Alone in a world full of people

As of late I have been extremely manic depressive. It is taking a toll on me emotionally. It drains me. I lay in dark clouds all day that storm upon me in a way that it feels it will never stop. Although it really won't ever go away in a sense. I will always get episodes that drag me deep into the caves of sadness and anger. I have to be honest- while I am in this state I think about my ex husband. How good we were for the first year and a half. I wonder where that went and why it dissolved. Of course I have my notions of why it did and sometimes I dwell on that. I sometimes just have these memories of hint telling me he didn't like me anymore for no apparent reason, or him getting so angry at me, or him just not wanting me anymore. It still hurts. I think of how happy I was on our wedding day and how it means nothing anymore. I loved him and I meant every vow I made and now I feel more cynical about relationships because it doesn't matter how much you love someone or how hard you try to make things better, how many times you ask for more intimacy outside of the bedroom, or that you made vows of love and the other has felt that they only meant theirs when they liked me. I don't understand it. Maybe people will tell I just need to get over it but it's a loss. When someone is gone from your life either by dying or by leaving you grieve. When I am manic depressive the grief comes on strong. But not just because of what happened between me and him.

Sometimes the notion that I will never find someone who will love me whole heartedly, who will care about me and my feelings from the beginning of our relationship, who wants to be around me and finds me to be beautiful in all aspects, someone who will come running to my house when I am trapped inside my dark storm, and who will always appreciate the efforts I put into showing my care, my interest, my kindness for them. The notion that I won't ever find something like that at all devours my heart. I have always been someone who gives love to people. (NO that doesn't mean me showing I am in love with someone). More like I am open with my heart and my kindness. I love to give love to others. I love being in love when I am with someone who brings those feelings to me. I give love to my friends, my family, and even strangers who I show love to by helping when I don't have to. I have felt wonderful love in return. I have been in love a couple times and it is devastating when that love gets lost but I know the heart ache will eventually go away. I let myself give love, and love because it is a comfort that makes many people feel good. I don't need to meet a Mr. Perfect, nor do I need a relationship right now but I fear to a fiery extent that I may never find that person. I do not want to end up alone with no kids and no one loving me truly. I have no doubt my ex loved as truly as I loved him but it vanished. I can't tell you where it went or to whom it went but it was lost.

Mayhaps I will never find a person who cares as much as I do when I am into someone. Could be I never find someone who wants to love with open arms. The world is full of people; my world is full of family and friends that give love to me as well. Yet I feel I am alone in the world. It is hard to put that into perspective for those who don't feel as I do because of my illness. It is different from what the average person feels. Manic depression is nothing to play with. These times are deeply disturbing to me. I am extremely sensitive normally but in these episodes I am even more fragile. When I feel used, or as if someone isn't looking at me with sincere interest I am deeply disturbed and this brings me full circle to my landless in this world. Friends can make me feel this way as well because some people only care about themselves. They make a short attempt to ask you how you are doing and when you tell them I am just awful they shortly ask why yet then don't care to help me through but move on to their own simple issues or repetitive banter about whoa is me. Now when someone is having serious issues, they are severely depressed I do not bring up my small miniscule problems because I care about that person enough to listen, do my best to help, and show genuine concern for how that person is feeling. When a friends doesn't return that it is clear to me that I do not mean as much to them as them to me.

So even if I don't find a healthy relationship in the future I fear I won't always find the genuine friends when I need them most. I have been crying a lot, have been distraught, and have been restless because my mind won't stop but the only people to notice or care to find out how I am doing are my mom, sister, and my friend Chuck. My mom and sister talk to me everyday and I know my mom will do anything to bring me up even if it is just to leave me be while I dive into a book. Chuck texts me everyday with no avail because he knows that I not only have physical issues but mental ones too and he wants to make sure I don't get too far deep into the dark hole. I know if I needed him to comfort me he would come straight over. That's really meaningful to me. He has a wife and kids yet still cares enough to be that kind. I show these people the same respect and love because they mean so much to me. I appreciate them so dearly and what they do to help me. There are others who just seem not to really care. A person I care for does not show me the same kindness and it hurts. It hurts to know that there are only a couple people who are interested in truly knowing how I am and who are willing to come to my aid when I am really to dangerously close to the edge.  I keep my distance usually from those that do not have due interest in me and I do in them because I feel used, passively used.

I know my older sister has a lot on her plate but I know she would also come to my side if I needed her. I know that about a couple people. They wouldn't come to my aid and then start dribbling about some meager thing because they know that at that moment I need them to care, and they know in return I would do the same for them. I like when people show appreciation for kindness and love.

