Quarter Century Crisis

I'm 25. On May 5th, I turned a quarter of a century old. Yeah, I'm old enough to legally rent a car now, and that's cool, but aside from that, what's the draw? I'm an adult. I'm supposed to have shit figured out. But instead, I'm chasing unicorns down the rabbit hole. So for the past 3 days, since I stopped celebrating my birthday and recognized that I actually had one, I have been trying to determine, ya know, my whole life. 

I have come to two conclusions. Yes, just two.

First, I want to be a writer. Not an "I have a blog that I post on twice a month and keep a journal and occasionally type things at Starbucks" kind of a writer. A legit author who writes meaningful pieces and gets paid more than peanuts for them. 

This opened the door to other questions that I don't have the answers to. Is my life interesting enough to write a book? Am I actually capable of writing a novel? Maybe I am more suited to magazines and newspapers. Do I want to continue to write about the topic of mental illness? Do I want to branch out to more creative writing? Do I have the determination to make it? What if I pour my heart and soul into making it as a writer only to learn that I actually suck and all of you actually just read my blog to laugh at my piss poor example?

And then all these unanswered questions, fears about the future, doubts about my talent swirl around my head until I get dizzy, freak out, and force myself to abandon the idea altogether. Which then leads right into conclusion #2.

I want to be a stay-at-home mom without the kids. (Feminists, pick up your stones and aim. You won't like this.)

I want Boyfriend to worry about the business sphere while I cook, clean, and stay pretty for him. I want to have dinner on the table at 6:00 every evening. I want to have coffee with my friends after they drop off their kids at school. I want to tend to my garden. I want to pride myself on how clean my windows are. I want to host dinner parties. I want to wear dresses every day, clean in heals, and bring Boyfriend a beer while he pays bills.

I think part of this second desire, this dream of being a housewife in the 50's, stems from my insatiable craving to be normal. My life has certainly leaned towards the abnormal, and part of me thinks I've earned the right to be a bit more conventional in a modern society. I have proven myself as capable of handling the atypical, the crazy, the difficult, which means I have been given a pass to rest in the traditional.

Or maybe I am just trying to hide where it is safe.

Therapy Drop Out

I heard it for years. "You need therapy." "You should talk to someone." "You're finally in therapy? Thank god!"

And I gave the same responses. "Eh, it's not for me." "I'm not good at the whole 'talking' thing." "Yeah, but I think I'm doing it wrong."

This Tuesday, I got confirmation that I was right all along.

I have to admit, I've been doing a bang up job with this whole recovery thing. I've been meditating, going to my class, writing in my journal, reading books about recovery, being totally compliant with every damn intake I've had to do to get into my programs, taking my meds at exactly the same time every day, (I'm bragging a bit,), getting myself to all my appointments, exercising. And therapy. The life-saving, years overdue, "Mary, you need this," answer to all the world's mental health problems, one-on-one, talking to a stranger therapy.

Tuesday, I met with my therapist for the first time since coming home from the hospital. I walked in there totally hopeful, even toying with the idea of bumping therapy up to twice a week. Because, according to everyone who's ever told me I needed help, this was the key to full recovery. I got there early, sorted out my thoughts in my journal, and walked in with my head high, ready to embrace this form of healing. Ready to let go of my checkered past with therapy.

And I walked out of there feeling like shit. Two days later, I still felt like shit. Three days later, I'm canceling all future appointments.

I don't see the point. Having trust issues and being conversationally challenged aside, I don't see how bringing horrible issues just to the surface and sending me on my way can help. I leave with more questions than answers. I leave with different problems and the same coping mechanisms. I leave with my head down and hours of unguided, unproductive, intrusive contemplation ahead of me.

Maybe therapy shouldn't be just one hour once or twice a week. It should be 5 hours. Enough time to get through the idle chit-chat, break me out of the mask, throw the shit on the table, and figure out how to approach it going forward. Brain-storming, problem solving, crying, drying, and conclusion. If nothing else, after 5 hours, I will be too exhausted to continue the contemplation when I leave. And then it may not ruin the next three days.

