Whoa!

Wow it's been forever since I've posted here. Quick update on my life:

My boyfriend broke up with me a year ago and is now dating someone else.

I moved to a state across the country to work in a shelter.

I've been seeing someone else since December. He's considerably older than me (mid-thirties, I'm in my mid-twenties), and we get along quite well. It's been slow but I can feel myself falling for him.

For the first time in two years, I feel in control of my life. I don't like my job that much, but I feel capable of actually working, which, sadly enough, is progress. I still don't know about a career, but I now know for sure that I want to work with people, and enjoy doing it.

I still hate girls. Still. Probably always will. I don't know how I meet all these ladies who are just nasty, but the last three months have put me in one of the worst living situations I have ever encountered. I actually screamed at two of my roommates, and I am a fairly mild-mannered and laid back person (especially now that I'm all drugged up). I honestly think it is my lot in life, to work and live alongside bitches. Thank God that I have a healthy, reasonable mom who I am close to.

And that's a wrap!

Relationship Troubles

So I've kind of figured out that my parents don't like my boyfriend. It hasn't always been this way, but back in December something bad happened. I chose to consume marijuana for the first time ever and it caused a manic episode. Instead of immediately calling my psychologist and my parents, my boyfriend gave me benadryl, hoping I would sleep it off. My parents were extremely upset with him for reacting this way, and since then I've had two very emotionally charged conversations (one with Mom, one with Dad) during which they voiced their concerns. Some stuff has happened that has made him not look so good since then. He actually got fired from both his jobs (he has a new job now), and I think he started using more marijuana with a recently reunited friend. My parents are right in some ways: he's sort of been acting like a teenager more than a 25-year-old. But on the other hand, it's a good time for him to get this stuff out of his system. I'm not living with him, he doesn't have any children, it's his first time to really be fully responsible for himself and not have his parents looking over his shoulder. I see it as a time for growth, and making his own personal choices. It's not like he's a slacker. He actually started exercising religiously and lost 40 pounds (and plans to lose more!). He spends time with friends, so he's not totally anti-social. He's doing well at his new job. All of this is more than I can say for myself. I live at home, work in the family businesses (my parents are both self-employed) and can barely function when I'm by myself. It's a very tense time for us, but we've been together for almost 4 years, and I don't want to give everything up just because we've hit some blips in the road. I mean, if I should be breaking up with him, he has every reason to break up with me. I'm mentally ill with no foreseeable direction, taking a ridiculous cocktail of medicines, with no close friends and nothing to really motivate me. I'm just as much of a mess as he is. Someone once told me that we've experienced too much pain and hit too many roadblocks in the relationship for us to overcome such negativity. But I see it as the opposite. If we've come so far, why stop now?

Temper

Here's a good reason to post: my boyfriend has a terrible temper. I always sort of knew this, especially since last year when I saw him fly off the handle. It's scary when he gets angry, he's a big guy and he's strong. I'm not sure if it's getting worse, but he was fired from one of his jobs the other day because he got angry on the job and made it obvious in the presence of one of the bosses. He also has pretty bad road rage, and the other day he got pissed at another driver and made his point by gunning the engine and zooming around curves in a way that wasn't safe. He immediately put his hand on my knee and apologized when he saw I was upset, but still. My instinct has always been to let him have his space to be angry, but I'm a little concerned that the anger is having a detrimental effect on his own well-being and safety, not to mention the well-being and safety of others. The last thing I want to do is be a nag, but if we're going to get married this is something I can't let slide. I can handle it for the most part (except for the driving, I can't handle dying in a car accident) but I don't want my children to have to deal with or witness it. But how do I bring it up without making him angry?

Another Obstacle

These are my unadulterated thoughts, so I apologize in advance for any harshness or seeming stupidity. I am not particularly lucid these days, so my writing promises to be a bit bumpy.

In any case, I moved back in with my boyfriend two days ago, after two months at home with my parents. I'm scared. I'm not used to being by myself, and I still don't have a job, so I know I'm primed for several long weeks of just trying to get used to occupying myself again. The medicine I'm on has some pretty terrible side-effects, including a general disposition of being unmotivated and deadpan. It took a lot of energy to come write this blog post, so that should say something about my current state. I'm not sure how that translates to getting a job, except that I've convinced myself no one would want to hire me as I am right now.   It takes me much longer to complete tasks I could normally do in a few minutes, and a lot of energy just to convince myself to do them. The answer seems to be "just fight through it." I was taking a medication to deal with the side-effects of the antipsychotic (the one that has all the bad side-effects), but my doctor took me off of it, so I'm left feeling like I want to jump out of my own skin.