But even with those handful of people I still feel lost in this world, in this universe, in my own head. I feel so very much alone at times. It doesn't matter if my mom, aunt, sisters or whomever is there I fear my downfall episodes. I am nonexistent in this world filled with so many people. I am lost in a swarm of Americans who feel so entitled that they forget to help others or to not be so rude and unkindly. I live in a place where my mental illness is sometimes seen as fake, or a joke, or something one can just get over. I live in a place where I may never find someone who get's it, or wants to get it, or who is concerned enough to come comfort me. To others my mental illness and my physical ailments may be some kind of turn off but I believe that is unfair. I just wish that one day I can find something that is a beautiful relationship that blossoms like lilies in the sun. Where I feel safe and understood and cared for. Where there is appreciation, affection, want, desire, and a love for who I am and what I give to that person. I can no longer let myself deal with someone who neglects me on an emotional level, or on a physical level (not just sex but true intimacy shown through touch and closeness outside the bedroom). I am low on trust lately because I don't believe I can trust someone who could be something different under their shell. I don't know if this will eventually lift but I feel it now. I need someone willing to want me, willing to accept that I want to talk with them on a daily basis when I am interested and who return that feeling, someone that truly looks at me in a light where I am a gem to behold in more ways than outside beauty. I return this when I am interested.

However, this darkness looming above me, through me, has caught me in a struggle. I am lost and scarred. I am frightened by the prospect that no one will give me genuine care, kindness and love that will last beyond a few years. I have been burnt by cheaters who were apparently exclusive who said they loved me. I never want to feel that devastation again because here I sit crying just thinking about how badly the dagger in my back feels. How lonely it is to be lost in your mind wondering where things went wrong or if I have done something wrong. I have a nice life. I have a loving family, and loving friends. I do well at school, and have enjoyment from learning. I am not going hungry, and I have shelter, food, and water. I have help. I have free medical care and meds for my mental and physical ailments. But that doesn't stop my bipolar brain from sinking so low it reaches the center of the earth. I am so alone that sometimes I sleep on the couch to feel as if I have something comforting me because my bed feels so empty. Empty in a way like no one understands but the blame is more on me because I hide my sorrow, grief, anger, loneliness behind fake smiles. I lay all day on a couch reading. I have to thank the authors of my favorite books because they take me into another world. A world where my doom does not exist. My sorrow does not exist in the tales of old times. My manic, mania, manic depression is hidden behind words upon paper while my mind envisions a whole new world where while I create a bond with the characters my depression is not there to find. My world does not seem that wonderful at times because my brain is disposed to making me feel like I am but little to nothing. I wish it was easy to return from these gloomy places or to be able to say I am stronger than my mental illness but being bipolar I cannot always control these episodes. I haven't been sleeping much at night but during the day I feel my eyes growing heavy and my heart crying. I fell the lack of motivation for my life sometimes but I can at least overcome that and force myself to do what I need to do. I feel the sorrow that I have no one to come over and just hold me without any expectation for sex because they just want to make sure I am okay. I miss that. I miss knowing that I have someone to call upon to just come hold me tight without a need to say anything and who doesn't care if I just cry into their chest because I can't shake the dread that is my dark clouds. That is why I love to read. In those tales I can be the character who has that. I can forget for hours that I don't have that companion in my life. Of course my sisters or my mother or even my friend would hold me but it isn't quite the same because sometimes you just want to be held intimately or cuddled up with someone who feels deeply for you and your ache. I am alone in a world full of people. I do not exist beyond my small world to anyone. How could I. I don't know how many people walk by me and don't notice a tear washing down my face, or who don't even acknowledge I am alive. But not all people are like me. I look at the people around me, and when I see some stranger upset I ask how they are or why they are upset with sincere compassion not just to ask.

I don't need a relationship right now. I am not writing this for that purpose. I am writing this because my depression has made me feel that no one would want me because I am this. I am a bit broken, a bit out there, a nerdy mentally ill woman who desires compassion, passion, desire, love, respect, kindness, magnanimity and curiousness. Who will ever understand my curiously of death while not thinking of me as some poor depressed pathetic person. I am someone who is intelligent, creative, dutiful, kind, and so on. Yet I feel that my fake smiles will go on for eternity. I do not want anyone to feel pity for me. I do not want people thinking I am writing this because I feel badly for myself like the whoa is me person. I am writing this for me to even see what my mind and heart are feeling, and to hopefully find out or show someone else that maybe we aren't alone in a world of people.

Whose hand will grasp mine with care? Whose will hold me with genuine affection? Who will comfort me one day when I am low like this? These things I don't know and I am scarred I will never find out. Perhaps I should get used to holding myself tight, wrapped in books and blankets, contemplating why loneliness can hurt as much as a dagger in the back. I may need my fake smiles for eternity until I no longer need to wonder about death because it comes upon me when I am sleeping, or driving, or who knows what. I will not be scared of something I don't know... death... because my curiosity of it tells me it won't matter if there is nothing or something afterwards because either way it has to be better than falling into these episodes of the deepest hurt or the highest high that creates a crazy wild streak that I hate.


Sorry for the novel I am sure most people won't care enough to even read to this point which proves my loneliness in a world of people.


Lea

Divorce of a Bipolar Wife

All I ever did was try and give my love. If it was through encouragement, generosity, at least trying to understand, and giving my love. All I asked for in return was love, affection, understanding of my issues, and an appropriate amount of attention/intimacy. Did me and my husband fight? Of course we did. I feel that is part of the territory of giving a shit. Frankly, for two years we were perfectly good. We lived together alone while yes I did most if not all of the house work usually, and then took care of food and feeding the pets as well. I would get bad manic episodes especially when I was not on my meds but that is something I cannot help. I cannot help that sometimes I feel lost in this big bad world. