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Surviving Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder is a tough diagnosis.

This is her story of hope:

Having Bipolar sucks sometimes.

Having bipolar disorder means that there are cycles that the meds will never fully be able to control. It means never being able to fully “let go” because letting go means not checking yourself every five minutes to make sure you’re within the normal range.

It means having people look at you funny and then avoid you altogether once they find out. It means being unable to just “be yourself,” because like it or not, bipolar disorder is like a wild, out-of-control animal. The medication give you reins and a saddle so you can sometimes steer the beast, but the disease has control.

And I’m one of the lucky ones.

I am one of the rare cases who found a medication regime four years after onset and haven’t had to change it since. I’m graduating college with honors and have been accepted to grad schools. I.am.lucky. and yet most days it’s a struggle to fit in with “normals.”

What I’ve found after years of studying other people to try and figure out how they have stability so easily is that most of them have skeletons, they just don’t acknowledge them and take them out to dance.

That’s a terrifying thought, but a relieving one, too. Relief to know I’m not the only one who struggles, frightening to know that everyone goes through their own shitstorm. Their heartbeat puts them on the list and the rest is a matter of which nouns and verbs you use to describe the “w’s” (who, what, when and where).

We all should keep fighting. We keep fighting and pulling ourselves off the ground. The truth of life is that sometimes, well, shit happens.

But I’ll say one thing; I wouldn’t trade having bipolar disorder for anything. Without it, I would be half the person I am today. It’s hard, so hard that some days that I’m afraid to be around myself, but I’m so much stronger with it then I ever would have been otherwise.

Surviving bipolar disorder is an amazing feeling. The enormity of what we go through is huge. We walk through fire every day and while sometimes we scar, there is a section of cool water is on the other side if you allow yourself to feel for it.

Keep fighting.

Make Me A Day, Make Me Whole Again

“baker baker baking a cake
make me a day
make me whole again
and i wonder what’s in a day
what’s in your cake this time”

Infertility has forever changed the fundamentals of my being.  Almost two years have passed since I suffered through the last of my IVF cycles.  Physically, my body seems to have recovered from that violation.  Emotionally, I am damaged beyond repair.  I mourn the loss of that whole, hopeful person I once was.  Even though he’d never admit it, I’ve also crushed my husband’s dreams of normalcy.   I can’t help but wonder how many maybe babies there were that we never knew, that never stood a chance.  I’m heartbroken for my friends who are still fighting the uphill battle towards motherhood and those who are suffocating under the crushing weight of loss.

Maybe today I’ll file away some of my bitterness and anger.  So much of it I carry around in secret.  After all, I have my beautiful, perfect little girl here in my arms.  What about my friends who don’t?  Don’t they better deserve to wear their heartache like a badge of honor?

Aren’t I supposed to just get over it and just be happy?  I want to, but I know I never will.

One Year, One Month, 16 Days

They say (and just who the hell are “they” anyway?) that the first year is the hardest. I keep waiting for this to be true, for it to get easier. Maybe no one dares tell the honest truth: that losing a loved one so unexpectedly, so needlessly, and so tragically never gets easier? I don’t know. I am still figuring it out.

All I can truthfully say is that September 9, 2009, marked the end of my carefully-constructed life. The walls of shelter I had built around my family – especially my boys – were instantly demolished, leaving no trace of the safety I believed they provided. After that day, I no longer understood anything. I didn’t view anything the same. Some things I became unable to appreciate, while other things that I had previously not noticed, I began to cherish. My days are still like this – full of the confusion and turmoil of what life means now that my brother is gone.

In some small ways, it does get easier. Rarely anymore is my first morning thought, “Jeff is gone.” I don’t cry during my morning showers anymore, or lock myself in the bathroom just for that purpose – in fact, I can’t remember the last time I did. I don’t feel that sense of impotent anger that I couldn’t stop his actions, and worse, that I wasn’t aware, didn’t notice, and/or missed the signs he was even considering such a drastic way to fix what he thought unfixable. I no longer hold myself responsible for not seeing what couldn’t, and wasn’t, seen by anyone, not even those closest to him.

