight.  I tell him I’ve called Karen.  He says good and he leaves.  He takes my stepson to work when he goes.

And now I’m alone with my Mother in Law.  And I’m suicidal.  And my therapist hasn’t called back.  But, I also realize something.  I’m no longer just reaching out to touch the red thread.  I’m holding it.  I’m climbing it.

I look up the number for the Psychiatric Hospital I stayed at 2 years ago.  I pick up the phone and put it down several times before I finally make the call.  I’m worried they won’t believe me.  I’m worried I will have to try to convince them.  I speak with the intake nurse and she is kind to me.  I tell her that I want to kill myself and the steps I’ve taken to not attempt.

She says come in right away.

I call my therapist and leave a voicemail updating her on my new plan.  The plan where I will not take my life but will get help instead.

I go to pack a bag.  I know from repeated experience that I can take nothing with me with laces or drawstrings but it’s all I own.  So, I pack the clothes that I don’t mind the drawstrings being cut out of, pull on my slippers and prepare to go.

But, I haven’t taken my Mother in Law into account.  She insists that I’m not to leave the house.  Hubby told her what was going on and I’m not to drive.  An argument that, at the time, is unbelievable to me ensues.  I’m 46 years old and if I want to leave the house I will not be stopped by her.  But, I understand now.  Fear drives her.

But, the red thread is now driving me.  I will not be stopped from getting help.

I call a cab.

At the hospital, I meet the nurse I spoke with on the phone.  Questions upon questions upon questions need to be answered.  But, my therapist has called ahead and told them not only to expect me, but that I need to be admitted.  I’m beyond grateful for the wheels that have been greased.  I don’t have to prove myself.

She takes me to the ward and gets me checked in there.  I feel conspicuous as I sit at the nurse’s station getting the drawstrings cut from my pants and filling out forms.  People are staring, but I refuse to look up.  These people are going to be my whole world for the next 7 days, but I’m not ready to meet their eyes yet.

I stay for a week.

I reset to factory defaults.

I begin to see how my husband’s anger was born of worry for me and his own stress over his son living with us.

I begin to see how to express my concerns about my stepson.

I begin to plan my new daily schedule for home to take into account my stepson’s presence.

I reload my coping skills toolbox.

I live.

Suicidal ideation is not selfish.  None of what I felt on July 1 and the days leading up was about me feeling more comfortable.  It was about a sense of uselessness.  It was about knowing with absolute certainty that those I love would be better off without me.  It was about knowing that my bipolar will always be here with me, but my husband shouldn’t have his life made harder because of that.  And it was about an absolute certainty that the lives of my loved ones would be easier without me.  Packing a bag and moving out wasn’t the answer.  Because my husband would have to continue to deal with me and my bipolar.  Death was the only answer.  It was the only way to free HIM.

Looking back, I see the fear that I thought was anger.  I see the stress that I read as hate.  But, I was wrong about all of it.  Suicidal ideation will always have you read a room wrong.

But, the red thread led me through to help.  Whether you believe that the red thread is divine, as I do, or not, simply doesn’t matter.  The only thing that matters is that the red thread exists.

I urge you, the next time active suicidal ideation rears it’s ugly head, to grab that thread.  Grab it with all your might and don’t let go.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline – 1-800-273-8255

Be Safe

 

 

Five days

Industrial lawn mowers mowing.  Making noise.  Assaulting my ears.

Fresh cut grass.  Making dust.  Assaulting my allergies.

People talking.  Making noise.  More assault on my ears.

Now there’s neighbors here.  More talking!!!!  More noise!!!  My ears!!!

Valium on board and useless.

Homesickness assaults my heart.  I miss my husband.  I miss my house.  I miss my quiet.

Oh look, another neighbor!  Holy shit I may tear my ears off.

The talking, the complaining, the ‘nice to meet you’s’ is literally killing me.

Sleep has eluded me for days.  I know that’s a bad thing.  I know that makes this worse.

I know that bipolar and lack of sleep is a shitty combination.  I know it, but I can’t help it.

I take my meds.  I won’t stay asleep.  I suspect it’s the absence of my husband.

Five days ’till hubby.

Five days ’till a solid hug.

Five days ’till someone who understands will stand in front of me and tell me it’s ok.