I also had a relapse, supposedly because my doctor took me down off the antipsychotic too fast, so that's been another major setback. Before then, I was actually starting to create resumes and apply for jobs, and now I'm back to just sitting around in a state of idiocy. It's better than mania (this last time I thought I was Belle from Beauty and the Beast... I hate psychosis), but it's still not productive.

Interestingly, my grandma is in a similar state. She fell out of bed two weeks ago and broke her collar bone/suffered a brain bleed, and she's very unsteady on her feet but is dying to get back to normal life. I feel the same way.

Some Stuff to Share

Hello folks. It's been a rough couple of weeks for me, with another episode and separation from my BF. I don't want to write too much longer in this area of the internet, but I just had three things I wanted to share. One is a writing, by me, that I started when I was just 7 years old (first paragraph only), and decided to finish a couple days ago. It's actually an unfinished piece still, but I wanted to share it because it encompasses bipolar disorder and all that it has become to me. So here goes:

There was once a princess. But she did not know it because her mother and father did not think she was royal and kicked her out of the house. And it was when she was one. And so when she was old enough to walk she left the house or I should say castle. And thinking it was not her castle she set off to serch her family. Along the way she met a rabbit. The rabbit said you are a royal princess and you just left your castle.

            But the girl did not want to be a princess. She did not want to stay in her castle. She heard the rabbit’s words and thought of all the pain and torture she had endured in that “royal” castle, during that short-lived childhood. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. The girl had borne a weight too difficult to carry all throughout her life: a secret deformity. The deformity wasn’t physical, though she had dealt with those too. No, the deformity was in her mind, it plagued her thoughts and her dreams. Her mind was a tormented trap of nightmares and psychoses. At night she tried to stay awake to avoid the darkness that would haunt her in those nightmares. Sometimes she struggled to stay awake, and then the darkness would consume every moment of her sleep. When she woke, she felt as though she had never gone to sleep in the first place.

            The girl became friends with the rabbit, who constantly tried to convince her to go back to that castle, but who never went to the castle himself. He assured her that the castle would be safe, that if she just took a teaspoonful of his magical medicine, the creepy vines and blank stares of her dreams would retreat to the darkness, and she could live happily ever after. But the girl did not want to live happily ever after. All she wanted was a moment of peace, a feeling of triumph and calm, the warmth of love. She wanted to be happy just for one moment.

            But happiness evades the deformed of mind. There is only the highest form of aggravation, for which the word “irritation” is much too mild, and the darkest misery, derived from the reality that there is no happiness; there are only nightmares from which one cannot escape. Life goes on, and there are brief moments of pleasure…

Next I wanted to share some music I came across that also has helped me through this time. One is a song from Jekyll and Hyde, entitled "This is the Moment." I had a weird religious-type experience playing it on the piano yesterday, which is somewhat fitting considering the current circumstances of my life. The other is an album by Vanessa Carlton, called Be Not Nobody. A wonderful album written by someone who has dealt with depression, but who seemingly has two faces: one of depression, one of extreme frustration. I think Vanessa and I would be great friends if we ever knew each other.

Finally, I wanted to share this message that my BF wrote to me, in the beginning months of our relationship:

Love I have a bit of interesting news. It's not really as meaningful to you as me I suppose, but I know that you will enjoy it anyway. I found a couple of notes that L (my ex-“girlfriend”) wrote for me. I decided for chuckles to read them and see what they had to say. As I read them I began to realize that they didn't say anything. The two notes were a jumble of thoughts and events that occurred throughout her day. It was very dull to say the least, and I began to think about it. We never really share anything that made us more than just a set of two people that talked on a regular basis. I always thought that she broke up with me because I wasn't intimate in the relationship, but I now realize, whether it was her intent or not, that it had nothing to do with intimacy. We had nothing in common.


Sure, we would talk everyday, but we always talked of mundane pointless things. It was hardly a relationship. I'm not really sure that it was anything to be quite honest. A dance and a friendship is what it amounted. Now you may be wondering why I would bother to tell you this. Why would I take the time to tell you things that don't make any difference? Well I just thought that you'd like to know that this discovery has further solidified my belief that you are my first relationship (real relationship). Which doesn't really change anything, but it's just an interesting tidbit, a side note if you will. Something to think about as we continue to progress as a couple. One day I hope that we will look back and read these messages years down the road. Not separately trying remember what was forgotten, but together, as a couple, fondly remembering our young happiness and seeing how it has developed and changed into something better. Into a love that runs deep and completely through us. I know that every day that passes, every letter I write, every time we talk, and every night we spend together brings us closer to that goal. Time is something that passes and challenges us to beat it to fight against it with our might, but love has beating time. And now we wait, as time catches up, we wait to fill in our love with experiences, for we know the depths of our relationship. We can see there is much to be done and much to be said, but at least we see that there is that potential. Thankfully neither of us is willing to quit on that. I love you and always will love you. You are my first true human connection. You are the first person to accept me as fully as I am willing to accept you, and I smile every day knowing just that. 

