Sketches of a Bipolar Girl: Six years

 

Yesterday was 6 years. It's been 6 years since you left. You'd think I'd be normal by now, or at least not so emotional. But, I still mourn for her. I still think about calling her every morning. When things are going badly, I still want to feel her arms around me in one of her best hugs. They say that grieving comes in stages. But what they don't tell you, is that grieving is forever. 

The death of a parent leaves a hole in your heart and it wounds your soul. You don't get over it, you simply learn to live without them. However, it's harder than you think. I think death affects each person differently. Some people seem to get over it, but then again. I must appear to be okay to some people but this week I was so discombobulated and off center. 

I was late to work on Tuesday. I was just wiped out from lack of sleep. The pain is becoming quite the pain in the ass. I saw something on Facebook that says all my symptoms are due to parasites in my gut. The thought of it makes my skin crawl. There is a natural remedy of course, but it is not for people who have diabetes. Also, the side effects of the so-called cure are not pleasant. 

However, I know I was also sad about my mom because of the nightmares I've been having. I also have not been practicing good hygiene. I've only had one shower this week. I'll take another one today. I've been having trouble getting up in the morning. 

So, I've been without my mom for 6 years. I wish I could say that in spite of it, I'm doing well. But the fact is, we're not doing so great. I've been in such a bad financial situation, I've been forced to liquify part of my 401k. Today, April's car got repossessed, and I am awake now because Erica got food poisoning from her dinner. She's been puking all night. I've been told that things are going to hell right now because Mercury is in retrograde. I don't know if I believe in all that, but something is definitely happening in the world. 

I'm feeling old right now. I'm tired. 

Peace - B

Sketches of a Bipolar Girl: What does Lent mean?

 

This past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday. The first day of Lent. It is a time of reflection, self awareness, growth in our connection to God. Lot's of people think it is also about sacrifice. That is true in a small way. What some people do is fast during Lent. Some people do juice or water fasts. As a diabetic, fasting is not in my wheelhouse. I would love to lose the holiday weight I gained by fasting, but I have to keep my blood sugar at a level rate. So, in order to practice my Lenten fast, I gave up something important to me. M & Ms chocolate candy. 

I know your thinking, WHAT?!. That's not a real sacrifice. Trust me when I tell you for me, it is. It is taking a great deal of willpower for me to not go buy some. I will allow myself a small bag on Sundays, but other than that, it's a no go. How is this a sacrifice? That's easy. I've become addicted to them. I was eating them all the time. That's how I gained so much weight. I don't know how I got hooked on them. I like them a lot, but this was a psychological thing as well. I would get a serotonin boost from them. So, I popped those suckers all day long. It worked on my mood. I could feel the difference from before and after eating them. I have to pray about it constantly, "Please God, do not let me buy any M & Ms. Remove the desire for them from my mind and body. Help me concentrate on you." 

I know that may sound ridiculous to some people, but it's a challenge for me. I should have given up cigarettes again too, but I didn't want to become a raging bitch. Cigarettes calm me down. They allow me to satisfy a deeply entrenched oral fixation. I can't go back to gum. That's how I broke a tooth last year. If you think it isn't hard for me your wrong. It is. Very hard. I'm trying to satisfy my urge to eat with health choices like apples, carrots, and pineapple. So, far it's working okay. I also decided to try the Mounjaro again to help lose some weight. I ate a couple of times this week more out of necessity than desire. 

With Lent, we remember the 40 days of fasting Jesus did in the wilderness. So, I figure, if Jesus can go without for 40 days in the wilderness, I could at least sit in my comfy living room and go without chocolate candy. It's another wiring of the brain challenge. The next few days will be hard because a milestone day is coming up. It's the anniversary of my mom's passing. I'm trying not to get bogged down with the sadness, instead remembering the happier times. Since I'm off on Friday, I think I may just have a weepy day and watch sad movies. Terms of Endearment, Love Story and Steel Magnolias. Those are always good for a good cry. 

I hope to deepen my relationship with God with pray and fasting. I missed church on Ash Wednesday, so I'm not starting off too well. This Sunday I plan on being there early. Should be easy since Zelda wakes me up at 5:30 now. I will be able to reflect on my life and some of the choices I've made, and move forward. Spring is the time of year for new beginnings. Maybe this year will be better, I certainly hope so. 

Peace, Joy, Love- B

Sketches of a Bipolar Girl: Valentine's Day

 

Today is Valentine's Day. A day manufactured to pressure people into showing their loved ones how much they care. Cynical? I guess. I'd prefer to have someone get me flowers just because. No reason required. I being terminally single, do not participate in this day. I suppose I wouldn't be cynical if I had a significant other. However, it just doesn't doesn't seem to be in the cards for me. 

So, here I am, up at 4:30 in the morning sitting at my computer trying to think of something to say. I've tried the dating sites. I've been involved in romance scams, but never to the point where I actually gave the clown money. I mostly just lived in a little fantasy by imaging that someone out there actually loved me. 

My fantasies are quite nice. They allow me to dream of the perfect man. Well, he's never really perfect in the sense that he has no flaws. He is, however, perfect for me. He gets me and all of my accompanying bullshit. Loving a person with a mental illness is not easy. I know the movies make it look so romantic and tragic. It's more like approaching a bear. Depending on the circumstances, the bear could ignore you totally and go on his way or he could charge at you and rip your face off. That's the challenge of loving a person like me. You have to poke me to get my attention. I will either open myself up or close you out completely. I may, at times, rip your face off. 

