Mom, Please Help Me

 Mood Diary: I've been feeling a lot, a lot better. I think tweaking my meds worked, but I reached out to my Mom (huge step) and she's agreed to help me find a prescribing psychiatrist. I had one anxiety attack during the trip and I am still not sleeping well. I've been up since 3:30 - went to sleep at 11:30 even though I ran 3 miles and felt exhausted after.
This is the letter I wrote my step-mom (who basically raised me). My step-mom has fought my bipolar diagnosis for years. I feel like I can't even talk to her about it. To me, it's like a giant elephant in the room She is a physician, which makes it all the more frustrating. But currently I am not sleeping, suffering from severe mood swings, and I cannot afford to pay for a psychiatrist. I don't have a job, nor do I have health insurance. A is her new husband. I post this in case there is anyone who feels they need to reach out to their parents but think it is virtually impossible to convince them this disease is real. It is possible. Sometimes it just takes persistence. I got a positive response from both and even a "hang in there" from her husband. We're having dinner to discuss treatment tonight.

 

Mom & A,

If need be, my therapist in N.O. (who helped get me out of the mental hospital when I got committed after my suicide attempt) is willing to write you a letter. I've cc'd my therapist because I promised her I would reach out to you. Future commitment isn't outside the realm of possibility. It's an ugly truth but it's real.

I really, really, really need to see a prescribing psychiatrist. Do you have an recommendations? This is becoming an urgent necessity. I'm rapid cycling between bouts of deep depression, then states really high energy that border on panic (rapid heartbeat, sweating, I tend to run for 5-10 miles to expend the energy) -we're talking severe, severe mood swings. And I've been suffering from awful insomnia (average of 3-4 hours of sleep - ex: last night I finally fell asleep at 2 and woke up at 5). This is NOT a good sign.

 Not everything going on is negative - I did start going to a bipolar support group (free) in SF, that has been truly amazing.

I'm including you, A, because I trust you and really need as much support as I can get trying to stop this rapid cycling so I don't become manic again. A, I also trust that you will read this because I worry Mom skims long emails due to her busy schedule. Insomnia is a huge factor that triggers mania. I've been prescribed NON-NARCOTIC sleeping aids before. That is what I'll ask for.  I don't like taking them any more than you both dislike them. I don't want Ambien. I'll stop as soon as I get a regular sleep cycle. To prevent these 4-6 weeks deep, deep, deep depressions that have happened over the course of the past 9 months, I may need to supplement my medicinal cocktail. It may not be cheap. But I don't know what to do. I can't keep losing MONTHS at a time because I literally can't function. When I'm in this state I can't pick myself up by my bootstraps. I become like H (my half-sister). I become almost catatonic. I physically ache. I am almost paralyzed at the thought of leaving the house: my agoraphobia and anxiety become insufferable. I cry constantly. I have flashbacks to childhood abuse [from my biological mother]. Again, these are ugly truths but they are real.

S has seen all of what I describe and more. He is also cc'd. S has even attended the support group with me. Yes, mom he is INCREDIBLE. I love him and foresee a long-term future with him. But he doesn't cure my disease. Being in love is not a solution for treatment. I've already made that mistake with R.

 I moved out to California for precisely this reason. I need support from my family. I need my family to become a support network as I master my disorder so my life doesn't spiral out of control as it has repeatedly has since I was diagnosed at 16. We're talking 10 years now. Every single doctor I have seen agrees with this diagnosis. I am textbook bipolar. My manic episodes are frighteningly real. You are both welcome to attend the bipolar support group so you can hear how so many other's experience mirror my own. Mom, I love you and I know this is a harsh reality but I am not ruined and I have not given up and I think I have a bright future ahead of me as long as I can master this. This is not something to stress over because I am trying to help myself. Bipolar disorder is like diabetes. Diabetics need to take insulin, I need to take medication and be monitored by a prescribing psychiatrist.

 Please help me.

P.S I'm worried about my upcoming trip abroad. I also want to make sure I have my medicinal cocktail correct before I go abroad. I became manic in London and got kicked out of my program because they thought I was doing cocaine. I've never mentioned it but I got very depressed in Kenya for two months (and literally dragged myself to my internship, co-workers saw a noticeable difference, I lost 20 pounds and looked haggard) and then I became manic toward the end with grandiose ideas of literally, actually saving the world. I'm not Gandhi.

Time Heals

Historically, I always feel emotions very deeply. I write about this, as do others. Not the fact that Bipolar Disorder can mean extreme highs and lows; the fact that we actually feel our emotions on an acute level.

I have experienced the genuine love of friendships in the past few days; not romantic love.
My heart is very heavy; with love. I am at a point of perplexity. I never knew I could feel such a sensation.
I can not seem to find the words for this lingering emotion wrapping around my heart and soul for the past two days.