An eloquent writer opening up, defying the rules of the Manosphere and wearing his heart on his sleeve. My BF has basically been a saint through all of my insanity, and I really look up to him in many ways. If our roles were switched, I'd like to say that I'd stick with him, but I don't know that I could. I see it as some sort of miracle that he not only stays with me, but also looks out for me and keeps me safe when I can't take care of myself. I truly feel as though he's taken a bullet for me; that's how much it means that he would stay with me through my struggles with such a horrible disease. It may be something I should expect, but I don't. Bipolar disorder is the ultimate demon, and I believe many men would not put up with it in their partners. And so I remain forever grateful that I have such a wonderful man.

"Help Him Choose"

These days a day doesn't go by that I don't see some sort of engagement ring ad on my Facebook. I haven't figured out why, exactly, they keep coming up, though it's likely because of my age/gender. I've actually seen a few ads/pages that have been "liked" by a couple of my female friends, so I guess the ads somewhat successfully catch the attention of the ladies in my demographic. For my part, I tend to delete them and hit that "against my views" option (lol) but they just come right back!

In any case, the cultural message here is that women should actively search for what I consider a wedding gift, for them, and then bombard their men with websites and pictures of possibilities, assuming that the men are actively exploring these options. The not-so-subtle message to the men is "Hey, you better be thinking of wifing me up soon, and by the way, I want this nice big shiny one!" For goodness sakes, I've heard of Christmas lists but let's not overdo it.

The problem is that weddings have become just one more symbol of materialism rather than an expression of love and commitment. It's almost like the excitement that builds up before Christmas, and the sad letdown during January when the holidays are over. That's no way to set up the spirit of a marriage.

Batshit Crazy, Or Just Insane?

These days when I'm not doing much of anything, I spend a lot of time just cruising, surfing the net for little tidbits. I found this gem posted on a manosphere blog, as part of a list of types of women to be avoided.

Batshit crazy: She has a diagnosable mental disorder, usually depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality or sociopathy. She might also have one or more addictions. She hooks the man through rapid sexual escalation and universal sexual availability. Wildly unpredictable, sexually aggressive and susceptible to extreme mood swings — from loving and gift-giving to physical violence. This type must be avoided at all cost.

 I won't share the name of the blog or the commenter, because those are irrelevant (though how funny that it was posted exactly one day before I ended up in the ER). The truth is that this mentality is quite common, even among social work professors. I want to write about my experience in more detail because I want people to understand what bipolar disorder is and what it is not. I will also freely admit that I knew nothing about it until I experienced it, so I actually do understand the misconceptions and stigma surrounding bipolar disorder and mental illness in general. However, I think it's important to address these stigmas, and as someone with firsthand experience, this is my responsibility--i.e., it's on me to explain myself, it's not on the rest of the world to seek out information. So without further ado, this is the story of my manic episode.

The episode probably began during spring break, though I didn't start feeling its full effects until I was back on campus about to start school again. The beginning was marked by an incredible feeling of not needing to eat or sleep. I had energy without sleeping so I'd stay up all night, or go to sleep for two hours and be fine the next stay. Eating felt like an extraneous activity, so while I ate very small bits, I avoided mealtimes, or only ate a few bites. 

Meanwhile, ideas started flooding into my mind at the speed of light. One moment I'd consider dropping out of school to start my own organization, the next moment I'd be thinking about writing a book. The more warped the concepts were, the more crystal clear they seemed in my mind. At one point, I decided that every single personal conflict that ever occurred could be cataloged into the same 3-role structure, with a bully using a follower (a weak person) to attack a victim (a strong person) and push the victim out of the group. It was so clear I almost called my former best friend to tell her how I suspected it was a mutual friend who had come between us.

I didn't get that far though, because things started getting weirder. Psychosis is a symptom of lack of sleep, and I was headed in that direction. I woke up (after 1 hour of sleep!) one morning and was completely convinced that my teacher of eight years (I went to a weird private school until ninth grade) had sexually abused me, and that the only reason I couldn't remember specifics was that it had happened when I was a very small child, and that I'd repressed the memory. I was so sure that I e-mailed an old classmate to ask if it had happened to her (even looking back makes me go "WTF?"). I also called my parents, who were completely confused and doubtful. As the day went on, I started getting progressively more wacked out, to the point that they asked if I'd fallen and hit my head. I also started losing my short-term memory. I couldn't remember the day or the date, and I hadn't attended class.

