Congrats! You're a Dumbass!

I have bipolar disorder. The exact diagnosis is Bipolar Disorder, Type I, exhibiting rapid cycling. I also have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Depression, and Anxiety Disorder. I am overweight, possibly obese—it’s been a while since I have actually seen a primary care physician, so I don’t know exactly where my weight/height ratio falls. I know that I am outside what would be considered healthy, even with my wider frame to support it. I have high blood sugar—again, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a PCP, so I’m not actually diagnosed as diabetic. However, my fasting blood sugar is typically around 280-290 when I don’t have any of my ill-gotten medication in me. With the Metformin, I normally run around 180-200. But I only had a little bit from an ex-roommate and I’m out of it now. I’m lactose intolerant. I’m post-menopausal, despite not being thirty yet. There’s the possibility of there being a thyroid issue that isn’t being helped by my medications.

I am very stressed. I took a test in my psychology textbook that gives you a number based on ten questions. Normally a person in my age range and marital status runs at about 12-14 points. I scored a 33. I feel very swamped under it and not at all comforted about having identified that I am under a lot of stress. Maybe if I could see some way out from under it all, I could feel better, but there’s no end in sight.

I know that there are certain steps that I could take, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do them, at least not on my own or even with just a doctor’s recommendation/orders. Fear is the primary thing stopping me.

I don’t want to walk alone. I don’t feel safe doing it. But I can’t find anyone who wants to walk with me. Mostly this is a matter of time and availability. I was walking every day with Dad, but between school and work and moving out to the Farm, that ended. It just became infeasible for him to drive all the way out there every day. I was going to walk with Alex every day that we put the girls on the bus, but that deteriorated almost as soon as it was thought up. Jeanette wanted him working every day from the time the girls left on the bus until they got home in the afternoon. Then Luna was supposed to join me, but Luna didn’t want to get up that early…I don’t think she cared for the idea of spending time with me anyway. Now that I’m here at Mother’s, I’m not likely going to be able to attempt to get back to my walking either, as none of my family wants to be active and there’s no longer a convenient walking trail. Not that they were eager to walk with me the last time that I lived with them and there was a walking trail across the street. They would speed-walk away from me at a pace that I couldn’t keep up with and talk at the same time. I like walking and talking at the same time. It helps past the time and makes the exercise fun, rather than a chore. Alone isn’t fun. Alone is also very scary, between catcalls and stray animals and cars that rush by too close or out of nowhere. I can’t walk alone. Even the thought of doing so is bringing a hitch to my breathing and tears to my eyes.

I suppose that I could always go back to the idea of working out to the Yoga DVDs that have to be around here somewhere. I would just have to find a time when Mother or my siblings aren’t here/asleep. They don’t restrain themselves from making mocking comments when I work through the video. It doesn’t help that I already feel a bit ridiculous as I try to do certain things and can’t because I’m not that in shape or my belly (where most of my weight is centered) gets in the way. Or I have to stop because I’m winded or dizzy.

I don’t always take my meds like I’m supposed to, either. Sometimes, it’s just that I get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everything that I am trying to juggle or I get too tired to remember to take them before I go to bed. Other times, I just don’t want to mess with them. I know that’s bad thinking, but I think that things were better when I wasn’t trying to be something that I can never really be. I read these books about bipolar disorder and they talk about how there is a period of “normality” between the poles that everyone forgets about all the time. Well, isn’t that interesting? Because I really don’t remember this period, it seems. Maybe once upon a time I had a normal period, but it certainly wasn’t recently. I just go from cycle to cycle with various peaking points. They don’t always get as bad as this last manic cycle got, but then I was basically told that I would be losing my home in a matter of days for nothing. Then I was told that I wasn’t going to be a part of the girls’ lives anymore—never mind that Alex says that he didn’t realize that was what he was doing when he allowed his mother to talk him into that plan of action; that’s what it was doing.