I am not manic; I am actually very serene. I am high on love and friendship.
I now know I will never let these friendships grow away from my heart ever again.

Blog: http://mercurialmindbipolarblog.blogspot.com/

I've just returned from a whirlwind vacation on the East Coast. My sister got married in Boston two weeks ago and S's family invited me to in northern Massachusetts (which went REALLY well), so we made a Northeast Corridor tour out of it and saw friends in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City.

There is no quick way to summarize this trip other than to say that it has gone much, much better than expected. On top of seeing my entire immediate family- 8 volatile personalities prone to rampant in-fighting (referencing a term usually reserved for describing political factions is perfectly appropriate), I wound up being able to spend at least a few hours catching up with 7 people from different periods of my past

for my memory: B: MCD, DG - PH: SW - in HD: BC & ML - NYC: HG, KC, ZS.

These aren't just people; at one point I've called each one a close friend. 

My time-tested, emotional mathematical proof is as follows:

• close friend + my tumultuous past = graphic views through a shattered window of a chaotic young life 

'Views' puts it mildly; most of these people were dragged into the turmoil. Some - like the friend who flew in for my 21st birthday, only to find me unconscious on my bathroom floor after ingesting the small pharmacy I had meticulously accumulated in the back of my closet - were affected deeply. Understandably, not only did I lose touch with many, but others found it necessary to cut me out of their lives. I was toxic. Not only do I forgive those that had to; I completely understand.

During the weeks leading up to this current trip, each time a lost friend was not only willing, but excited, at the prospect of seeing me became a galvanizing shot of reassurance and proof that the old adage rings true: Time Heals
The above excerpt is exactly, exactly how I feel about all of my friends who have stuck by me or come back into my life. This includes people I saw and all of those I still have the honor of calling close friends. We may not see each other often, but they are all deeply loved and valued. This love is experienced so acutely it my eyes well up each and every time I think about how lucky I am to have the gift of such beauty in my life. My friends are my true family.

Living in fear of becoming manic

A brilliant idea has just been suggested to me to solve a problem I've spent a year having serious anxiety over. Anxiety as in I avoided checking my email for 3 months. I realize it is a really, REALLY big improvement when I am emotionally capable to check my email. When I'm feeling really bad, the amount of crippling anxiety and resulting avoidance, overwhelms me at the thought of checking it. I can't acknowledge that there is an outside world that might be bombarding me with responsibility I just am not up to handling. I am on the board of a non-profit and while I LOVE serving on it, for a while it was inducing paralyzing fear because I was avoiding it but I didn't want to lose my position.

Anyway this problem has 30 women in Kenya relying on me to find a solution - needless to say, it is a lot of pressure and for a while I simply caved under it. I.could.not.handle.it.

So I am feeling better. Which is surprising because I'm actually traveling right now for the next two weeks. Traveling is stressful to anyone and the amount of family and friends I have not seen in a long time even more so. A lot of these friends have seen me during REALLY bad periods. Before I believed my diagnosis & took my medication - I just ran around totally crazy. 

The way my one friend put it: "I just tell people, Anon-bipolar (me:) has calmed down now." It just made think about how I must have come across when I was manic as a teenager and early adult. I remember having so much untapped energy & absolutely no filter or self-awareness. Not to mention a serious binge drinking problem which caused constant bouts of hysteria and violent outbursts which I took out on friends I cared so much about, to the extent that many people had to shut me out of their lives for extended periods of time. I know they will never look at me the same way but I always feel lucky that so many people will still talk to me. It's incredible how looking back through the bipolar lens can make so many actions and so many periods that you have such intent guilt over makes SENSE.

I just went to my sister's wedding. My family is large and there is a serious problematic history. I've upped my Lamictal to 400 mg and have been taking it pretty consistently. This is hard because it gives me headaches. It used to give me headaches when I took all 100 mg at once but now it takes about 200mg to give me the headaches. What really drives me nuts though is that it causes motion sickness for a few hours after taking it. I don't get nauseous unless I'm in a car. I also dug out these samples of Abilify a shrink gave me last spring and am supplementing the Lamictal, Prozac (40mg) cocktail with 5 mg of Abilify. Abilify has been recommended to me by countless physicians but it is 300/month so I can't afford it. I have a months worth and they told me at the bipolar support group that there are organizations in San Francisco who may help pay for meds. It takes a while for any of these mood stabilizers to work so I wanted to start taking them now. S is concerned about it but I'm ignoring it even though I appreciate that he cares.

I'm worried because I am still not sleeping. I was up till 3 am after the wedding and woke up at 6. Not sleeping can prolong a depressive cycle or trigger a manic episode. Because of my manic episode last March and hypomania which may have lasted up till August. I am, in a way, scared to feel better. My excitement over this suggestion to my Kenya problem, which solves a HUGE obstacle I have been clueless as to how to overcome, scares me. 

