No ground

While I am currently maintaining pretty well I see this looming cliff.  It is so completely unreal to know that in this very moment life is good.  Work is good. Family is good.  I expect work to stay good for a while and that's good.  I need that consistency.  Family?  Oh family...  we're just trucking right along but things are happening.  Decisions are being made.  Teenagers are making choices that could potentially erupt and we, well we are smiling and nodding but we have our own decisions that are being made that could also erupt.

Triggers that could throw me far far away and being that prediction is not part of my illness I just don't know where I'll land.

I feel like we've been on this horizon of greatness for so long.  Meeting new people and branching out in a way that made living in this place more tolerable.  But now, on the verge of that greatness - the bottom has fallen out and I feel like the coyote in the cartoon that keeps running off the cliff and it just takes him a while to realize that there is no ground underneath him anymore.

Funny thing about that coyote is that he always falls but he never dies.  Literally, he falls through boulders and  deep into the ground and then just keeps running.  I hope that's what happens.  Maybe I'll run mid air for a while and when I fall I'll just get back up and keep running.  I think this is the best example of a mixed episode I've ever had. I feel like things are the best and the worst that they've ever been and that's so completely confusing.

If things go the way that I think they will my life will change forever.  My family will change forever.  My dreams will change forever.  For now the only thing I can do is wait. I don't want to make plans or try to come up with a solution for every possible scenario that could play out.  I just want to remember this time right now for what it is in it's most simple and beautiful form.  I want to remain true to myself and I want the people that I love to do the same even if that means that being true to ourselves tears us apart.  I want to invest in myself and find things that I love right now so when it happens I won't be lost.  Of course I'll be lost though, no hobby or friend or long walk will help me not be lost when and if this change comes.  I said I didn't want to do this.  I need to just think about right now.  Right now I wake up beside the woman of my dreams and she is beautiful and soft and that is what I want to remember.

Mental Mire 2009 Edition

I found this old poem that I wrote in February of 2009.  Oddly enough it's timely today and makes me sad that this is the rotation of my life.  It's 2013 and I'm still here so I guess that's the upshot but the downside is that nothing has changed and the cycles continue and I still fight the same battles.  But I'm still fighting...

It’s a bad day for a breakdown

Not that there’s ever a good day

What good would it do anyway?

To wallow in this creeping sadness,

To give place to this looming dejection

How long can I postpone

my impending setback?

How could the icy hallways of that

Brightest dark place swaddle me up

In that counterfeit comfort.

What of the ones I love

What becomes of them?

What of the normalcy I have broke my back to create

What becomes of that?

What of this love, new, yet familiar

What becomes of it?

Yes, it’s true.  It is not a good day for a breakdown

So what now?

I feel as if I’m not being true to myself.

Truthfully, I am in love.  Truthfully I have a good life.

So what then, would cause me to doubt my reality

And replace it with this illusion.

Glimmers, faint flashes of light

Brief encounters of warmth.

Reminders that this life is worth living

Internal struggle

Battle with myself

How do I explain this void to people who

See the worth of me, of my life.

What is reality?

Is it waking with her

Bodies all warm, lines on faces

From sheets we were wrapped in

Is it homework and house work

And piles and piles of laundry?

Is it dinner to cook and dishes to wash?

Is it science fair projects and training bras?

Is reality just me, figuring out how

To navigate through this disorder

This invisible disease that for the most part

Lies dormant but occasionally

Rears its ugly head and scares the ones

I love the most.

Scares me the most.

Could reality be that—she…

Would navigate it with me?

Would she?

“The pendulum has swung” she said.

And here we are, on this teeter totter

Can we survive the seasickness of my

Chemical imbalances?

Laugh.

Cry.

Laugh.

Cry.

It’s bad enough to put myself through it

Hell bent on beating it without the aid of

The pills that I hold responsible for

The near loss of life

Will beating it mean beating her?

What is fair to expect?

Could I internalize the symptoms?

When would the implode come?

Could I suppress?  She wouldn’t want that.

She wants real, but I think real is a big

R E D   F L A G

The only real reality that I know is this.

There is no one else that I trust more.

There is no one else I love more.

There is no one else that I want to be this real with.

Good. Bad. Ugly. Indifferent.

I believe that we will get through

The muck of my mental mire.

I believe that I will never take for granted

The understanding and compassion

She has shown – the genuine concern

The authentic consideration for me as a person

that just so happens to have this…

Little problem of …

never knowing…

If I’ll sink or swim.

When I can see clearly

I know I love this life.

When I can hear my own heart

Over the scream of my irresoluteness

I see her

I see my family

I see my reality

And it’s good.

I see my future.

And it’s ok to plan for it,

Because it will come.

I vow it to come.

I promise not to leave before its time.

I promise to stay until my very last day

And then, beg God for one more

Just to be here with them.