(By the way, if you ever tell someone something and they become inconsolably upset, you shouldn’t just walk away from them like you don’t care. You should hold them and ask them why they are upset. If they can’t get an answer out at first or their answer doesn’t make sense, you don’t walk away like you don’t care—and that is the message you are sending if you do. You stay with them and maybe rub their back and help them breathe until they are calmer. Then you ask why again. This is especially true if the person goes from inconsolably upset to inexplicably calm enough to begin to plan their demise—when you had discussed with them just the day before how they were haunted by the knowledge that their death would bring in enough money to end the financial hardship that their family was under and they couldn’t believe that they were being so selfish as to not do it. By walking away from someone who is in that mindset, you are telling them that you don’t care enough to stay, that in a way, you wished they were dead. This is especially true if in every fight that you had been having with this person up until this point—and the ones that another person in the household had been having with them, as well—you had called the person selfish several times or self-centered—which is the very thing that they thought they were being by not helping in every way that they could. Walking away when someone is in crisis is a bad thing, especially when you don’t come back.)

Going back to how I’m bipolar with rapid cycling for a moment:

That night, I had a breaking point. It’s called crisis. It’s a point when a person literally cannot take any more upon themselves. Never mind broken, I was shattered. I wasn’t having suicidal thoughts. I was making a plan. Do you know what that means for most people? It means that it’s box time. You remove all objects from a person, including their clothes, because you know, they don’t deserve dignity anymore, and you put them into a little box with no windows and a door the locks from the outside. You leave them in there until they learn their lesson about thinking so silly thoughts. That’s a terrible place to be—not just that claustrophobic box, but that mental place where it becomes painfully obvious that the best and only option is your own death.

Now some of you are scoffing, I know, and I even know why: you’ve never been there. Others of you are nodding and going “I know that feeling”, because you have been there. You know that there reaches a point when the old survival instinct starts to kick in and like a drowning person, you start grabbing onto anything that comes close just so you can not feel like that anymore. And once you find that feeling, all that depth of emotion that had gone into the crisis boils over into it and fills you up because it is at least somewhat better than dying. Most people on the outside will tell you that the crisis is over—the person isn’t seeking to kill themselves anymore, so it must be right?

Wrong.

You see, the break is still there. You aren’t healthy and you are most certainly not put back together again. You are still a danger to yourself, but now also others. You see, most of the time, after you have reached that dark depth, you move onto anger. The form this anger takes can be many, but most of the time, you begin by lash out—usually at the source of the final straw before the break, the “cause” of your crisis. Any little thing becomes a huge sign of their betrayal, and instinctually you see them as having almost killed you. So you want to hurt them, just as much as they hurt you, never mind if that hurts you too or people completely innocent of the whole thing. Most of the time, this person is a partner, a best friend, or a parent, so you will know exactly what would hurt them the most, because these are people that we are vulnerable with.

And guess what? That breaking point was with reality as well, so it doesn’t even have to be a real problem that exists anywhere outside of your own head—not that you know this, because you are convinced to the core of your being that it’s true and breaking a psychosis—fancy word that describes your thought process at this point in time—is not something that can be done at one time, or even only once and be done with it. No, that takes time, time that you may not get because you basically attacked someone who is usually your greatest support and who may not even realize why you are attacking them. Let’s face it: you are psychotic.

You are also now a self-fulfilling prophecy. You are the bipolar who cannot be consistent, who destroys themselves because they couldn’t not do so. You are alone because you abused the one person who has tried to be there through everything—who put up with all your immature shit and wild delusions. You forced the one person who promised you forever to break his promise and you have no one to blame but yourself.

It doesn’t matter if you would change it if you could…because you can’t change it, can you? Even if you get your shit together and take the meds perfectly and lose the extra weight and get over being depressed, there will always be that inconsistency there, lingering in the background, circling like a shark, and just waiting for something to happen. And you know it will, because you’ve been there before, haven’t you? You’ll be fine for years, able to cope just fine, maybe not perfectly, but you can get by—then something will happen…late night out with friends, maybe, or a move, a change in job: you know, the little instabilities that are just a part of life, but that you can’t handle because of something that you were born with and for which there is no cure; hell, there’s not even such a thing as remission despite what you’ve read in a few places because that wasn’t your Type of Bipolar, now was it?

Well, congratulations. You fucked up the one good thing that you had going for you.

Don’t you feel fucking fabulous?

Stuck on a Ledge

I am afraid.

No, that’s not right.