The next morning I had left reality. I told Popeye that my computer and phone were hacked, and that people were spying on me. My aunt arrived from a nearby town and they took me to the ER of a psych hospital, where there'd been a fatal shooting just a few days prior. This did not go over well with me, as I was convinced someone knew I was going to end up there, and that they were trying to kill me. When my parents showed up, I was happy to see them, but proceeded to freak out about my younger brother (he goes to the same school). In my mind I had some twisted idea that he'd been trying to sell me to another country as part of a secret society he worked for, and that because my parents had arrived to protect me, something horrible was going to happen to him. 

The doctors did a bunch of tests and found a cyst on my brain. They wanted to do an MRI, and they gave me a provisional diagnosis of early onset psychosis and schizophrenia, but they wouldn't admit me. So my parents took me home for 3 or 4 long days, where I got much  worse. Everything I read or viewed or heard took on an alternate meaning. When I looked at books or magazines, certain words and letters would pop out on the page in a mysterious but solvable code (if you've ever seen the movie A Beautiful Mind about John Nash, it was exactly like that). Everything in my life seemed simultaneously connected and disconnected. 

On some level I must have understood that I was mentally ill, because my brain started bringing up every famous person or movie character I've known about who was mentally ill. Sometimes I felt like I'd been possessed by the spirit of Sylvia Plath. Other times I had this feeling that I'd killed my own children, like the woman in Shutter Island (sorry, spoilers!). When I started hallucinating, it was of horrible, terrifying images I'd only seen in scary movies. At one point, I was sitting in front of the TV, the picture flickered, and there stood the little girl from The Ring beside a well (I haven't seen that movie since I was 14--10 years ago--and I still remember that fucking well scene). After that I was convinced she'd come out of the TV, and I spent a lot of time screaming at my parents to "TURN THE RED LIGHT OFF" (if you have a newer TV, you know how the little light on the TV is red if it's off, blue if it's on). Finally, when I looked into the TV and saw my own reflection, I realized that maybe I was the little girl killing people, which, in some sort of distorted way, makes sense. Parts of the video people watch in The Ring are shots of that little girl in an insane asylum, and I was clearly insane.

When my parents finally managed to get me back to the hospital (i.e. drive me across the state), the technicians refused to perform the MRI because I wouldn't stay still (well duh). Instead they sent me back to the ER for another evaluation, where we waited for hours until my dad actually asked the woman at the desk if this was some sort of "monkey business operation." After that my mom called my cousin, who's a doctor, and she recommended a hospital that was closer to home, and one of the best in the country. So after a few more days at home (during which I started hearing voices, who were thankfully mostly comforting; one was Popeye, letting me know I could talk to him in my head anytime I wanted because we were "soulmates" lol... I don't believe in soulmates, but wouldn't that be cool??) my parents took me to the second hospital, where I stayed for nine days. I actually don't remember the first half of my stay there, but apparently I told the nurses that the psychiatrist was "the fat man" who was going to "stuff me in the oven." I'd lost a ton of weight and was probably down to between 80 and 85 pounds (I'm normally 95ish), and once the drugs kicked in I spent most of my time sleeping.

While I was in the hospital, they tested me for something called Townes-Brocks Syndrome, a genetic condition I was born with. Geneticists think TBS patients are at a higher risk for mental illness, and my case is to be included in the medical literature. 

A couple of things are important to note. First, mania is not part of my normal day-to-day personality, nor is depression. I am not given to constant mood swings, nor am I constantly causing drama with Popeye. Anyone who knows me will say I'm fairly quiet and laid back, and unlike what you just read, I have a pretty firm grip on reality. I think the number one misconception about mental illness is that it's a personality trait. It can become a personality trait if someone refuses to take medicine, and I've heard that when untreated, bipolar can become much more severe (manic episodes are more frequent and last longer). 

Which brings me to my next point. Many believe that mental illness is not just a personality trait but a personality flaw that can be overcome through self-improvement. I actually thought this too, for a long time. I had been medicated for depression several times, but always thought that I could work through it without medicine. I still believe that many people who suffer from depression can do this (and think anti-depressants are handed out like candy, especially on college campuses), but bipolar disorder is an entirely different animal. It's also extremely important to recognize that, in many cases, these illnesses are biological in nature. Some develop in people who have been exposed to trauma, but there is a large genetic component. 

Finally, psychosis was probably the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. The problem with living in an alternate reality is that all your worst fears that "could never happen in real life" can be realized. I would not wish it on my worst enemy, and I will do everything in my power to make sure I never experience it again. That means keeping my life stress- and drama-free, taking my medicine religiously, and following up with my doctor. It is only when stigmas about mental illness are perpetuated that mentally ill people try to hide or ignore the problem, or deny it exists, which is when it becomes worse. It is only with acceptance and honesty that these issues can be addressed appropriately, and I will always be grateful that the people around me are supportive and understanding.