So, that's my confession. I'm weird. Therapy is a giant step backwards in my recovery, and I quit. I'm not going to apologize, and I'm not going to stress myself out finding a therapist that is as weird as me.

So the cycle continues...

It's like my monsters wait for me to start doing something important before clothes-lining me. "You really thought you could do it, huh? How fucking cute. SLAM! We'll see you again when you start your new job, haha." And then I'm left crying on the floor, too embarrassed to pick myself up and hit that line again, too scared to stay down and admit defeat. So I wallow somewhere in limbo, embarrassed and scared, angry and weak.

Remember that class I mentioned in my last post? Yeah, I fucked that up already. Who was I kidding? Thinking I could pretend I wasn't a failure long enough to drag myself to a class three days a week for two whole months. All after being out of the hospital less than two weeks. Fuck, I have a hard enough time running to Walgreens without some hardcore mental preparations, planning an escape route, and postponing it four times. The stress of this class is killing me.

Actually, this pressure to be normal and my hatred toward myself are in a battle to see who gets to do it. Hopefully someone wins soon because the suspense is killing me, only much more slowly.

The class is about to start. I'm sitting here. Shaking hands. Hyperventilating. Face soaked in tears. Bottle of wine beckoning me. Regretting that I dumped my arsenal of pills over the weekend. Those fucking glimpses of hope ruin everything. It's just means that I have that much farther to fall when reality shits on me.

Reasons Why it's Logical for Me to Drop out of the Class:

• It's too late in the day. I lose hope by 2:00. By 4:00, I'm a hyperventilating heap on the couch.
• What is the point in going through the training if I am just going to fuck up the job? Because I will.
• I should be able to make my own decisions, and I choose not to go.
• I never wanted to go in the first place.
• I should use that time to go to therapy or make money.
• How can I learn to help others when I can't even handle myself?
• The pressure to do well and make others happy by going to this class is suffocating me.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: I was treated like a kid who couldn't handle it herself. I became that kid.
• I don't do well in groups. 
• Both days the class was held, I thought about killing myself. Should I really risk that for another 7 1/2 weeks?

Maybe these excuses are valid. Maybe they aren't. It's a little hard for me to tell considering I'm in the midst of a pretty massive episode. And I opened the wine. I guess this is the nature of bipolar that I should be used to by now. The "I can do it all!" thoughts cycling in between the "I fuck up everything" mentality. I wish I could hold on to the former for more than a few days and maybe get some shit accomplished so I at least had some positive examples to turn to when I want to kill myself.

If and when that bitch called hope sneaks back in, she will tell me that I haven't fucked up the class. That I am allowed to miss 8 hours, and today only counted as 4. That if I just pull it together for a short month and a half, I can be a state certified peer specialist. That my experiences right now, my feelings of wanting to give up, will be transformed into hope for someone else when I am working with a peer who needs help.

And that will be the monster's cue to stand ready again.

You will be jealous I got to go and you didn't.

You know that feeling when you go back to your diary after not writing in it for a really long time, and, even though logically you're aware it's just a bundle of paper, you feel awkward because you know it knows you've been ignoring it? No? Just me? Ok.

Well, that's how I feel right now. I was in the hospital for a week and spent another week legitimately not knowing how to put into words what happened. Every time I thought about writing here, I had that sudden urge to hide, like when I pretend that I missed someone's text so that I don't have to make a commitment to hang out right then. I know I am not the only one who does that.

But, here I am. Braving the blog. Still awkwardly not knowing what to say to this beloved friend. I want to come back with a bang. With fireworks. Fireworks shot off by sharks.

Yeah, I'm on a couple drugs.

In keeping with the theme of feeling scattered and unsure and unable to truly acknowledge the gap, how about I just sprinkle out some of the more interesting moments of my stay in the hospital. When I have a solid footing on what actually went down, I'll let you know. But to be honest, that won't happen. I will continue to fling out random goodies and let you piece them together. That seems to be how I roll.

We're just going to skip over the intake process.

Skipping over the crying.
Skipping over the desire to escape.
Skipping over the fucked up idea that death looked preferable over being committed.

Onto the good stuff.

View from my hospital window. Through regular screen,
blinds that didn't adjust, and safety screen.

