Today, words escape me. Or at least words you'd want to read

I have struggled with what to write today.  There was a blog post written about some people’s reactions to the post over at BlogHer that I wrote about last week.  The tone of the post left me wondering if the author was calling me out without actually pointing fingers at me.  My first inclination was to write a scathing blog post defending my opinion and my parenting style and my girls, who are 12 and 14.  But the more drafts I wrote, it became less and less important to perpetuate the drama.  I stand behind my opinion. I stand behind my girls’ behaviors.

Then I sat down to write about the two major episodes I’ve had in the past two weeks.  I was going to write about how the rose colored glasses I’d been wearing finally fell off and lay shattered at my feet. And with them, the lies I’d been telling myself, and the dreams that never would come true.  I was going to write about how I have struggled for the past 10 days to find my way back to peace, and a stronger me.  But unless you’ve lived the past three weeks in my head, whatever I would write would sound too cryptic no matter how poetic it may be.

So, maybe tomorrow, I’ll find some words that are worth reading.  In the meantime, pretend I am my usually funny witty brilliant self.

I am Known For My Shoes, but I Never Expected This

I guess it was bound to happen some day.  It kind of comes with the territory of being a parent to teenagers.  I should have expected it at some point, but I didn’t expect it to happen this way.

My daughter is embarrassed by me.

A few weeks ago, I wore my red stilettos to the Homecoming Basketball game.  I wore them with jeans and a turtleneck sweater.  Anyone who knows me here, or even in real life knows I am known for my shoes.  I looked presentable.

But they were stilettos.

And red.

And one of her friends made the comment “Your mom’s a MILF”.

She didn’t say anything to me at the time.  In fact, she waited until last night to say anything.  I was getting ready for yet another game, and she asked me to change my shirt. I didn’t understand why, because it’s a shirt I’ve worn many times before.

Apparently it was too low-cut.

And “People are calling you a MILF”

I stopped short.

I tried to explain that it had nothing to do with how I dressed.  I’m a single mom, I’m not altogether unfortunately looking, I’m blonde with blue eyes, and I’m tall and slim.. My jeans are not too tight, my shirts are never too revealing, and always reach well over the top of my jeans.

“No Mom, it was your red boots.”

Shit.

My passion had crossed a line.  Completely unintentional.  I love my boots.

But I love my daughter more.  Clearly.

I changed shirts.

Short of showing up in a baggy oversized sweatshirt and baggy jeans, dirty hair and no make-up, (which would embarrass my daughter for entirely different reasons) it’s hard for me ‘dress down’.  I look ‘put together’ when I go to any school function specifically so I don’t embarrass my daughters.

God this post sounds so shallow and conceited and full of myself….

On top of feeling like a lousy mom, I also felt violated.  As if, my red boots somehow signaled I was asking to be fucked.

And if there were any doubt about some of her friends calling me a MILF, one of them came up to me at the game (where I was wearing jeans, a shirt, a jacket and loafers), and said to me “Those red boots of yours? Awesome.  I told Meredith ‘Your mom looks hot!’”.

In the process of doing something fun for me, wearing my fun heels, dressing up so I felt pretty instead of just Mom-ish, I had embarrassed my daughter.

She said it wasn’t so much me, but what her friends were saying.

And here we are three weeks after Homecoming and I still have people students coming up to me talking about my boots.

The way I see it, I have one of two choices.  Either wear them every single day, every time I go to the store or the library or to do laundry so that everyone gets used to seeing me in my red boots. (Hey, I’m already known for them) Or put them away and save them for when I have a date, and that ain’t ever going to happen.

I Get My Sanity Back, Only to Lose My Mind by Taking On Comments over at BlogHer

I don’t know why I feel the need to write about my disorder here.  After all, mental illness is still taboo and there is a certain stigma to it.  Mental illness is not sexy, and it doesn’t sell and I promise you my stats do not increase because of it.  And yet, I write about it.  So much for world domination.  Besides, I think Dooce cornered that market with her breakdown and three-day stint in the psych ward.  Depression is acceptable if it comes with a baby, not so much if it comes with mania.

So, I’m going to let it go. As if it really is that easy.  I’m just done writing about it here, for a while. So. *Ahem* moving on.

I think I put my foot in it yesterday, with a comment I left on a blog post.  If I didn’t piss of people there, I am pretty sure I will here.  That’s just how I roll.  (Does anyone use that phrase anymore?)