Five days ’till someone will be the intermediary of these problems.

Five days ’till someone will know the signs of my anxiety and hypomania and depression.

Five days ’till.

Five days.

So what IS Bipolar anyway?

Tags

bipolar blog, bipolar blogger, depression, hypomania, Major Depressive Episode, mania, mixed episode, nervous breakdown, suicide

Yesterday I wrote a post about how people in the mainstream can misunderstand what bipolar is.  But what is bipolar?

The National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) gives a nice clinical explanation here.

But, how does that explanation translate to what those of us who have bipolar feel on a daily basis?  How does it explain our daily lives?

It doesn’t.

It’s clinical.  And that’s ok.  It should be clinical.  But, it doesn’t describe the true challenges.

I’m medicated.  Heavily in fact.  And, yet, I still experience the symptoms of bipolar on a daily basis. Because I’m treatment resistant, sometimes called medication resistant.  What that means is that my body will not process the necessary medications properly, and either the dosages or the medications themselves have to be changed frequently.

I don’t work.  I can’t work.  A therapist, psychiatrist, forensic psychologist, vocational expert and a judge have all deemed that work is impossible given my limitations.  I am officially disabled according to the Federal Government.  It took two and a half years, but I got there.

I don’t know what I’m going to be experiencing from one day to the next.  I spend a lot of time isolating myself from others, either because I’m too depressed to handle interpersonal interactions, or because I’m incredibly aggravated from the symptoms of hypomania.  Some days depression will keep me in bed all day, even though I’m on antidepressants.  Some days hypomania will have me running around the house at a high rate of speed, partially accomplishing many tasks.

Some days I experience both, in a back and forth pattern.  Some days I experience both at the same time.  Both at the same time is the weirdest feeling in the world.  Tons of energy, tons of irritation and an uncontrollable emptiness all at the same time.

I have experienced mania a few times.  It’s hypomania on speed.  I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, I couldn’t stop moving and doing.  I’m grateful that I didn’t experience the very harsh side effects of mania such as overspending and hypersexuality.  But, I also had the outlet of a fast paced, time intensive job and a home that needed work.  I hope to never experience mania again.  I pray every day that my medications will at least keep me from that.

Imagine that you wake up.  You have an incredible amount of energy and it feels so good.  You start working on a project with your spouse that you both want to do and that will be so wonderful when it’s done. In my most recent case this was to get a flower bed planted.  You take to this project with gusto.  But you push yourself way beyond the boundaries of what you are really capable of.  But, you don’t care.  You keep going.  You sweat, but don’t drink water.  You dig, you plant flowers, you constantly move away to make sure that everything is just perfect.  When everything is in, you don’t take the time to appreciate what you’ve accomplished.  You start moving tools that you have no business lifting, because you still have so much energy.  When everything is put away, you still can’t enjoy the fruits of your way overdone labor, because you must start doing something else right away.  Too much energy in your body and it must be expended.  But, at the same time you’re irritated.  The conversation necessary to get this done grates on your nerves.  Other people’s voices make you want to rip your ears off even though you love the people who are talking.

This is hypomania.  Energized, but pissed.

Now imagine after all this is done you suddenly crash.  You still don’t care about the fruits of your labor, because it means nothing to you anymore.  The emptiness swallows you whole.  You can’t talk.  You can barely move, if you’re lucky.  The pretty flowers and the work that it took to make it happen are things that you can’t bring yourself to care about.  All you know now, is that no one cares that you helped.   It doesn’t matter that it looks beautiful.  It’s all going to die anyway.  But, people still want to talk to you.  Of course they do, they love you.  But you can’t care.  The voices still irritate you and as you sit there in a state of desperation and loneliness, and emptiness, you also start to get annoyed again.  Why must they talk about the accomplishment?  Who cares?  You don’t.  Why do they have to keep talking about how pretty it all is?

This is depression.  Emptiness, loneliness and so many untrue thoughts that your brain pushes you into believing all with an absolute crushing lack of energy.

This scenario actually played out with me a couple of weeks ago.  It’s called a mixed episode.  Mine was also accompanied by a heavy load of anxiety.  I don’t know why I was anxious.  There was no reason to be anxious.  There usually isn’t, but I experience it every single day, usually all day.