The hard times come at unexpected moments, like when I am at the bedside of an elderly patient, dying due to incurable disease, for some reason being kept alive by every conceivable medical intervention. Usually I am involved with my team performing an intervention that will do nothing lifesaving or really even ease any suffering. I wonder if the patient truly is suffering, and if this moment in the future could have been foreseen, would choices have been made differently? Then I think of my brother – choice no longer applies to his mortality. And I think about the patient’s family; I re-experience how very painful it is to let go of someone you love, and whether or not I agree with their decisions to keep the patient alive. I empathize in my own way.

Other hard times come when I am with a newly-diagnosed cancer patients, in the prime of their lives, now with a disease that is quite possibly incurable – I sense their questions, sometimes before they even utter them, things like, “Will I see my son or daughter get married/have kids/graduate from college?” or “Will I be alive to see the birth of my next grandchild?” And questions like “What will be left of me as a functioning person after all the surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, etc….? Will the suffering be worth it?” To all of these questions, I do my best not to answer, as I simply don’t know. I try not to say much, if at all, and instead offer a hand to hold and a listening ear. I don’t want to influence other people’s personal dramas with my own loss. After such encounters I feel the whole cycle of emotions of losing Jeff again, from denial, to anger, to bargaining, to sadness, and to a sort of acceptance –  not necessarily in that order.

Do I still have times when I burst into tears because of a song on the radio? Or when my youngest child brings me a book to read that Jeff and his lovely wife bought for him? When my oldest son says, “Remember when Jeff and I would have sleepovers, play video games, and eat Oreos?”….or at any of the thousand other Remember When’s he has about his uncle? Yes!! Absolutely yes!! And sometimes, for no discernible reason at all – I simply miss him so acutely that I feel a physical ache. I don’t expect that to ever go away.

At the same time, I want my boys to know what a kind, giving, loving person their uncle was. I want them to know what a fantastic sense of humor he had, and how he had a way of charming even the most cantankerous person. The way he was a fantastic dresser, had impeccable taste, and was generous almost to a fault. Those were some of his many gifts. The world is definitely poorer without him and his light. And that is the saddest part of all – not that I miss him, or that my boys miss him, but for all the people who now won’t have a chance to meet him and be touched by what made him someone we all loved so much.

I love you Jeff! My boys love you!! We miss you more than words can say, but I know we were blessed to know you for the time you were here! Thank you for your love, for making us laugh, for having the grossest feet of anyone in our family, for being most comfortable making us all uncomfortable, and for always being there with a big, reassuring hug. On some of my worst days, especially lately, I remember those hugs, and imagine your big, strong arms are still hugging me from wherever you are. Then I feel a little better, and I remember just how much strength you have given me through the years to keep on going. So I do.

I love you, my “little” brother!

Searching For The Light

Depression lies, often telling us that we don’t need the medication that keeps us sane. Depression is a lying liar who lies.

This is her story:

I’ve been on and off anti-depressants for years. I first went on them when I was married to an abusive asshole. It’s not hard to imagine why I needed them. I probably needed treatment for PTSD back then, but it wasn’t as widely accepted as it is now. Maybe my therapist at the time didn’t know much about it or maybe she thought I didn’t have it. I don’t know. What I do know is that I have had my own issues with admitting I suffer from depression and admitting that I need brain altering drugs to deal with it.

Logically I know that there is some sort of chemical imbalance in my brain that causes me to enter The Dark Place.

Emotionally, I think I’m just fucked up and should be able to just pull myself out of The Sads when I get them. I feel like I’m admitting some sort of weakness by taking the drugs. There is absolutely no mistaking the difference I feel when I’m on them. Not only am I happier in general, but I’m a fuckton less bitchy. The most minute details won’t set me off when I’m on meds. When I’m not? Watch out. Look at me the wrong way at the wrong moment and I can’t promise that I won’t stab you. This makes living with me not so much fun sometimes.

Lately I’ve had a pretty good run off the meds; a couple of years this time. So good, in fact, that I fooled myself into believing that I was right all along. I didn’t need meds. I just needed to bully myself out of The Dark Place. It worked. Until it didn’t.

I’m in The Dark Place now. Way deep inside it. So far down the light above is just a pinhole. I’m struggling to claw my way back out. I need to make the appointment. I need to get back on the meds.

I need a kick in the ass. I need to realize it’s not a weakness to take the drugs.

The weakness is NOT taking the drugs.