SAFETY:  They took all my drawstrings from my hoodies and sweatpants. I wasn't allowed to have tights or a purse with a long strap because I might be able to hang myself with them. Even the cords on the phones were no more than a foot long. Although, there was nothing to hang myself from. No curtain rods. No rods for hanging clothes in the closet. No hooks to put a jacket on. Even the shower head was a nub that stuck flush to the wall. The doorknobs were these cone-like things that were impossible to grasp. There were a few times when Dad visited that he legit couldn't get out of my room because he couldn't turn the damn knob. Nothing protruding out of anything anywhere.

I was fine with all that. Hanging myself was never really my style anyways. What pissed me off was when they took all my spiral notebooks and left me with just one that had no metal on it. And I was only allowed one pen! For safety reasons. Well, fuck that. I cannot feel safe unless I have at minimum 3 notebooks and 4 pens circling me. (Totally made that up, but that is what my kitchen table looks like 24/7. So maybe there is a grain of truth to it.)

My first 2 days of being there, I managed to steal no less than 6 pens from the nurse's station and group therapy sessions. I never ended up using any of them; I couldn't cheat on my precious pen. I became a klepto based on principle.

BONNY (name changed for anonymity): One day during group, we were discussing what types of feelings brought us there. Loneliness. Sadness. Drug abuse. Depression. Despair. Suicidal ideations. Homicidal thoughts. Say what now?! Enter Bonny.

Bonny was probably about 75 years old. She looked like the petite little grandma-type that you could picture  working on a puzzle to pass the time while her snicker doodles baked. Except for one little thing. She openly admitted that she was homicidal. She had a victim in mind. And a method.

I don't know what this says about me, but she was my favorite. She had this horribly dark sense of humor that, if taken the wrong way, could have earned her a reservation in the seclusion room. But it's Bonny, so everyone laughed.

Nurse: "Bonny, here's your nighttime meds."
Bonny: "Good. If you would have forgotten, I would have had to whoop you with my cane."
Everyone laughs.

Group Leader: "What's going on with you? What brought you to the hospital?"
Bonny: "Well, I'm bipolar and homicidal. Which means I'm not sure if I'm going to kill me or her (points to random patient)."
Everyone laughs. Including random patient.

The icing on the cake is that Bonny lives in a convent with her sister who is a nun. And Bonny openly admits that she likes to fuck with the other nuns, showing off her lack of vows to God by purchasing expensive items and flaunting them in front of those who took a vow of poverty.

Had I never gone to the hospital, I never would have been able to say that I engaged in friendly chit chat with a homicidal sister of a nun over lunch.

FAVORITE GROUP: My proudest moment of my visit had nothing to do with medications or breakthroughs or discoveries. It took place during the last group session on my last day before I was discharged.

Let me set the stage. We are discussing what and who has helped us the most during our journeys. Many patients are calmly and vaguely discussing their families, friends, and religious affiliations. But one patient is hardcore a "Jesus saved me, this I know" type. In the obnoxious, judgmental, scoff at my Star of David bracelet kind of way. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using your faith to help your recovery. In fact, I would encourage it. However, NEVER use it to jeopardize someone else's.

Then there is Jenny (again, name changed). She is quite, timid, and easily shut down by this loudmouth bitch. Jenny starts talking about how NAMI has helped her immensely. After waiting her turn, she tells the group about the volunteer opportunities, how they help the community, and how they probably saved her life. Jesus Bitch butts in. "I hate NAMI. I hate their core beliefs. They do NO good. All they care about is making money. Blah blah Jesus blah."

Jenny shuts down, bows her head in defeat, and the group carries on. Mary to the rescue! "Can I just say something real quick? I don't want the last thing people to hear about NAMI before they leave is how awful it is. I have seen firsthand how much those people care. Maybe Jesus Bitch had a bad experience, but everyone else needs to know that it is a safe place for them to go if they need help." Sadly, I did not refer to her as Jesus Bitch. My one regret.