I’ve been hospitalized for my depression four times in the last six years.  Depression will take you to places that you would never be able to think possible when you are feeling ok.  Depression will make you believe that no one loves you, no one wants you around, you are a terrible burden on those people who are barely tolerating you as it is.  The loneliness sinks in, the lack of energy becomes worse and worse, until you literally can’t get out of bed to do anything but go to the bathroom and even that takes everything you have.  You start to realize that everyone that you love would be better off if you weren’t around.  And you believe this intensely.  And you start to plan.  How best to kill yourself becomes the all consuming part of this severe part of depression.  My plans usually revolve around talking all of my medication, but one time I planned to drive my car into a tree at a high rate of speed.  All of the things that you are thinking, are of course false.  And there is a thread in the middle of this chaos that tells you your brain is bullshitting you.  So far, I have been very lucky to be able to grasp that thread and get help.  Not everyone is so lucky.

This condition used to be referred to as a Nervous Breakdown.  However, often is is now called a Major Depressive Episode.  41,000 people a year commit suicide.  90% of them suffer from mental illness.

As I end this post with the most depressing part, please let me implore you.  If you are asked for help for suicidal thoughts…HELP.  Sit with the person, understanding that you can’t talk their brain out of the false thoughts.  Hold their hand, hug them, whatever they will allow.  Take them to a crisis center or a mental health hospital and get them the help they need.  You can’t fix it, but you can get them to people who can.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline (US) 800-273-TALK (8255)

Peace & Love to all of you

 

 

Misunderstanding Bipolar Disorder

Tags

Affordable Health Care Act, bipolar blog, bipolar blogger, education, explaining bipolar, health care law, stigma

About 2 weeks ago I told someone I had bipolar disorder.  The response I received was ‘But you seem so intelligent’.

????

Okay.  I replied that bipolar disorder has nothing to do with intelligence but is in fact a mood disorder and is classified as a mental illness.  A couple of questions followed from others in the room and I answered them all to the best of my ability.  I explained that I am, in fact, quite intelligent but I have memory problems due to my medications.  In fact, I explained quite a lot of things.

But, here’s the thing.  Those of us with bipolar disorder are automatically tasked with explaining it.  We hate the stigma.  But the stigma exists because of the lack of understanding in the “normal” population.  And if we don’t explain it, than who will?  No one.  There is no one else in a better position to explain bipolar disorder then those of us who suffer with it.  Of course, that’s ridiculously unfair, because many of us have trouble just making it through the day.  But, it doesn’t matter that it’s unfair.  It is what it is.

I have “come out” a lot recently.  I’ve decided that I don’t care what someone thinks of me because of my bipolar.  If they can’t see past it, then that’s their problem.  Of course, the co-dependency that exists in many of us makes it incredibly difficult to let someone walk away from us because of our disease.  And, of course, it’s ridiculously unfair for someone to do that.  But, I’ve come to realize that it’s a risk, and it’s possible that I will lose people in my life because of it.

So far, so good.

The person who exclaimed that he couldn’t believe it because I seemed so intelligent listened patiently as I explained the broader strokes of bipolar.  And, I’m happy to say that he is not only still in my life, but now has a much better understanding of my condition then he did the day he found out about it.

A lot of the reason that I have decided to speak out about my bipolar is because of the new proposed health care laws.  If you haven’t been keeping up, this is the time to start.  Medicaid recipients stand to lose all mental health benefits if their states ask the Federal Government for a waiver of the “Essential Health Benefits“.  In poor states, like mine, that waiver will almost surely be asked for and granted.

Now, the Senate is working on their own bill, and we don’t really know what it’s going to say yet.  But, I began speaking out for fear of those on Medicaid who are mentally ill.  I have spoken at rallies, I have spoken to the press.  And I will continue to do so.  I’m outing myself publicly to protect those less fortunate than I am.   And, ultimately, to protect myself from hostile stigma that’s sure to be coming my way.

Educate those around you.  If you have the ability, educate your Members of Congress.

Stigma will never go away until those of us with the power to explain the illness actually start standing up and doing so, no matter the cost to personal relationships.  It’s not easy, it’s often extremely difficult.

But it’s so very very important.

 

Love and Peace to you all.