Yesterday, I was rolling through my Google Reader when I came across this story Liz of Maybe Baby Maybe Not posted at BlogHer.  Go read it, it’s a great story.  But for the purposes of this blog post, I’ll recap it for you. Guy goes into bagel place, young couple with young kids come in. Kids are all over the place, parents are oblivious.  Older gentleman, puts parents in their place.  It’s worth the read… honestly.

The comments that were there were in support of the parents.  *blink blink*  *scratching head looking all kinds of WTF?* Maybe I’m out of line, but one comment went so far as to say “Parenting is hard and in the end, I wouldn’t want someone embarrassing me so I wouldn’t do it them.”  Wait, WHAT?  Allow these children to assault (Ok, assault may be a bit too harsh, but the children were ‘driving’ their trucks all over the place bumping into other patrons) other patrons, because we don’t want to embarrass them? Are you kidding me?  Under absolutely ZERO circumstances is it ever acceptable for anyone, including a child, to hit another person with anything. Since these parents seem to think that that is perfectly acceptable behavior, I’m sure they wouldn’t care if I bumped into them as I walked by.

Another comment was ‘What if these were special needs children?”

Again I say, there is a certain level of respect due to everyone, and a certain level of behavior expected in public with some exceptions being made. . Children can be taught how to behave in public  If they can not sit in their seats, they sure can at least play close by the parents.  I understand that kids will be kids and that there are children with special needs, but again, the other patrons have expectations which I am sure include but are not limited to ‘enjoying a bagel without being assaulted by a child.” Seems pretty reasonable to me.

I will forgive a whole lot when it comes to kids, if the parents are attempting to be parents  and making an attempt to keep their kids from bothering other patrons.  I will excuse and ignore temper tantrums, yelling and screaming, I will even excuse running around their table.  I don’t even care if your kid comes over and says Hi to me, I’ll engage them in a conversation. But I will also be looking for you as their parent to see if you even know or care where your child is.

I May Be Sick, I May Be Broken, But I Refuse to be Crazy

You’re sick.

You’re crazy.

You are fucked in the head and you need help.

All of those words were leveled at me this weekend.   To an extent, they are true.  I have a mental illness.  That mental illness sometimes grips me so hard, logic and reason are beyond my reach.  Yes, I do stupid destructive things while in the midst of this hell.  They seem logical and right at the time, there is no impulse control To be honest that is my healthy brain screaming out for help, much like Reagan wrote HELP ME on her physical body from the inside while the demon possessed her. 

You’re sick.

You’re crazy.

You are fucked up in the head and you need help.

Words spoken by someone who not only doesn’t understand, but clearly doesn’t want to.  Spoken by someone who would not step outside themselves to help. Those words said to me were as painful and as hurtful and as destructive as real physical blows to my body.  My manic brains seized on those words and repeated them over and over and over mantra style inside my head. 

You’re sick.

You’re crazy.

You are fucked up in the head, and you need help.

I have two irrational fears  in my life.  The fear of getting fat, and the fear of being crazy. ( I said they were irrational fears)   I can live with “mentally ill”, I can live with “bipolar”, I can even live with ‘sick’.  I can not live with ‘crazy’. I know I’m sick, I know there are times I look/act/sound like I’m fucked up in the head, mainly because when I’m in a spiral, I am fucked up. But crazy, while it’s pretty much common vernacular for stupid behavior, it also still stirs up images of loony bins and straight jackets.  And I am scared to death of crazy.

You’re sick.

You’re crazy.

You are fucked up in the head, and you need help.

The truth is, I’m getting help, but help doesn’t make a difference over night.  Medications take weeks to be visibly effective.  Therapy can take years.  I’m never going to be normal, and life with me is never going to be Ward and June Cleaver.  When I’m sick, or crazy, or fucked up in the head, I can put on a charming smiling face and be a lot of fun to be around. if I work at it really hard. But the whole time I’m laughing and having a blast, the voices, the other person inside my head is saying things like “You know you’re crazy right? You know this is just an act.  You know that it won’t stay hidden forever.  Someday they are going to know just how fucked up and damaged you are.”  So, what do you do, when you’re falling down that rabbit hole and the person you reach out to for help, the one you should be able to count on, is the one who’s telling you

You’re sick

You’re crazy.

You are fucked up in the head and you need help.

I sit here, staring at my phone with such intensity I expect it to burst into flames, waiting, willing the little green light to blink, signaling I have a text message.  Hour after hour it stays dark. The help I reached out for, screamed for, cried and begged for was never there as I fell apart, lost myself, gave up.  Even now, as I am trying to put it all back together, find myself, and find my way through the shame and disgust at my words and actions, the help, the support, the person I need is nowhere to be found.  All because they believe

I’m sick.

