The Calm After the Storm

Well, I'm glad that's over. I made it out of my depressive episode with my wrists in tact and my sanity restored. But it has been one hell of a week.

I gave you a little insight into what I was feeling earlier this week. The inevitable backslide that I wrote about on Tuesday. The inadequacy. The self-doubt. The resentment and fear. All those individual antagonists teamed together as allied forces to take me down. No one negative was responsible for my plummet, but instead they all fed off one another to grow in power and strength. To charge in at 9:30 Friday morning to destabilize me in one pinnacle moment.

The shower. 

I should know better than to take a shower when I am feeling so low. Each time, I take a breather and think, "Oh, if I just get cleaned up, throw on some make-up, and look like I'm ok, I will be ok." Problem solved! That's not quite what happens. Ever. Instead, I get in there, I'm stuck in a small room with the white noise of the water which amplifies the thoughts the monsters are putting in my head. And I'm exposed and vulnerable to boot. So rather than thinking, "I suck at everything," the monsters take this opportunity to scream, "YOU SUCK AT YOUR JOB! BOYFRIEND WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU! YOU CAN'T EVEN KEEP THE HOUSE CLEAN, FUCK UP!" Then I give up, get out of the shower, and take a passing look in the mirror to see the gargantuan figure that seems to get larger each second my self esteem gets smaller. And, in my precarious state, it's enough.

So in about 10 minutes, I've gone from melancholy to suicidal. And since I am severely lacking in the coping skills department, all I could think of to do to alleviate my pain and eliminate the risk of suicide were swallowing a couple Ambien to knock myself out until Boyfriend got home or cutting myself to show the monsters who's in charge. Maybe I am getting a little bit better at managing myself, because even in my disjointed state, I still knew that those options would only lead to more negative repercussions once I'm discovered. Which means the next 4 or 5 hours were spent in hysterical tears, trying to chase away thoughts of annihilation. 

And then, just as quickly as it started, it was over. Boyfriend came home, I had another rough couple of hours, and then, after hashing it out a bit, the monsters went back to their cave in Hell or wherever they come from. Boyfriend admitted how hard it is to deal with me. I tried to make sure he understands that this is not the last time it will happen. And we both agreed to get back into therapy. And then we ate cheese, played cards, and went back to living happily ever after.

This past week has reminded me that, yes, I do have a mental illness. It was kind of a perfect storm of forgetting my pills one day, receiving an extremely triggering letter, and the stress of starting a new job. But my monsters that come out when triggered are equivalent to someone else catching the flu when exposed to a certain virus. The virus lives on a doorknob. A person grabs that knob before the virus dies. A speck of dust tickles their nose, and BAM! Infected. 

That's what happened to me. I got sick this week. It may not be from a virus, and it cannot be treated with antibiotics, but it came from something real. It has physical implications. It deserves treatment. And that is where I need to put my focus from now on. Getting back into treatment.

But it's Saturday. So right now, I am going to focus on digesting the grilled food I just ate and prepare for a bonfire tonight. Life is good and I want to enjoy as much of it as possible. Before the monsters make me sick again.

Oh, Monsters. There you are.

Joan Jett has nothing to do with this post,
but I liked the picture.

I feel like shit. And it really shouldn't surprise me. I start my new job tomorrow, so of course my monsters were like, "Oh, something important is coming up. Time to fuck with Mary again!" So they jump out of hiding to bitchslap me with a depressive episode.

Just this past Sunday night, I was sitting at home with Boyfriend feeling nothing but pure bliss. There on my meditation pillow, I was able to look around and see shelves of my favorite books, meaningful art that I created, a life that Boyfriend, the love of my life, and I have built together this past year and a half, and the hope for a future that radiates promise and passion. All while listening to a relaxing yoga station on Pandora, sipping some bourbon, and reading a motivational memoir. I was totally submerged in the happiness I didn't think existed when I was at my worst at the beginning of this year.

Fast forward two days, and it feels like January all over again.

I feel like I'm letting Boyfriend down.
I regret my job for not being more lucrative.
I wonder why I have been given the responsibility to help other people through their struggles when my own keep me bedridden for an extra two hours in the morning.
I loathe the mirror and these extra "healthy" pounds.
I am embarrassed that I ever entertained the notion that I could be a successful writer.
I regret my stay at the hospital and despise it for costing as much as it did.
I exhume bitterness and bury courtesy for the family I wish I had.
I idealize surrendering.

The inevitable backslide. I think, deep down, I knew this was going to happen, but another part of me thought that with all the drugs they have me on, I should be able to handle anything that comes my way. Or I should just be numbed to all the triggers that send me sinking. I guess this is what I get for being cocky, for thinking I had this shit figured out. For thinking that I was stronger than my mental illness.

No, I am not ending it like this. One thing that I have confidently learned over these past many months is that I leave the table with the last feeling I wrote stuck in my head. That is why I always end my journal entries (not so much my blog entries) on a positive note. Even if it is just forced bullshit that doesn't actually help, at least I can convince myself that I didn't raise the white flag without first raising a middle finger to the monsters.

PEP TALK: Get it together, Girlfriend. It's not even 11:00. You still have plenty of time to at least clean the house, and maybe even get a little writing work done. Hell, you can even make dinner tonight and show Boyfriend that you are useful. If you don't finish everything you have on that massive list of yours, at least you can make a dent and feel better going into tomorrow. You don't have to be perfect. Repeat that aloud. You don't have to be perfect! No one is. Now post this shit, center yourself with some meditation, and start the day over. It's not too late.

And go.

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.