I don't want to get grandiose ideas about success like I have on so many other occasions. When this happens I then become very depressed when I don't meet such lofty goals. I feel like a failure even though, what I am now realizing, is that this is a result of being manic, not an effect of being incompetent. 

 I need to stay grounded and realistic. I think the best way may be to make sure many people are involved in the process - sort of to keep my thoughts in check. 

When I'm manic or hypomanic I absolutely think I can take on the world.  I think I can go to Harvard and enroll in a demanding grad school program, when in reality, my bipolar mind just can't handle that kind of stress. I've FINALLY been able to admit to myself that it is ok to live a normal, 'boring', STABLE life. I can find contentment in stability alone. It's just so difficult to restrain such racing thoughts because the feeling that accompanies them are SO pleasant, so exciting... you feel so high.

It's much more glamorous and exciting to plan a career saving the world by working for the UN than it is to be a 1st grade teacher. I am thinking about pursuing teaching because I do have a lot of energy for young kids, I would get a chance to implement my passion using a school environment - community gardens in low-income areas, and it has a steady schedule with some time off in the summer. Certainly not lucrative, but another thing I've come to terms with: 

At this point, I would kill for just a 'normal' life. 

My boyfriend S has helped me see a lot of this and I love him so much for it. 

Bipolar Support Group

I've been wanting to go to group therapy because I find the bipolar memoirs I read so helpful, I figured being in a room with other people might be also be comforting - to know I'm not alone.

The group meets every other week and is very informal. The organizer (a guy with two giant tattoos on his face) talked to all of the people who were new (there were a lot of us) & assured us that it was nothing like group therapy. There is not facilitator, people just talk. Conversation casually splits up, one on one or into in a small group.

S came with me, which turned out to be a really good idea; he got a lot out of it too. We wound up talking in a group consistently with two women - K & F - while others jumped in and out of the conversation. One running theme throughout the entire time was talking about what prescription cocktail someone takes. It was actually part of the way people introduced themselves. That alone was so abnormal to me, but then wow, it was such a relief to be able to be open about it to someone other than whoever my current boyfriend is at the time.

K

K is in her mid-40s & has been bipolar for 22 years. One of the first things she said was that there was a 12-year period where she was stable, "I thought I was 'cured,'" she told us. Now she lives with a friend, has given away all her belongings three times. You know how people romanticize about that? Well, I asked her if she liked it and she vigorously shook her head no. In the past two years she has been unstable, lost her job, has not had a home and currently lives with a friend. K has wide, kind eyes, that glistened with unshed tears. She was my favorite person in the group. She just seemed truly empathetic. She admitted that she too had ruined lives (after I divulged about sleeping with my ex's best friend while terribly manic after Hurricane Katrina). She didn't seem like she was giving.

S said he noticed me shrinking into my chair and said he hadn't seen me that upset since I got a prank call from the new girlfriend of my ex, R. That happened in September and I literally fell to the floor because the call came from R's number and I thought he allowed it to happen. (As it turns out, you can now mask a number with someone else's and he was at work with his phone in his pocket.) S assumed that I was upset by K's struggle for stability over a twenty year period.

Funny thing is that I wasn't. I was actually comforted to know that I am working getting stable and have been for a couple years. I was diagnosed as bipolar almost 10 years ago and while it's been an awful ordeal, it hasn't ruined my adult life. I firmly believe that by the time (when I'm 40 something), I'll have figured it out. I'll be able to keep a job and have a family. I wont be 'cured', I'll probably still have to take medicine... but I'll figure it out somehow.

At the group. I broke down a couple of times while talking about my feelings of shame about my past, parents not believing my diagnosis, or frustrations with psychiatrists. But it was a good break down. I certainly didn't feel judged. S was there holding my hand, rubbing my back, and squeezing my thigh. I'm very glad I brought him and even more glad he was willing to come. Everyone around the table knew exactly how I felt because they had been there. 

And that too was comforting.

Insomnia

I go to bed around 10, fall asleep around 11:30, sleep restlessly for a few hours and then -bam!- my eyes burst open, I'm wide awake, dreading to look at my clock because I know the first number is going to be a 3.

Over the past 2 weeks I've been waking up at 3 am no matter what time I go to sleep, how much I exercise, or what over the counter pills (melatonin, benadryl) I take.

Usually insomnia is one of the first indicators that I'm having a full-blown manic episode. Or insomnia serves as a trigger of mania because, like so many other symptoms of bipolar disorder, it can be a case of: Which came first? the chicken or the egg? But I am groggy as hell (in that singular way that only occurs when you stay up all night) and exhausted during the day - which does NOT happen when I'm manic. (Pffft, I have no need for sleep when I'm manic). My eyes sting because they haven't gotten any rest.