I am terrified.

Of what? Of everything, it seems.

My greatest fear is failure. Or at least that’s how I think it can be explained simply. Failure means that I lose everything that I have worked for my entire life. Failure means that I live up to the expectations that my mother had for me—which is to say: that I be nothing. Failure means that I end up alone and bitter, just like my mother, or alone in a hospital unable to recall my own name, let alone who my children are. Failure means that I end up in a tiny box of some variety because I could not control myself. Failure means that I die before I am able to see the girls graduate college, or before I greet my grandchildren. Failure means that I see nothing but disappointment on my father’s face.

And so, I’m afraid, because it seems that I am failing. It’s not a quick process like I always thought it was—I thought that it would be BOOM and it’s over and I’ve failed and it’s time to pick myself up and try again. No, it’s a slow process like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. I look down and I can’t see the bottom. I look up and can’t see the top. I’m suspended between the two points and moving ever downward and cannot stop. I can sort of figure out what needs to be done about various things, but I need to stop the momentum pulling me downwards towards the pit of despair.

Dad wants me to plan, but I can’t plan when I can’t stop going downwards. I can’t plan when I have no resources at my disposal. I can’t plan when I don’t know what’s going to happen from day to day. Planning requires a certain amount of predictability to one’s days—predictability that I don’t really have. Planning requires a certain amount of independence, which again, I don’t have. All my potential plans are contingent upon other people, and of things working out to my benefit. That is something that hasn’t happened in a long time.

Dad thinks I should sign up for Hawthorne, but I’ve been kicked out of Hocker Heights, which is run by the same people as Hawthorne. He’s seems so sure that I could get in immediately because I’m homeless—never mind that I’ve told him that I don’t meet HUD’s definition of homeless because I’ve done what I can to avoid shelters, seeing as how you go to one with kids and they call DFS first thing. “Oh, but that’s not true—“ Bullshit. I’ve seen it done. And then because the woman was Wiccan, they refused to let her have her kids back. I’m not going to lose the girls. If I lose the girls, it’s game over and I’ve lost. It’s as simple as that. Department of Family Services doesn’t really help; they just steal children from parents trying to do their best and abandon the children that truly need their help. That’s how they operate in practice, regardless of what they are supposed to do in theory. I grew up in the class that is prosecuted by them. Hellfire, I’m still in the class that is prosecuted by them. How often do you see a middle class child being taken or an upper class? No, it’s always the poor families whose children need “saving”.

Besides, signing up for Hawthorne requires something that I don’t have: an income. You need to be able to pay utilities because they don’t do that for you. And the “utility supplement” that they give you is nowhere near enough to actually cover the utilities. Despite what he’s seen coming out of Kansas City, Hawthorne is not required to pay utilities for you. Guess what happens when your power gets turned off for lack of payment? You get evicted for failure to maintain property. Which means that IF I managed to get in without an income, I would only have it for about a month before I was kicked out and found myself homeless once more. That means that I would have the stress of moving twice in about a month.

I don’t move well. I don’t sleep well from the anticipation of it and during the actual process I break into several pieces that rocket off into several different directions. I get angry. I get depressed. I get confused and lost. I get scared and panicky. I get sick and can’t eat. I don’t move well. It’s not a simple thing like what most people seem to experience. They don’t like it but they can function during it. I can’t. I fall apart.

Dad thinks that I should try signing up for TANF again. I suppose that I could, but I don’t have two people that aren’t related to me that would be able to vouch for the state of my affairs. Even then, TANF isn’t enough to actually live off of it. It’s only a couple of hundred dollars a month. That’s not enough to pay one utility, let alone the three that would be necessary if I had a place at Hawthorne—or three plus rent if I had to be somewhere else. And it won’t last for longer than a year and a half because I’ve been on it before, and that draws from the total allotment, so I would end up back in the same place in short order.

But I’m “just being negative” when I mention these things and “talking myself out of doing anything”. Never mind that I’m pointing out the reasons that his idea will not work the way that he thinks that they will. He thinks that TANF works the same way that its predecessor program did, which is what everyone thinks. “Welfare” isn’t a permanent thing anymore. You have five years of cash help, if you have kids, and that’s it. Food Stamps doesn’t have a limit, no, but the cash to pay for things like rent, utilities, those little incidentals that are necessary (clothes, school supplies, toilet paper, soap, cleaning supplies, etc.)—that stuff is only for five years, not five years at a time, but five years in a lifetime. And it’s never very much either.

Dad gets all huffy when I try to explain this to him. He knows this person or that person who makes it work. Why can’t I? I don’t think you actually know what that person is doing to make it work—or if it working at all. Just because their Section 8 voucher says that Grandpa has to pay electric doesn’t mean that all Section 8 vouchers will—besides which, Section 8 is a three to five year wait with priority going to those people who are already in government housing. I’m not in government housing, for the reasons that have already been discussed.

I keep saying that my Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is messed up, but no one seems to be listening. I’m trying to go to college when I can’t even figure out my housing situation or my relationship. I have no stability in my life. I thought that things were getting better—I had started singing again and I had unpacked my books for the first time in over a year. I had a space that I could claim as mine…

I should have known it was too good to have lasted.

Alex started spending most of his time in another room. Anytime that I went into that room, things got tense, like I was interrupting something or intruding, so I stopped going in. The last thing that I want to do is force my company on anyone. But I was afraid to ask for him to come to me very often. I was afraid of asking too much of him, of anyone. And maybe that stems from my issues with Mother, who was—and still is—fond of talking about how much of a burden that I am, just by existing.

I’ve read the literature on bipolar people and their relationships. The constant up and down of them—the constant flux between dependence and rejection—that wears down the relationship to the point that they break. Besides, there’s all this talk about how a healthy relationship is all about equality. People are equally independent and work together to make a successful partnership. You have to be able to trust and be trusted in return. If you don’t know when your partner is going to crack under the pressure and break down into inconsolable tears, how can you trust them? If you never know when your partner is going to decide that they simply must have such and such and use up funds that are needed elsewhere, how could you trust them? If you can’t trust your partner to believe you when you tell them that they are loved and can ask for attention without you reprimanding them for being selfish, how will you know when they are feeling like they’re being ignored?

He says that he feels as if he was being pushed away. I say that I felt him pulling away. He says that was just him changing, growing—I should do the same. I say that I have been doing it too, but I don’t want to grow away from him. But I’m stuck, aren’t I? I was so afraid of losing him, that I kept him at arm’s length. I can’t move forward, but I can’t move backwards either. I can’t have him, but I can’t live without him. I’m too much work, too much needs to be done to coax me off the ledge and I can’t just jump, can I? I want someone to pull me—take me under—but I can’t ask for them to do it, because that would mean admitting that I can’t do something that everyone else can do.

He says that I’m jealous of Luna—but I don’t want him to get rid of her…I just want the cookie too. I want him to want to spend time with me. I want him to want to session with me. I want him to want to slip my collar on me before cradling my face and kissing me. I want to be held like I’m precious and not have him rushing to move away or move it into something sexual. I want him to see me struggling and offer to help. I want him to take charge and say that he’s got a plan for how we’re going to stay together as a family rather being split into pieces again and never seeing each other except in passing. I want him to want my company. I don’t want to be alone with my nightmares. But I’m not the one that he defaults to when he “autopilots”. That’s her. And she’s the one who shares his interests in Pokémon and My Little Pony and Skylanders. And she’s the one with all the interesting knowledge of kinky things. And she’s the one who isn’t afraid to ask for things that she wants. And she’s capable of making friends on her own. And she doesn’t have a therapist and a psychiatrist. And she’s not the one needing to lose weight because her blood sugar is too high. She’s easy to get along with for most people, except that she hates me. And how can I compete with someone who is everything that I’m not? Someone who has already issued the ultimatum and I’ve lost…I’ve lost everything because I couldn’t be what he wanted. I couldn’t be easy; I couldn’t be her.

All I’ve ever wanted was him, but I can’t be what he needs me to be. I can’t be anything except what I am. I try to get along with people, but I always end up slipping and pointing out things that they don’t want to focus on or realize about themselves. I try to speak up about what I want, but when the first time isn’t successful, I can’t bring myself to ask again, because the rejection hurts and I can’t breathe for it. I try to trust people but I hear a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t and I can’t take that last step off the ledge. I know the voices, and I know that they don’t have my best interests in mind, but they’re so loud and just there and I can’t push off the edge, even knowing that I may not fall, that I may fly.