Jenny perks up and Jesus Bitch turns red. We argue back and forth for a bit. She gets louder, angrier, and more irrational while I continue to calmly state my opinions and back them up with examples. I'm pretty sure at one point she even blamed NAMI for the lack of care that I had received prior to coming to the hospital. How? I don't even know.

"I don't give a fuck what you think. And fuck NAMI. I have Jesus backing me up for support. I don't need to take this." And out she walked. In my book, that was a win for me. A couple other patients gave me silent nods of approval, and the second half of group was far more pleasant. I stood up for Jenny, stood up for NAMI, and stood up for myself for once. Maybe I did find a little confidence that week.

*****

I am not yet ready to explain what happened from a medical or psychiatric standpoint, but I can with 100% certainty say that it was a good thing I went. Sure, I have had a few down days since coming home, but that's to be expected. The important thing is that I am safe again and willing to seek the help I need without being put in the hospital again, and that is something I don't think I would have reached by myself.

Thank you, Aurora.

Drunk Blogging is Probably not Smart

I have written on Lithium. I have written on Zoloft. I have written on Lorazopam. I have written withdrawing from any or a combination of these drugs. But this, my friends, is the first time that I am blogging drunk. Yup, half a bottle of Charles Shaw down after months of not drinking, save a beer or sip of champagne, and I am pretty well fucked.

I'm justifying it by telling myself that all the great writers did it. Ernest Hemingway. Edgar Allen Poe. William Faulkner. F. Scott Fitzgerald. James Joyce. Hunter Thompson. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. While drunk. 

But who the hell am I kidding. I'm not a writer. I'm a head case with a bottle of wine and a laptop. The internet shouldn't be for everyone.

The wine hasn't given me any inspiration to write the next great American novel or caused me to come to any life-changing conclusions. But it has given me the courage to admit a few conclusions that I have come to over the last few days. 

Let me set the stage. I have been alone all weekend. Many of my close friends went away for the weekend on a trip that I was supposed to be on. Boyfriend is in Florida for a funeral. My entire extended family is actually in town, but hasn't extended the invitation to me. Not that I would accept. So I have been sitting in my apartment, trying to survive. Too depressed to read. Too manic to do anything productive without flipping shit. And here's what I've discovered.

First, I am far too dependent on Boyfriend. He is the only one that I can actually talk to about what I am truly feeling. But somehow, he is also a trigger. He is too fucking wonderful. He is loving me and complimenting me and supporting me when I deserve to be thrown to the curb. Every text from him makes my heart leap and my stomach sink. I am destroying my brain trying to figure out how to make him break up with me in a way that hurts no one. Sooner or later, one of us is going to explode. I'd rather it be me.

Next, I am sick of living. It's not that I really want to die. I just don't want to live anymore. She was right. I will never be anything, and all I am doing is bringing the people who choose to associate themselves with me down. I am crazy. I am a fuck up. I should have killed myself when she told me to. If there was a way I could fade into the background and disappear, I would take it. 

Before anyone freaks out, I'm not going to commit suicide. I've had a lethal dose of lithium by my side all weekend. If I wanted to do it, I would be dead by now. I suppose this goes hand in hand with not wanting to live: I should be locked away for a while. I cannot be trusted by myself. Hardest confession right there.

Third, self-harm is actually becoming an addiction for me. I'm not going to go into detail about what I feel when I do it or why I do it. That's a-whole-nother story. But I will say, the list of feelings and reasons is growing. I am finding any excuse to grab that trusty razor.

Finally, there is no one I can turn to. As much as I love my friends, Boyfriend, and Dad, I cannot call them when I need them most. I know with my whole heart and soul that they would be there for me, offering whatever they possibly could to make me better. But it won't work. And then that will just be another notch on the chart of disappointments that I've been racking up over the last few decades. So when I am sitting alone with these horrible thoughts, ideas, and plans brewing in my head, I don't answer my phone. I don't open my door. I don't go to the store out of fear of running into someone who might be able to read my eyes. I hide under the covers and pray that I will magically not wake up.

There you have it. A drunk mouth speaks a sober mind. Or something like that. 

When did getting dressed become a victory?