What kind of romance do I want? At this age, I just want a steady, slow burn. Ideally, we would both have our interests outside of each other and get together a few times of week for sex. Sure, we'd hang out sometimes, but I really prefer to sit on the couch alone. You know, curled up in a blanket with a cat on my lap. I haven't got time for someone who wants to spend every waking moment with me. He'd get on my nerves. Plus, most men are messy, and I am becoming more OCD regarding my housework. 

So, I'll be spending Valentine's day alone. Again. But don't feel sorry for me. I'm not unhappy. I'm just unattached. So, if you have someone in your life, do a little something for him/her today. Or you could take my suggestion and buy your gift any one of  the other days of the year. You'll score bigger points. 

Peace-B

Sketches of a Bipolar Girl: The Great Unlearning

 

I've been in therapy since I was 22 years old. I am now 60 years old. For those doing the math, that is 32 years of therapy. Yes, that's a long time. In that time, I have also been hospitalized 15 times, and attempted suicide 6 times. I suppose some people will think I didn't have the right therapists or the right medications. I did and I didn't. That's the cruel nature of mental illness. You have to have the right medications and the right therapists at the same time for things to go right. 

I have had some top quality therapists. Some of them held my hand, and others let me discover things on my own. I owe a lot to those who held my hand and comforted me during some of the most horrible times in my life. I needed them. I needed to be "held" and told everything will be okay. Those therapists got me strong enough to stand on my own 2 feet so I could face the really hard part of therapy. The Great Unlearning. 

What is that? That is the term I use when describing undoing all of the mental and emotional habits I learned along the way. Some of them were methods of survival. Others were the result of the tapes of the voices I constantly heard in my head from the time I was 5 yrs old. My mind was quite strong and convinced me from a very young age that all that was wrong in the world was my fault. 

My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic. She had many years of stability, but every once in a while she would have a break and things spiraled out of control very very quickly. No one explained to me what was happening. I didn't know my mom had a illness. I didn't know what depression was. I just knew my mom was very unhappy and it was my job to cheer her up. Most people don't recognize the fact that little kids are very self-centered. Not in a negative way, but in a way that everything in their world revolves around them. All they know is in a very tight circle. They recognize very early that if they do something bad, mom and dad are unhappy with them. If they do something great or funny, mom and dad are very pleased with them. To a child, whatever she does has a direct impact on the world around her. Hence, if my mom was unhappy and crying, it must have been something I had done. 

So, because I was a child with a child's perception, I thought that I was charged with the task of making my mom well. I had to keep her happy. I had to make her want to stay. You see good girl's moms didn't try to kill themselves and go away. A good girl's mom wanted to stay with her daughter and love her, play with her, and make cookies. I really thought that my mom didn't love me enough to want to stay alive. If she died, it would be my fault and everyone would be mad at me. 

So, my mind started recording these "truths" as I knew them. The tapes recorded every negative feeling about myself. I was too stupid, too ugly, too fat, too dirty, just too much of everything that was bad. Since there was no one to contradict these "truths", I believed my mind and became convinced that everything I thought was true. That's not to say that I didn't have a loving family surrounding me, because I did. I just never verbalized these thoughts and feelings, so no one told me anything different. 

So, until about 5 years ago, at the ripe old age of 55 years old, those tapes have been playing in my head non-stop. I tried to pretend that I was okay, and that I was a lovable person, but I didn't really believe it. I was in the hospital when one of the therapist talked to us about the "wiring" in our heads. When I got out, I read up on it. I mentioned it to my current therapist, who explained it to me in detail. My mind was wired to react in certain ways not just behaviorally, but chemically. When I was feeling a certain way, this particular chemical was released causing my body to behave a certain way. The best example is the fight or flight response. When you are in danger, your body releases a chemical that triggers you nervous system to release adrenalin which will enable you to either run away or fight the threat. I was one of the unfortunates who always felt in danger, so I was constantly in fight or flight mode. I lived in a constant state on anxiety ready to run or fight. You can imagine what a told that takes on your body. 

At any rate, I had to learn to re-wire my brain to reset my chemical pathways. It's taken a very long time. I'm not done. 55 years of loathing yourself doesn't end one day and everything is peachy keen. No, it takes a lot of effort and sometimes a great deal of pain to unlearn all of those negative reactions. I had to face a lot of truths about my family and about myself. It hurt, a lot. Then in the middle of my unlearning and reprogramming my parents died. All of the old tapes started playing again. It became an internal battle of wits. I had to practice a lot of positive self talk to convince myself that my mind was lying to me. 

Every once in a while, my brain will fire up the old stereo and blast a tape of self hatred, but it doesn't last long anymore. I can pretty much shut it down whenever it happens. But, there are times when I'm feeling particularly vunerable and it's a little hard to shut them down. However, I have unlearned a great deal, and I know who I am now. I'm finally a functioning adult. It took a long time, but I realize that while I am a powerful person, I am not so powerful that I can control the world. I can only affect my little corner. That's cool with me. It's peaceful. I've earned this peace. No one can take it from me. I am me. If you like me, great. If not, that's cool too. I'm okay with who I am. I've learned a lot, and unlearned a lot too. 

Peace, Joy Love- B