Peaking around the corner…

My future

Looking up into my eyes

This child of my past

I promise.

We’ll figure it out.

Don’t be scared.

A little catching up... and down... and up...

Well I was right to know that large amounts of time could pass before I update this little online journal experiment so I will summarize the summer that has now passed.  The doctors were not able to find a suitable cocktail of medication that would work with my upcoming surgery so by the end of June I was taking no medication at all under the supervision of my psych.

June
Family vacation to Cedar Point
     Lovely.

July
Surgery
     Hell.

August
Recovery
     Still no meds, getting by.
Work EXPLODES - begin working 60 - 70+ hrs/wk with a promise it will slow down after September.

September
Work kicks my ass. Still no meds. No time to think about it.
     AUTOPILOT

October
Breakdown - no end in sight for work to slow down.  Still no meds.  Short tempered but only with Tessa bless her heart.  Several crying jags at work.  Massive upset when plans change and things aren't going as planned.  Tired, worn out mentally and physically.

November
Begin to level out.  Still no meds and I'm doing ok.  I'm cycling but I cycle even when I'm loaded up.  Tessa and I argue and we've never argued before but there are other things going on right now that just makes life crazy.  I love my wife so I need to correct that right now.

I can feel myself slipping into "I don't give a shit land" about certain things and "Extreme laser focus" about other things.

I think I've discovered that being in "planning" mode - no matter what for keeps me sane.  We're currently planning for a big Thanksgiving dinner and recently had an election night party.  I dread down time...

I'm ok.  I feel in control but have this intense underlying NEED to be in control of something, anything really, and I have these little pockets of my life right now that I'm completely in control of and that keeps me here.

I'm ok.



Health update and other extermely depressing news

Well... that last dip lasted longer and dipped lower than I've been in a long time.  I have a shit ton of triggers right now and as much as I hate to admit it I can't do it without some help.  I've been through my full range of emotions but it's time to get back on the med bus...

I like what the doctor had to say.  I know they were somewhat humoring me when they allowed me to have my little "vacation" from all the fricken medicine.  I was so angry.  I literally was taking a fist full of medicine a day and still cycling???  The best answer I got was, there isn't a magic pill... this is the best we can do.  This guy swears if what we're trying doesn't work he'll do something else instead of just adding more and more medicine.  I guess that made me feel a little better.  I made him put it in writing and he did so, I guess there's that.  They wanted to tritrate me back up to a theraputic level of Lithium and then add a second generation drug on top of that BUT...

**enter next ridiculous medical twist**

I have to have a hysterectomy... 

Yup...  evidentally my stuff's falling out and I have DUB (look it up, it's gross).  Surgery is scheduled for July 6th and since anti-imflamatories will more than likely be a part of the recovery process Lithium is out for now.  Plan B?  Go straight for the second generation med and use it alone for a while.  Enter... Geodon.  Not sure how I feel about this one.  I already hate that the only way it's absorbed is through food so I have to take it with a minimum of 400-500 calories at a time (just remembered I forgot my dose tonight).  I'm horrible at taking meds more than once a day.  I totally suck at it.  So that's another con to this one.  It did however just go generic last week so it's only $25/month with my insurance instead of $45 so I guess I'll be happy with that.  I've been losing weight and I'm very proud of myself but I just don't normally have huge meals twice a day so I'm going to have to figure that side of it out. 

I totally feel like a failure at the moment.  I really wanted to make this work.  I really wanted to come off my meds and just enjoy life and it was really working for a little while.  I had the best manic ride I have had in a long time and it lasted a long time and it was amazing!  I did so much and accomplished so much.  I miss manic Donna.  Why do we have to medicate that side too?  It just blows.  What's the point of having this stupid disorder if you can't at least take full advantage of the best part!  I guess I did though, for a while, but then I paid for it dearly and I just can't do that over and over again. 

I'm currenly in a mixed-cycle.  It's weird.  Been here for a little while.  The worst parts of mania without the benefits and the midset of a low.  Here's a thought...  let's cut out my uterus, that won't mess up my hormones at all!

Repurposed radio console

My grandmother gave me this old radio cabinet.  The top raises up and there is a record player and a radio.  It still works great!  I painted directly over the old brown faux wood finish and recovered the red velvet insets to match my accent chairs in the office.  I'm going to use this behind my desk for my printer and a lamp.



A little refinishing...

Found this at a flea market.  It was originally black with japanese depictions on it.  It was pretty but most of the paint was worn off.  The top drawer drops down into a desk and there are little drawers behind it.  I painted it the accent color in the house and it's officially my favorite piece.

Who didn't see this coming?

C

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Decent from massive high began 5/6/12.  Still falling. Currently on auto-pilot.  Functioning.  Increased appointments to weekly.  Still determined to do this without meds.  Not sure why...