I promised Boyfriend two things before he left for work this morning:

1.   That I would get dressed.
2.   That I would leave the house.

I am cheating just a little. Yes, I'm out of the apartment, but I haven't exactly left the building. I'm hanging out in the unused party room upstairs to get distance from the safety of my bed as I write. That's right, I broke into a party room to ponder the depression that has taken hold of me. Ironic? Funny? Pathetic? All of the above.

I think it started three or four days ago. The immobilizing thoughts, the realistic nightmares, and the ill-timed fits of teary panic have consumed me again. The last time I felt this bad, it held tight for months until it finally let loose with a trip to the ER. Now, it has me thinking that maybe this won't be the year I stay out of the hospital or the year I don't drop below 100 pounds or the year I don't scare away someone I love to death.

Boyfriend's calling bullshit. I feel incapable of everything, but he's seen my strength. I want to cry in bed just one more day. He knows the procrastination will make me hate myself more at night. I say I'm worthless, but he sees something I can't. He is the most supportive and loving person I could possibly have by my side at a dark time like this, but he is also not going to let me fuck up my new job, my writing, or all my progress that I have made since my last depressive episode. He's bringing out a bit of tough love.

So here I am. A zombie. A zombie with a pen trying to explain what depression feels like despite zero energy or creative drive. Pushing through depression is more than holding back some tears. My body physically hurts. There is a flu-like ache over my skin and muscles that makes a shower seem too taxing. I can't remember how to do tasks that I've done a million times, like holding this damn pen.

I get this totally disconnected feeling, this feeling that I am passing control to one of my monsters while I try to hide, coming out for brief moments to check the day and figure out where I am. How the fuck am I supposed to hide when they are inside of me?! The best I can do is hide them from everyone else. In my apartment, under the covers, locked in a bathroom. 

Time means nothing. I can lie in bed crying for hours, and not be sure whether it was a moment that passed or a week. Hell, I had the same feeling follow me when I attempted to do dishes this morning. Suddenly, I couldn't remember if I just started scrubbing that pan or if I have been scrubbing a clean pan for hours. It is these kind of thought processes that creep into "normal" things when I am depressed making it feel like I can't function. The monsters don't care if I am with a friend or driving my car. They transport me out of my body, out of time, and into my head to spend some quality alone time with them.

Boyfriend forcing me emphatically urging me to carry on with my life makes me recognize the disconnect and desire to hide in a very uncomfortable way. I'd rather not accept that my reality does not mesh with everyone else's. I wish my biggest battle I had to fight was to get a promotion at work or figure out how to pay for Spring Break. But I guess I'm just one of the lucky ones who gets a messed up head.

As much as I hate to admit it, getting out of bed helps. It's not a cure, by any means. I still feel like shit and want to crawl back to my safe zone, but there may be a little more strength in me that I didn't have when I woke up.

A Scar and A Story

***MAY BE TRIGGERING***

***SELF-INJURY DISCUSSED***

"You had a suicide attempt?!"

After two hours of going into great detail about our mental illnesses and joking about the crazy episodes we have each had, hearing that I had a pretty decent scar on my wrist was what made him abandon the easy-going attitude.

"Umm, not really. I mean, kinda? It could have been. I don't really remember."

As we talked about the stigma that comes along with the labels and media hype, I casually mentioned that it is my wrist that makes me feel the most vulnerable. It's the one piece of my illness that it is tangible. And I'm fuzzy on how it got there. I spent this morning staring at, as though it's going to suddenly take a dignified pose and voice to ask for a glass of wine before beginning our chat. Oh, Silly Scar, you know we can't have alcohol anymore.

It happened sometime after my ER visit and before I was diagnosed with bipolar. They threw some Zoloft at me, like they do to everyone who walks through those doors, and told Boyfriend not to let me kill myself. Thanks, Doc. Hadn't thought of trying that. Lucky for us, the next month was pretty boring. I had nauseating side effects. I felt like a zombie. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

*****

Hell yeah, the depression had lifted! I didn't cry at all anymore. I had an abundance of energy that I hadn't felt in months. Years. EVER! This was amazing for my freelance writing work. I could write one article while mentally planning the next and planning what was for dinner and creating a cleaning schedule so nothing was out of place to distract me from the work that needed to be done.

