Too Frustrated to Write a Title

I was hoping to write a positive post today. I'm one full month clean. Go me! I've barely thought about hurting myself since I've come home from the hospital, and there haven't even been any close calls. But I'm slipping. It's like I've spent this whole week running downhill as fast as I can to hit rock bottom again.

It's this damn job. Not my new job, the one that I love. The one that leaves me fulfilled and hopeful. It's being a fucking freelance writer. Despite what you may have seen in the movies, it is not a glamorous day. I don't sip espresso and spew creativity. I write bullshit that I am paid pennies for. I sit in the same room for about 22 hours a day. I have a 10 foot radius that I eat all three meals in, work in, relax in, and perform daily chores in. I lose all momentum to write what I enjoy after spending a day writing shit that I don't. Being a freelance writer is actually making me despise my home and my passion.

In order to make this a profitable business for myself, I have to be at 100% every single day. I can't be tired or have a slow day or take a paid vacation. If I don't work, I don't get paid. If I don't work with boundless energy, efficiently  and up to a dozen people's standards, I get paid shit. Let's not forget that there are days that I am more than ready to write a novel, but no one has any work for me to do. Again, I don't get paid. And then I pace, stare at bill due dates, cry, check my email every 3 minutes hoping someone has sent me an order, hate myself, scour Craig's List for gigs, panic.

This is not the job for someone with bipolar less than one month out of a mental hospital. How the hell am I supposed to be at 100% every day? The stress is getting to me. I'm letting Boyfriend down. I'm letting myself down. I'm proving to everyone that I can't do it. I can't be normal.

So this week, I have been waking up every day dreading what is to come. I sit in front of the computer and feel the hot tears swelling up. But I'm afraid to let them drop because I've been doing so well. But I'm afraid to admit that I'm burnt out and scared.

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.

Bipolar Fairy and a Sock Full of Quarters

The Bipolar Fairy has struck again. But I'm not going to bitch about her flaky demeanor this time. I think she is granting me my wish of being on the "up" side of things for longer than a day before crashing and burning and all that jazz. 

I have had hope that has gone past one day. Yes, that means I have spent approximately 36 hours without the thought of killing myself. 2,160 minutes of choosing to be better. 129,600 seconds of happiness. A day and a half that is looking like it's going to lead to TWO full days. And then THREE. And then, holy shit, I may be able to function into next week. 

Inhale. One day at a time. Exhale. Stay in the present. Repeat.

And I'm doing it on my own. Of course, Boyfriend and Dad are there for me. My friends are giving me their usual support. They always are, but I am the one taking control, exercising my right to choose, and doing so in an aggressively optimistic manner. So, fuck you, Monsters. Fuck you and whatever mythical creature you rode in on. I'm going to bottle this hope and smack you with it like a sock full of quarters when this happy fairy flies away. My choice.

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.

Happy Chinese New Year!

I have a belly full of egg rolls, a glass of Riesling by my side, and a couple fortune cookie inserts on my refrigerator. Oh, and 4 tabs teaching me about my Chinese zodiac opened on my laptop. This is how to celebrate the Chinese New Year - culturally-insensitive American cheap-ass style.

2013 - The Year of the Snake, the Black Snake.  The snake who will hopefully have a little mercy on this enthusiastic, yet misguided, dragon.

Normally, I just live the Chinese New Year vicariously through my older brother who gets to experience it firsthand. Yeah, my awesome older brother lives in China. No biggie. This year, I wanted to celebrate it myself. Maybe this isn't exactly celebrating in the traditional sense, but I am acknowledging the fresh start and the chance to make the Year of the Black Snake my own.

(And I think it just sounds better than 2013 too. "I'm going to kick ass in the Year of the Black Snake" vs "I'm going to kick 2013's ass". Yes, I will take the snake symbolism, please.)

Let's recap. Early in the day, December 31, 2012, I posted a Facebook status gushing about how 2013 will be my best year yet. So hopeful, I was! And then something or nothing happened. I don't know. Later that night, I was a diving head first into the dark hole I had spent the past 5 months clawing, bleeding and crying, my way up. Less than two weeks into 2013, I would be checking myself into a locked psychiatric unit, avoiding eye contact with the imaginary faces of disappointment on the real people who pulled me up when I forgot to keep clawing.

I repeated this cycle once more before the end of January. Crawl up. Reach for hope. Slipping. Oh, shit. Hospital. Fuck.

It's scary how I can go from hopeful to hospital in a matter of days. It's scary that it happened twice in one month and scary that I am not confident it won't happen again in February. But I have learned something between my first New Year's celebration I cried through and the Chinese one tonight: going to the hospital is not as scary as not going to the hospital. Had I lacked the balls to pack my bags and spend a week at Aurora, Boyfriend would probably be packing up the rest of my belongings to donate to charity, or whatever it is the boyfriend does with the girlfriend's stuff when she swallows 348.5 pills.

I don't regret what happened during the first month of the year. It was something that needed to happen and was probably a long time coming. But I am ready to start fresh. This beginning, February 10, lets me do just that only this time with one hell of a solid plan, not undefined delusions of grandeur.

I have resources in the community that I can turn to.
I have self-help books that I have faith in.
I am enrolled in a class that will teach me more about myself and others like me.
I have a job lined up in the field.
I have lists upon lists of actions I can take to avoid breakdowns.
I have hope that comes from inside myself.

I could go on. But I don't want to. I want to finish my wine, maybe get one more celebratory glass, and write in my trusty journal. (Yes, I do write things that the whole world isn't allowed to see.) But first, Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!! To all of those who fucked up January, here's your guilt-free opportunity to start over. Or eat egg rolls.

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.