I’m scared, so scared. I can’t breathe. I can’t stop shaking. And I know that everyone else doesn’t have this problem and I should be able to handle things because everyone else can and this is just part of being a grownup—grownups take care of things and they don’t cry over things all the time and they aren’t crippled by the normal ups and downs of life—and they don’t need a specially chosen mug in order to write or for their pillows to smell a certain way or to have a specific quilt to sleep with and they don’t count their steps to four over and over again. And they don’t have to focus in order to not get lost in the ever-rippling tide of what if? that flows away from everything all the time. They don’t panic when something changes in their environment. They can create plans for their future, and if something happens to derail that plan, they can just regroup and try again.

They aren’t stuck on ledges, wanting to jump but unable to bring themselves to do it. They just jump.

So what’s wrong with me that I can’t?

Realizations

I have trust issues. This is a known issue that I have fully acknowledged. I have even analyzed where they stem from, though that is several sources. It is primarily the low self-esteem issue, I think.

I have been rejected over and over again by everyone it seems. I was never good enough to please those around me--they always wanted me to be more or different from what I am/was. I can't be anything except what I am. I know this. Do I wish I was different? Yes, because it seems so nice to be wanted. If I wasn't empathic--a freak--perhaps people would make sense to me. If I was more consistent in my mood--not bipolar--perhaps more people would want to be my friend. If I didn't prefer books and writing--a writer-- to movies/television, perhaps I would have more to talk to with people.

But then I wouldn't be me. I am an empath. I am a bipolar. I am a writer. I can't change these things, even if people reject me because of them. 

I can shut down my empathy, but that would be like deciding to never smell anything ever again, and would work about the same amount. It's one of my senses, and it is instinct to try to use it to navigate the world. 

I am bipolar. Even on medication, I still cycle through my moods. I try not to let the mood swings affect my life too much--just feeling like I hate my job and should quit isn't enough for me to actually do that, because no matter how good that would feel, I know that is not how things work, really. 

I am a writer. I will always look at things and start a story in my head about it. I have tried to quit in the past--"grow up already! Live in reality already!"--but all it did was make the narrating voice grow so loud that I couldn't think any more around it.

I am these things. If you take everything else away, this is what I would be left with. Not as impressive as Tony's list, I'm sure, but we can't all be Anthony Stark.

I have a paradigm that might be the issue. I believe that all relationships (platonic, romantic, familial) are entered into for the benefits that they give the people in it. People stay because the relationship is useful, as are the people in it to each other. As I explained to Alex (or did he explain it to me? It was a conversation with him that I figured out how this connects to my trust issues. That's the important part.), I place my value to others in what I can do for them. I was the breadwinner. I was the planner. I was the scheduler, and the organizer. I could multitask and juggle and make do.

Then my mental health started to decline, and I realized that if I didn't get my bipolar under control, I would reach a point when I would have to be hospitalized for others to do so for me. And the meds just added stress, in the form of financial burden and time--and my physical health started to decline with the weight that was added as a side effect. There were blackouts and memory lapses.

The blackouts scared me--working fine and then my vision goes dark and my body stops responding to my orders. I still hear, but I can't snap out of it. Apparently, this looks like I'm sleeping while sitting up, but inside I'm really panicking because it is like the ultimate trap, isn't it? If someone tied you up, at least you could struggle. If someone gagged you, you could still make some noise. And of course, if you try to tell people that you weren't really asleep, that's just making excuses, right?

The memory issues were brushed aside too. It was just sometimer's or normal. I would be in the middle of a story, and suddenly the last five minutes or half hour would be gone, and I had to adapt and not give into the spike of panic that occurred when I was one place and suddenly another. Or I would lose information that I should be able to lose: password when I only have one; Alex's birthday; my youngest daughter's name; my middle name; my age; my medication. Or I would be in the middle of doing something and some other thought would pop in my head and I would go to take care of it, only to be interrupted with another thought, and soon I have half a dozen tasks half-started and none finished. But that's something that everyone goes through--why do I feel that it is so insurmountable?