I’m crazy.

I’m fucked up in the head, and I need help.

It is times like this, when I am trying to find… something, anything redeemable in me, when I question everything, when I have spent the entire day on the couch because I can’t get up and face any more of the world beyond my laptop, that I need to know that I am not alone.  I need to know that I have not been abandoned, and they can still find something, anything, within me that is worth loving. Because as I struggle to free myself from the voices, their words echo in my head.  It’s times like this that the voices inside my head scream the loudest, because there are so few voices outside my head to drown them out. I have to save myself because when it gets ugly, when it sucks me in and steals my rationality, my logic, my reasoning and my sanity, nobody wants to help, or knows how to help, and so they run.  I am left alone and abandoned, and faced with the cold hard truth the isn’t enough in me for them to love.  And I’m jealous of their freedom, their ability to run away. Because I can’t. 

I Got My First Hate Email! I Think I've Made it to the Minor Leagues

I got my first hate email Friday.  I think this means I’ve made it to the minor leagues.  It was actually kind of funny, and instead of answering “Patrick” privately, I’d write about it here.  After all, he will always be famous for being my first piece of hate mail.  He deserves a place of honor.  Clearly.

So ‘Patrick’ writes

Whitney’s music saved my life ! HER MUSIC BRINGS AND HAS BROUGHT LOVE AND JOY TO MILLIONS OF PEOPLE’S LIFES (sic) ! TAKE THAT LOVE QUOTE AND RUBY HEART RING OFF YOUR WEBSITE BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT “THE GREATEST LOVE OF ALL” IS THAT WHITNEY WAS SINGING TO THE WORLD IN YOUR HEART COLD FISH !!!! BURN IN HELL !!!! F in H Y P O C R I T E GO DRINK THAT BOTTLE OF VODKA AND SINK INTO A WARM BATH GOD YOU ARE A HOT WET F ED UP MESS LMAFAO ! PZ

Dear Patrick,

First of all Patrick, *lives.

Whitney Houston described herself as “Nobody’s Angel” and frankly I tend to agree.  She was not an angel, and she was not someone to be worshipped and praised.  She deserves some recognition for her talent in the 80’s but let’s not forget she was a drug addicted washed up pop star who’s prime and had come and gone.

In Whitney Houston’s song “The Greatest Love of All” she sings

The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all

I find it very difficult to believe for a second that she loved herself when she stayed in an abusive marriage to Bobby Brown.  They were married in July of 1992, and divorced April 2007.  It was during this marriage that Bobby was arrested for misdemeanor battery after hitting Whitney. You only need to Google Bobby Brown/Whitney Houston marriage to see story after story upon story of the abuse he inflicted.

Do you want to go down the drug abuse road?  Let’s see, she not only DIDN’T deny it, she talked openly and candidly about her drug addiction and her and Bobby’s Drug of choice.  (pot mixed with cocaine).  Where the hell is the “love yourself” in the abuse of your body and your mind with drugs?  Please, explain that to me.

I will agree that she was talented.  She could sing. IN THE 80’s.  Not recently, and not very well recently.  Her last album was a dismal failure.  She was a pop star, she had talent, and she wasted it away and gave ZERO back to the community.  Have a funeral, have a memorial service, but flying the flags at half mast?  That’s an insult to our service men and women.  AN INSULT.

And as for all that other crap  you spewed forth in your email?  I stand behind my opinion.  I don’t care what you think of it, or me.  You don’t know me from Adam and the fact that you are this worked up and pissed off over a blog post tells me that I’ve struck a nerve.  You don’t have to read a single word I’ve written, I don’t care.

And one more thing.  I don’t drink vodka.  Its tequila.  At least get your facts right.

Thanks for playing Patrick!

Where I let you into the playground of my manic mind

Just a friendly reminder that in less than 2 weeks, Google Friend Connect will be going away.  And while I’m still not sure what that means exactly, I don’t want any of you to miss a single fun-filled episode of my life the soap opera.  You can do any or all the following:

• Subscribe to my RSS Feed here
• Sign up for Email Delivery Here
• Follow Welcome to my Life on Facebook here.
• You can follow me on Twitter here

I am also on Google+ and I am on Networked Blogs through Facebook.  The simple truth is, if you want to find me, follow the flashing neon signs. 