One day was particularly bad though. I was a squirrel on crack with nothing to put my energy into. Since I didn't have the focus to write, I got frustrated. "Frustrated" doesn't do it justice. I was filled with more raw, uncontrolled emotion than the day I got taken into the ER for my safety.

The pacing began. I thought maybe I could cry it out, exhaust myself so my mind had to follow. I tried, but I started to lose my other senses before I even got winded. I couldn't hear myself crying, and the whole world was blurry. I could only see my hands. I couldn't even feel the ground beneath me.

The next part is what really scares me. Since I am not allowed to have razors for obvious reasons, I decided to drive to get some. Granted, I only had to drive for a total of maybe three minutes, but I couldn't see, feel, or hear what was happening around me. And why would anyone sell razors to someone who was shaking, crying, and confused?!

Next thing I know, I'm home and frantically pulling the blade out of the knock off Bic. I'm slicing the tips of my fingers in the process, but I don't feel it or even see the blood. When it finally pulled free, I didn't hesitate to drag it across my skin. I see a fuzzy haze of red beginning to fill my vision, but my arm is just a tingling, numb thing that I deemed useful for only one purpose. And it was failing. I tried again. Over and over but nothing.

Minutes or an hour later, I am finally exhausted. I clean up the blood, throw away my tank top, and take a nap.

The End.

*****

But not really the end at all. Here I am, months later, trying to figure out what happened that day. I don't think my goal was to kill myself, which is why I couldn't really say that it was a suicide attempt. But I do think that I was willing to do anything to get the crazy fast thoughts to shut up for a goddamn minute. Even if that meant risking death.

Because my whole world was blurry and I couldn't hear well, I felt incredibly disconnected from anything physical and time wasn't really a thing anymore. I couldn't be certain that my material possessions were how I left them. I couldn't see past my arms. I felt like I was losing all control and literally slipping out of existence in a way that allowed me to be with the people and things that kept me safe.

When I couldn't feel the pain that I was inflicting on myself, I got nervous. Like maybe I had gone bat shit insane and I was going to get taken away. I think for a while I was doing it because I thought I needed to check to see if I was capable of killing myself. That's not something you should just check from time to time.

As awful as it is to say, my plan did kind of work in the end. After cutting myself, I was able to finally get the thoughts to calm down enough so I could sleep. It was definitely not worth it. It was incredibly dangerous, and I get sick to my stomach when I picture it even though I didn't flinch when I did it. Cutting myself was a desperate measure that I took during a desperate time before being diagnosed, before understanding that this "crazy" I felt was a chemical imbalance in my brain.

Somehow, cutting myself apart was my effort to make me feel whole again. It was a last ditch effort to bring back all the senses, connect my body and mind, and remind my monsters that I'm still in control. When an initial cut didn't do the trick, I tried again and deeper. For whatever reason, be it defeat or glimpse of sanity, I stopped short of causing any real damage. I just got a scar and a story.

Ramblings of an Insomniac

Sleep isn't part of daily life for me. I suppose I should be used to it. I've lived without other necessities.

Like food. But I got gratification from not eating. I was in control. I could decide what and when and where. Or not at all. If I changed my mind, I could burn it off by going for a run in my neighborhood or doing jumping jacks in the restaurant bathroom. 

Years ago, not sleeping used to be just as awesome. I could go to school full-time and ace all my classes and work full-time and keep a clean house and exercise every day and still have time for fun. Because I didn't need food or sleep, I felt impervious to disaster. I defied biology or chemistry or whatever science this falls under that I clearly didn't study because I thought this all was okay.

Now, my inability to sleep doesn't feel so great. It's not my unbounded motivation keeping me awake at night or my superhuman ability to wake up after 3 hours of sleep to alphabetize my books. It's an illness. It's a mental illness that takes over my life, forces me to obsess over it alone in the middle of the night because it won't let me get a moment of rest.

Normal people have no problem falling asleep after being awake for 20 hours. Normal people don't start work when they wake up 3 hours before their alarm is set to go off. Normal people don't celebrate being able to fall asleep without taking Benadryl.