So I say that I can't do something, and it makes people frustrated. How dare I give up? I'm supposed to be invincible! I should keep trying! There's always a way! Just try harder! Asking for help is all that I need to do. But when I ask for help, I get a "yeah, yeah. I'll do it" and then a nothing. Or I get an excuse as to why it couldn't be done. It all comes down to the same thing: I have to do it, or it doesn't get done. Then I get chided for acting like that is the only way things could work. How am I supposed to act?

Daddy says that I just need to plan things, but in order to plan anything, I need help and input. I need to know what I will be working with. I need to know that when I ask for help, that I will get it. I need consistency from the people in my life, rather than them bailing when things get tough. I need to not be confused.

And how can I not be? When he tells me that he's going to stand up for our rights, and then concedes them for an amount of money that doesn't solve any problems? When he says that he's tired of fighting with three people and decides that only one of them is worth his time then turns around and says that he still loves me? When he gives me his collar because he doesn't want it anymore, but says that's not him saying that there's no chance of us ever getting together again, when that's clearly what he said with his actions? Then he touches my arm, just a glancing graze, a trailing of his fingertips, as if I'm precious but still he doesn't want anything to do with me outside of contact that I initiate--that I force upon him or nag him for--something that I don't like to do because I don't like being rejected which inevitably happens if people don't actually want me? Then when I mention why I'm having issues trusting him or his allies--Why does it always have to be about you?--I get called selfish or paranoid or delusional and why don't I just trust him?

How can I trust him when he's not consistent? When I ask him to do things and I always get a "I'm busy" or "I'm trying" or "maybe later" or "oh, yeah, we should do that" with no actual plan of follow through. I wanted him to be dominant, yes, but there's so much more to that than simply issuing orders that don't make sense and then expecting to be blindly followed. I have trust issues; I can't blindly follow orders that don't make sense. But he doesn't want to explain, because my asking questions is just creating problems, and he doesn't want to be consistent, because that isn't what he wants to do.

Maybe I am selfish. Even now, when I know that he doesn't want me--plans for everyone except me; wants to see the girls, but no plans to see me--I can't seem to get it through my head not to hope to hear the lie again--I love you--and to just give up on the fantasy of a life with him. I want him, even though I can't have him. He was my best friend for over half my life. There was not a single thing that I couldn't talk to him about; he knows things about my life that I have never told anyone else. For the longest time, I began to believe that I was wrong about my paradigm--everyone leaves--and that he was telling the truth when he promised me forever--I have always loved you and I always will--and maybe, just maybe, Mother was wrong about me--"Who could ever love you?" "You're worthless. You will never be anything." "Nobody reads anymore."--Maybe I could do things and they'll turn out.

Alex suggest that I find my value within myself, rather in what I can do for others. I can recognize the soundness of that suggestion. Daddy thinks that it is a good idea, too. But that doesn't mean that I know how to go about doing that. I know that it will have to be about my writing, as that is the only thing that I can control and that benefits me first and foremost. I have an idea of how to make money doing it, as I found a freelancer site that connects those with jobs with those who will work, but I am still terrified that it won't pan out or that my concentration issues will interfere with me actually being able to do the jobs. Normally, Alex would be my cheerleader, but now he refuses to talk to me unless I naggingly get a hold him.

I'm scared and I don't know what to do.

But it's all up to me, isn't it? Really, I have to be self-sufficient. In the end, it is only myself that I can count on. All I can control is myself. I can't make him love me or want me. I can't make it to where he can't leave. I can't make people like me because if I try to change for them, it's not a real change, only the adoption of a mask. I can only be me.

That's all I can be.

I am Margret Alexandria Silverwolf. I am Shakbatina Iskitini. I am the wild cat who cannot be tamed, the spirit who cannot be broken. I am the center of the Wheel, and the reason that it turns. I am the Storyteller. I am a writer, and writers write. I am the Seeker, and that which is sought. I am the Weaver, and that which is woven. I am the artist and the paint. I am within and without. I am the Witch and the magic; the Catalyst and the energy. I am Magi. I am me.

And that is all that I can be.