I went to the doctor this week about my meds.  When you spiral as hard and as fast as I did, something has to change.  And so it did.  A tweak in the medications and we’ll see how I feel in a couple of weeks.  The problem with med updates is that for the first few days I am bitchy beyond belief because I feel as if I’m living in jello.  I can see all these things around me that need to be done and I just can’t seem to get off my butt to do them.  That and I’m convinced if I could just straighten up my house and put everything away my life would be in order as well.  Again, jello, butt-couch.  I know things will be even out and I’ll feel so much better next week, but right now I bitch at the girls because my house is cluttered.  Mostly with my shit.  I’m awesome like that.

I am on lithium, which used to conjure up images of insanity, and asylums, and Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  Now it just means blood work every couple of weeks to check my lithium levels.  I’m going to have more track marks than a back hooker on crack.  And speaking of back alley hookers on crack, I pinned this greeting card on Pinterest months ago.

(click on image for source, I’m awesome like that)

Last week I got an email saying they were removing it because it was pornography and nudity.  Really?   I can have a “That’s it, I’m creating a WTF board” with this WTF picture on it

and it’s left alone, but a greeting card about a hooker on crack gets pulled.  Hello, it was on the internet.  So I downloaded the damn picture.   Yes, this is my manic mind at work, you almost need a road map to keep up with me, don’t ya.  I live with this shit in my head.

And speaking of getting things in order, I am totally geeking out over Outlook 2010.  I subscribed to my own damn blog (because writing this crap isn’t enough, I’m narcissistic as well) and now I can add each feed to my calendar so I will have an archive of every blog post this year.  Also, I can attached the emails that I get whenever someone comments on my blog to the same calendar event and someday in the future I can go back and see who said what on which blog post.  And yes, when I’m trying to get my brain in order, and my thoughts on the same track all going the same way, any kind of micro-managing organization I can do is comfort.  I am almost embarrassed I wrote this paragraph.

This is my life in a nutshell today.  I know next week I’ll be doing better.  In the meantime I am reading blogs, even if I’m not commenting.  I will get back to my usual snarky self (as if today wasn’t snarky enough) next week.  Thanks for hanging in here with me.  Also? Margaritas help this all make more sense.  I promise.

Bring On the Hate Mail, I Don't Understand Worshipping Whitney Houston

Ah yes, Valentine’s Day.  The holiday of Godiva Chocolate and St. Hallmark.  Also? It seems I’ve been flipping off the jewelry store commercials for fucking ever people.  Yes, it’s the little things that give me great joy.  After today though we are finally through the Single Person’s Holiday Hell Gauntlet and we can get on to preparing for a real holiday… St. Patrick’s Day! Bring on the margaritas! Last year I celebrated Suck It! Mademoiselle Hautemess style. The year before that I was blown away when I received a gorgeous ring from Brian.  This year?  It’s just another day.  And that is all I’m going to say on the subject.  Oh, and go read Adam’s post today.  He totally nailed it.  </end subject>.

It seems there’s been quite a bit going on while I was lost in my self-absorbed navel gazing.

There are a lot of things in this world that I just don’t understand.  Quantum physics, Nicki Minaj, and the worshipping of Whitney Houston.  Yes, I am prepared for a fuckton of hate mail and backlash, but hear me out first.

Whitney Houston, niece of Dionne Warwick, both women blessed with voices bigger and more powerful than they themselves.  Whitney rocked the 80’s.  Owned them.  Made them her bitch.  And then, like any other good girl meets bad boy love story, she met, fell in love, and married Bobby Brown and it was all downhill from there.  The drugs, the violence, the abuse, the lifestyle, the interviews, the denials, the reality television show.  It was hard for us to watch the good girl try and save and change the bad boy only to lose herself in the fight.  Even after she divorced Bobby it was still difficult to separate herself from him and the life they had lived together.  So, when the news started to come across the web that Whitney Houston had died, everyone’s first thought was drugs.

The Grammys were the next night, and Whitney was on the lips of everyone there.  LL Cool J opened with a short but heartfelt prayer for Whitney and her loved ones.  Jennifer Hudson performed an emotional hauntingly beautiful tribute to Whitney.  Everyone remembered her golden voice.  And brushed the rest of her legacy under the rug, ignoring the elephant in the room.  Almost as if singing her praises loud enough often enough replaying her performances at every possible opportunity would somehow make the ugly side of her life somehow less ugly or just disappear.