At some point during the day, I'll want to sleep but I avoid naps so that I can go to bed. At night, I can fall asleep for a few hours but I keep waking up. Last night I couldn't even fall asleep because of anxiety induced by the dread of another sleepless night. Then I lie in bed for an hour or two talking in my head. Not talking to anyone specific or imaginary, just verbalizing my feelings. So I just lie there, awash in feelings of hopelessness, wondering if these cycles are ever going to end, driving myself nuts, wishing I could have someone to talk to.

My boyfriend, heretofore referred to as 'S' -one of the most patient, kind, and understanding individuals I've ever met)- wakes periodically as I toss and turn and tells me to "relax." Since this has been going on for a while now, tonight I snapped at him: "If it were that easy, I would be relaxing! Stop telling me that! It's. not. helping." I've been snapping a lot lately. A running theme in my life is an inability to get a grip on frustration. (A major symptom of bipolar disorder are bouts of extreme, unpredictable irritability... surprise, surprise.) So thoughts just go round and round. It's so lonely at 3 am even when there is a body right next to. That makes it almost more isolating. I just want to join him in slumber.

It's currently 7:21 am.

I've been deeply depressed, barely treading water in a sea of despair, literally physically aching for 2 months now. While manic I'm invincibly euphoric, nothing and no one can hurt me and there is nothing I can't do. So, if I'm not manic what is happening to me?

Over the past few days, my insomnia has become the catalyst for me to seek help. I hope it will aid someone else if I describe this process to anyone in a similar position, who can't afford traditional, private treatment. Affordable treatment alternatives- in the form of community programs or university public clinics - are completely foreign to me. But I've got to do something to help me sleep and I'm sick of feeling like I'm slowly but surely drowning in personal failure, overwhelmed by even the simplest of tasks, afraid to leave my house, and that I'm a lost cause. And I am really sick of waking up to a glowing, red number 3.

Where to begin...

I've thought long & hard about starting this blog. Yesterday, as I ran 6 miles, I consistently had tears streaming down my face as I thought about all the different entries and all the things I could say. A lot of people don't sob and continue running for an hour. But there are those out there that know the feeling and this blog is for them, but most importantly for me.

I'm currently going through a deep, dark depressive episode. As bad as it gets. I've been this way for two months. 

I've been reading a lot. If I'm honest with myself, I've been reading a lot- too much - since June. Like anything I can get my hands on. Things to numb the pain and distract. Any escape from this reality. Binge reading, let's call it. In June I broke an engagement and moved abruptly, using a manic episode to bolster the energy it takes to get out of a situation I had been unhappy in for some time (I'm realizing partly... no, mostly, my relationship's dramatic demise was because I wasn't doing enough to master my disease). After the medication took hold and after I had moved, I began the typical steady decline into depression. I've been sitting at rock-bottom for a while now.

Lately I've made sure to get my hands on books about bipolar disorder in the hopes I might find some answers or get help. Memoirs mostly. They do, in fact, help. The only problem is that I find most of the authors are 'out of the woods' or stand at the other end of the tunnel 'in the light.' Some authors describe their horror stories in segments or chronological order; other books fall under the category of bipolar self-help books more or less (or at least to me). The latter I find frustrating because all the recommendations are so much easier said than done, and the former I take comfort in but wish I knew exactly what these people DID, during the road to recovery, to feel better. Mastering bipolar disorder seems to be a matter of trial and error above anything else.

I have a very poor memory. I've read that part of the reason is that bipolar disorder itself causes memory loss or certain states are not conducive to memory storage. I want to remember my life, both the good and the bad, so that I can understand what has happened and still does happen to me. I am tired of blacked out periods, or blank periods where no matter how hard I rack my brain I simply can't remember. For a long time I've wanted to keep a journal but haven't been able to find the self-discipline (I lack that in most areas of my life) to write regularly. A driving force to encourage me to hammer out this process - thought for thought, word for word, bit by bit - is that it might help someone else.

I am not 'fixed.' I am not stable. I am not anywhere close to where I need to be. But, finally, I am trying to look at my life through the lens of having bipolar disorder. 

What bipolar memoirs have taught me is that I am not alone in these patterns and symptoms and that they are common with those who have this diagnosis; that they are predictable even. What these books have not taught me are the incremental steps, the day by day stories of struggle, failure, and the success in fighting through this disease.

The spring of 2011 will bring the 10-year anniversary of my first manic episode. This blog is meant to commemorate that milestone. In part, I want to atone for my sins. I've hurt a lot of people and done of a lot of terrible things during the last decade. And in part, I want to track my progress. Get out of my head, have my emotions manifest themselves into words instead of just thoughts that race, that torture, and manifest themselves into actually physical pain. I ache. I hurt so much.

So this blog is for me but also for anyone else who stumbles upon it. I want anyone in a similar state who finds this to know they aren't alone.

And maybe, together, we can find a way out of this.