Before I was prescribed the Lithium, I was able to function around the clock. I had insane amounts of energy, so if I wasn't sleeping, I was occupying myself some other way. The Lithium has slowed me down. I want to sleep. I don't feel like working 3 in the morning, and cable sucks at that hour.

Ok, I know I sound like I'm complaining. I will be the first to admit it. But the inability to sleep is to my bipolar what a buffet was to my anorexia. Fucking terrifying and anxiety-producing. It's at night, when I am alone and pleading with the Sandman to let me have a break from it all, that the worst of all my racing thoughts creep up front and center. The moment I take off my glasses to attempt sleep, I can feel whether it will be a night of calm contemplation or unrelenting hysteria.

Racing Thoughts and Breaking Down

The hardest thing to explain is what happens in my head when I'm going crazy. When I'm crazy, communicating is nearly impossible, and when I'm sane again, I can't make sense of what happened. My best friend always tries to reassure me, saying that he doesn't think I'm crazy, no one else does, and no one will. Well, bullshit. I am. He's not there when I'm having my breakdowns, and my jumbled texts to him can't convey what's going on.

It starts with a single thought. Maybe it's remembering something awful someone said to me. Maybe it's thinking for a second too long about something I regret. Maybe it's even an idea for a book. I don't know. I can't pinpoint the beginning well enough to stop it from it continuing.

Over the next couple of weeks or days (or sometimes hours), more thoughts cling to that first one. This is great when it's fueling my creative or productive side. But I can't stay in that glory forever. The racing thoughts build an army. When there are just a few, I can try reasoning with them. I can ask them to get in a single file so I can sort them. They don't listen. I try to ignore their constant pressure, like that of a dozen elephants trying to fit out a window the size of a pinhead, but they grow in number. Eventually, I can't make sense of them. All I can do is beg them to not be so loud in my head. They still don't listen.

That one thought snowballs until it is big enough to run me down and crush me. To gain strength over me. To suck all the sense and life and ability to function out of my fragile head. Now there are hundreds of thoughts. Some of them good. Some of them bad. It doesn't matter what the thoughts are at this point because I can't understand them anyways.

I am stuck in my head. Fucking trapped. I pace my apartment. Sit down on the couch. Get up. Walk upstairs. Find myself in the closet. Why am I here? Back downstairs. Couch. I need to get out. Open the door. No. I can't see. Shit. Why can't I see? It's night. Oh. Lay down in bed. Fuck. Suffocating. Get up. Bathroom. Small and safe. I can hide here.

I am sitting on the toilet hugging my knees and staring at absolutely nothing. I am so in my head that the outside world doesn't exist. Everything looks blurry and my head is loud. I want to scream. I want to make lots of noise and shatter and kick and punch things and snap myself back to reality, but I can't move. I can't be that loud. I'm not sure I can even talk. They're winning.

I know what I need to do. I need to remind myself I have a body. There is more than just the tornado in my head. And I am in charge of it. I have the power to stop all of this. It's the right thing to do. I need something sharp.....

Knock Knock Knock

Boyfriend has come to make sure I'm alright. He knows I'm going crazy, but he won't understand. He can't possibly understand why I need to do this right fucking now. "Go away. I don't want you here." Good, I can still speak. He comes in the bathroom. Fuck. Didn't lock the door.

"I don't want you to be here. We shouldn't be together. It's over. Leave. Or let me leave. You don't have to put up with this. It's my problem. I want you to go away. Please, please, please. Leave." I ramble on and on through tears and shaky breathing. Boyfriend calmly explains that he cannot leave me alone right now. If I don't want to be around him, then he will have to take me to "the place." (The awful psychiatric crisis facility we went to last time I hurt myself.)

Of course, he's totally right. No one in their right mind would leave me alone in the condition I'm in. But logic is beyond my capability at this point. Hell, I think it's reasonable and right to slit my wrist to make my racing thoughts shut the hell up. It's not just that I can; I should. And now.

After hours of crying and yelling, with Boyfriend holding me and reasoning with me, I am exhausted. I give up. The racing thoughts are done screaming but now they're snickering. They will be back. They know they won this round.