Whitney was blessed with a talent few will ever have.  And she was cursed with an addiction she couldn’t beat.  I am not going to argue addiction: Choice or disease.  She had problems, she had demons, she had battles of her own to fight.  We all do.  I am not throwing stones. In Whitney’s own words, “I’m nobody’s angel”. But here’s my issue with the way Whitney is being immortalized; she was given a gift, a great talent, but what did she give back?

I find it hard to stomach the praise and worship that is being offered up to/for/about (What word do I use here?) Whitney considering the life she lived and the legacy she will leave behind.  She will always be remembered for “I Will Always Love You”, “The Bodyguard” and “Crack is Wack”.  She was given a gift, and she used it to entertain us. And we gave her adulations, love, awards, fame, and she squandered it.

The world has lost a great musical talent, but I have to think we lost it years ago. We have finally lost the hope that someday she would find happiness and sobriety and her talent would one day ring out for all the world to hear yet again.  Whitney, I truly hope you have found the love and joy and peace that eluded you in life.

If Telling My Story Helps One Person, I Will Tell It Again and Again

First of all, let me say thank you to everyone across the web for the outpouring of support from my earlier post.  I was touched beyond words, and as I sat at the basketball game Tuesday night shooting cheerleaders I was also fighting tears of gratitude as the messages poured in and blew up my phone.  Thank god for auto focus.  Also, let me be clear, that I do have health insurance and doctors who are working with me to figure out the medications.  Unfortunately, the tweaking of the drugs is just another fun part of BPD.  So, I know that there is hope, and that there is a way out of this.  It’s just when I’m in the midst of it it’s hard to find the hope.   One last thing, there is still the worry that all that I revealed yesterday will have some serious repercussions in regards to some people in my life.  While I know “If they bail on you b/c of this they didn’t really care about you in the first place” I don’t necessarily believe that. It is possible that they care very much but the ugliness of this disorder is just way too much for them to handle.  But I will deal with that fallout if/when it ever comes.

Carolyn from This Talk Ain’t Cheap left me a comment on that blog post that I tried to reply to, but I felt it I didn’t reply adequately enough.  So, please indulge me, while I try to do it justice here.

I was diagnosed in 2007.  I had been treated off and on for depression in the years since my divorce from the girls’ dad in 2005.  I can now look back and see bipolar behaviors in my childhood that we sort of just wrote off.

We totally missed all the signs

It’s hard to determine exactly when my bipolar disorder manifested itself.  My parents and I ignored it, wrote it off, explained it away, for so very long.  My childhood was not your typical childhood.  My father was a minister, so we lived a pseudo nomadic life, moving every three years.  Making friends and maintaining friendships has never been easy for me. Never.  I have often wondered if that is because of the moving so often, or if it is because of the BPD.  One of the characteristics of BPD is lack of impulse control.  I remember screaming and throwing my hair brush at the mirror because my hair wouldn’t curl the right way.  I remember my mother being concerned about me because I was so overly involved in my friends’ drama, everything was life or death.  Bipolar is about extremes, and so was my life.  I could go days, or weeks without cleaning my room, and then, for whatever reason feel this overwhelming NEED to have everything in it’s place.  I would spend an entire day tearing my room apart only to put it back together again.

I was a sophomore in high school when I had my first go ‘round with anorexia.  BPD does not partly alone.  While the thoughts in my head would sometimes rage out of control, I found that the one thing I could absolutely control was the amount of food I ate, or didn’t eat. And I was very good at controlling that.  Control though was part of why I went undiagnosed for so long.  I was afraid to let go of control.  I maintained a B+ average in high school.  I always did what was expected of me, I never broke a rule, I was a good girl.  I had to be normal, and perfect.  We as a family of the minister had an image to maintain.  Crazy was not part of that image.

Until my father’s job demanded we move to a new church.  In January.  Of my senior year.  The middle of my senior year I left all my friends, the guy I was dating, and moved to a town where the only people I knew was my family.  My brother and sister would be starting school and meeting new people making new friends when we got there.  I would be graduating when we moved, and wouldn’t have any way to meet anyone.  Hello first depression.

I can point out other episodes throughout my life that should have been huge Ah-ha moments for us.  The day I was pissed at my English Lit professor for calling out me and my boyfriend for passing notes in class.  After class as my boyfriend and I were finishing our “discussion” I put my hand through a glass door.   I drank entirely too much in college and had sex with too many people.  Impulse control, I didn’t have it.

Those signs might have been explained away as a rebellious teen pissed at her father for ruining her senior year.  The years to come would not be any easier.

One of the biggest signs of lack of impulse control was my first marriage.  Chris and I dated off and on (mostly off, only on when nobody else was available) during high school.  My father hated him.  I can see why now.  I graduated from college in the spring of ‘91, that December I looked Chris up.  We hadn’t talked in years.  He was single, I was single.  I always had a huge crush on him, and he was always the one I could never catch.  30 days later we decided to get married.  We I told my parents the night before.  They were not pleased.  I couldn’t stop to listen to the nagging voice in the back of my head, I could only hear the mania squeeing inside “I’m going to marry him!  I win!!!”.

The manic episodes I experienced during that marriage were epic.  I remember Chris calling my father to come get me, he was giving me back.  I was crazy.  The broken door in college? Just the beginning of things I would break in the midst of a manic rage.  Then I had my son, Ian and the postpartum depression hit.  We came home from the hospital to a disaster.  Dirty dishes all over the kitchen and living room, dog hair on every single surface, and fleas… I took one look at that mess, took Ian, walked right back out the door and told Chris either clean this house up and get rid of that damn dog or you and the dog both will be on the streets tonight. I will be at my mother’s”.  I was serious.  I never saw a doctor about my depression. I just sucked it up, like I had done most of my life.  I just thought this was normal.  It had always been normal for me.

I divorced him, married the girls’ dad, got pregnant, twice, and went through two more horrific bouts of postpartum depression, lather, rinse, repeat.  The manic rages and the fights that ensued were epic.  There were slashed tires, shattered windshields, holes in walls, slammed doors.  In the midst of a rage, I took the girls to his mother’s house and, convinced she was trying to steal them away from me and chase me out of her son’s and our daughters’ life handed them over to her saying, “Here, you want them? Take them.”  I was screaming out for help and nobody heard, nobody listened, nobody offered to help.

Getting an answer.  It was only half an answer, but it was a step in the right direction.

My 37th birthday was a turning point of sorts.  A disagreement with the guy I was dating at the time led me to my first breakdown.  That was the first time I was completely consumed with hopelessness and despair. I stopped at a gas station to get gas, and for whatever reason my car wouldn’t start.  I called my mother and step-dad to come help.  I was already well on my way spiraling out of control deeper and deeper into a hopelessness I couldn’t, didn’t want to fight.  By the time they got there 20 minutes later, I was curled up in the driver’s seat in a fetal position barely able to speak.  They followed me home that night.  I asked them to leave my son with me, knowing his presence would be just enough to keep me from giving up completely.  I spent 36 hours crying, writing, calling family and friends to ‘say goodbye’ and not sleeping.  I still have the notebook I wrote in that night.  “Isn’t 37 years long enough to hurt?”  I don’t know if anyone really knew I was calling to say goodbye that night, but my dad called the next morning to check on me.  When I told him I couldn’t even get out of bed, he told me to call my mother and get to the hospital.  They gave me some meds, the name of a therapist and a pat on the back.

Depression.  Clearly.  Anti depressants. Yay!  Wonderful for the depressed. Not exactly great for the manic depressed.  The meds treated the depression, and swung me head on into a manic mood.  Mania is awesome, until it isn’t.  You feel great, all kinds of creative and energetic and fucking fabulous.  Until you take it way too far, and you get creepy and scary.  Once I was swinging away from the depression my doc stopped the anti depressants.  I would have repeated cycles of this… depression, three months on anti depressant and viola! Cured!

Naming the demon that lives inside my head.

I have written about that night here once or twice.  The night I finally allowed myself to admit to myself that there was something very seriously wrong with me and I needed some very serious help.  I was dating Brian at the time, living 2 hours apart.  I had taken the day off to spend the day with him.  In the course of the day I saw a message on his MySpace page (it was before we really knew or cared about Facebook) from a girl I didn’t know.  I couldn’t let it go.  The words of that message, “Nice pictures Brian”, echoed in my head, the my manic brain blowing that message clear out of proportion into a full-blown affair.  By the time we got to his house that night, I was convinced he was going to marry her, and I seriously considered just going home.  But I didn’t.  I stayed.  He knew something was wrong, he asked about it.  I denied it.  He pushed, I’m sure, out of concern.  I snapped.  I threw accusations and hurled hateful horrible vile verbal garbage at him.  The more my mouth vomited this poison, the louder I screamed inside to shut the fuck up.  He sat there that night, and took it.  He never raised his voice.  He tried to deny it but honestly there was nothing for him to deny.  He tried logic and reason, but those are ineffective against a manic rage.  He said “I was going to tell you I love you tonight.”  and my mania raged at him “Well, now you don’t have to lie.”  and inside, I curled up in a ball and died.

Just a quickly and violently as it started, it stopped.  As loud and passionate as I had hurled those vile hateful words at him, I just as quickly shut up.  The one thing I had screamed so loudly and wanted so desperately inside and finally happened; too fucking late.  I not only didn’t say another word that night, I couldn’t.  The shame and disgust from my actions washed over me.  I saw the hurt and the pain and the damage I had caused and I hated myself.  I wanted to disappear.

The next morning I drove home, called Pathways, made an appointment with a psychiatrist and a therapist and started to find the answers.  The damage was done, and couldn’t be undone.  But I could finally see that there was something very seriously wrong with me and I needed help.  I walked out of that appointment with a name for the demon that lived in my head, Bipolar disorder.  A scary disorder.  I was scared that people would hear Bipolar and think CRAZY or asylum.   I was afraid that if this information got into the hands of either of my ex husbands they would use it against me and take the kids away from me.  I bought into the ‘mental illness’ stigma myself.

Naming a demon is not taming a demon

Now I knew what I was living with. But that doesn’t mean things magically turned up unicorns, rainbows and glitter.  At first I used bipolar disorder as an excuse/explanation for bad choices.  I refused to take responsibility for anything. I was a real hawt mess.  It wasn’t until I ended up in out-patient therapy after another breakdown (this one involved tequila and vicodin) the first time that I finally got it, I was going to have to step up and take responsibility for my actions and my life.  I was not my disorder, I could live a fairly normal life if I worked at it.

And worked at it I did.  And I have, and I continue to work at it. Bipolar disorder can not be treated like an ear infection, there is no set course of treatment.  The only thing the medical field can agree on is that it takes medication and therapy to be most effective.  It’s not fun, and it’s not easy, but ‘normal’ is better than not.  I have done two stints in outpatient therapy, the latest one, just last summer, after yet another huge trigger and spiral into nothingness.  I have never been committed.  I lost my son along the way, his father took my disorder and used it to poison my son against me.  The girls dad gets it, he knows that the girls being here is what keeps me fighting and trying.  I am lucky in that regard.

My disorder still fucks up a lot of things in my life.  My sister and I are no longer speaking to each other because of an episode at Thanksgiving.  The longer I am unemployed the harder it gets for me to step outside of my routine.  This weekend the despair and hopelessness came to visit again in much the same way it came that night in 2007.  And I fight every day to get up and go on.

I am hyper aware of my girls behavior, moods, reactions.  I watch for any signs my parents and I missed in me.  At 12 and 14 I know that we could very well be on the brink of… something.

I am determined to live with it.  I am determined to find something close to normal.  I am determined that this disorder not destroy me, or my daughters.  I am determined to fight this fight and win.  And I know that I will fight every day for the rest of my life.

Putting into Words the Unspeakable Things about Bipolar Disorder

I don’t know that I can begin to find the words to adequately describe to you what BPD is like for me.  And for me to not be able to find the words for something, that’s saying a lot.

Everyone knows that bipolar disorder is best described as extremes.  Extreme highs, extreme lows.  We take the good and make if fucking fabulous, and we take the bad and we make it apocalyptically  horrible.  It’s a talent.

Everyone experiences BPD differently.  I can’t speak for everyone else out there, but I can try to put into words what life is like for me recently.

Right now, I am spiraling. And fuck, it’s ugly. I know it, I’m taking steps to control it, but those steps take time.  I know what triggers it, I have coping methods.  I am intelligently able to head this off.  I am not, however emotionally or mentally strong enough to fight it.  My brain knows what to do, my heart and emotions and core just can’t.

I know to ‘normal’ well adjusted healthy mentally stable people none of that makes any sense.

I go about my day as if I am a small tiny insignificant soul hiding in an intelligent functioning adult body.  I feel as if there is a physical mask/costume I am wearing.

That weighs a fuckton.

There are days I feel as if I am forced to function submerged physically and mentally in jello.  Where you can see all around you but it’s cloudy and difficult to maneuver.

Even these simple sentences are not doing it justice.

I live in fear, that the ugly little troll person who is actually controlling the Awesome Me puppet everyone sees, will break free, and people will see how ugly I am on the inside. They will hear the voices in my head constantly berating me with hateful things that are all too easy to believe.

I’ve been through enough therapy to know the language.  I can parrot it back to them, verbatim, right along with them.  I know I am intelligent, I know I can write, I know I am a good photographer, I know I am a great mom.  I know that I have worth, and I am know I am more than the vagina between my legs.

And yet? I don’t know any of that at all, for sure.

Or maybe I do know all that but I have allowed people around me to not know it.  And now, convincing them otherwise is proving impossible.

*ahem* bipolar disorder.

I am a rapid cycling bipolar.  Which means my moods swings can happen at lightening speed with little to zero warning. “From Zero to Bitch in 0.03 seconds?”  That’s me.  I can send you a text that says “I love you” and if you don’t respond in the predetermined by me, but not shared with you amount of time I text “Fuck you then”.  I’m sexy like that.  Is it any wonder I’m fucking single?

I hate my disorder.  I hate my life when it’s controlled by my disorder.  I hate me when I’m in a spiral.  And that hate, feed the spiral and the spiral intensifies the hate and do you see what kind of fun this shit is?

I fight a very difficult very valiant war inside my head every single day.  I pray my disorder does not harm or destroy my daughters.  I pray that the fight I fight is strong and worthy enough to allow me to overcome the demons inside so that I can be a good mom to my girls.  I also live with the fear that if anyone truly knew how horrible it is inside my head I wouldn’t have my girls another day.  What the girls don’t know, and can never know, is that they are the single solitary reason I get up every day and fight this fight as hard as I do.

I worry now, that putting this out there will somehow make people view me differently.  That those who know me in real life will shudder and shy away.  That now, instead of Becky, they will just see Crazy.  Or worse, they will think I’m too much drama.  They have the luxury of walking away.  I can’t walk away from my life.

I am swimming against a tide determined to drown me.  Afraid to reach out because what if they turn away? Or worse, lend a hand and save me only to walk away once they know I am no longer in danger.  I have so little faith in so many people, and really, it’s because I have so little belief in myself.

I am swimming.  Harder than I ever have.  I will get to safe ground. I’ve traveled these waters before.  Please just promise you’ll all be standing on the shore waiting when I get there??

Also, have margaritas. Lots of margaritas.

When I'm Okay means Inside I'm a Dying Wasteland of Nothingness

I’ve been pretty quiet around here lately.  I would like to say that it was because I’ve been incredibly busy with the girls.  Friday was Homecoming and that means Spirit Week and cheer practice and clothes, and shoes, and hair and make up and tears and texts and everything teenage girl. Times infinity.

I could say that it’s because I’ve been busy and that would be the truth.

But it wouldn’t be the whole truth.  It would only be the easy truth.  I’ve been busy.

Busy pretending that I’m ok.

When in fact, I haven’t been.

I have been ok on the outside, smiles and laughter when needed.  I’ve been a great supportive mom, I spent the entire day Friday with my ex husband who came to watch our daughter cheer.  I provided sandwiches and sodas and a place to relax and freshen up after school, before the big game, to the cheerleaders.  I took over 800 pictures of high school students exploding with school spirit.

And inside I was dying.

I spent a couple of days hanging with a friend, laughing, talking, enjoying each other’s company.  I spent a whole day painting a bathroom and washing doors and drawer fronts with same friend.  I put on the happy face, I laughed, I helped, and hoped, I hugged and kissed and flirted and smiled, and talked as if there was a future beyond that day.

And inside, I tore it all apart.  Inside I doubted every word said, every sign of affection.

On Sunday, I couldn’t keep inside inside any more.  It exploded all over the place, as is wont to do with me.  It was ugly and loud and hateful and truthful and honest and raw.  I said things I had promised myself I would never say.  I told secrets I swore to myself I’d take to my grave.  I opened my heart and bared my soul.

And in the end I was left with large raw gaping empty wounds on my heart and soul.

My truths, which I thought would open doors to better communications, turned out to the poison to end it all.

Today the girls are back, the games and the cheering continue.  I will sit in the stands tonight and cheer on my daughter I birthed and the 9 others I’ve adopted this cheer season.  I will smile and laugh.  I will get their inside jokes.  I will thank them for all they did for Meredith on Friday, I will thank them for standing behind her ready to fight for her.  I will love them for their protectiveness of my daughter.  Tonight I will be The Awesome Cheer Mom.

And inside I will be trying to heal the ugliness of my weekend.

So, while I say I’m fine, while I smile and laugh, while I look like the image of Awesome Cheer Mom, inside?  I’m a wasteland of spent emotions, shattered dreams, broken heart, crushed hopes.

I won’t be that empty wasteland inside forever.  I will heal.  I will write again, the smile will eventually reach my eyes.  I will come through this.  But for right now, when I say I’m ok, just know, I’m lying through my teeth.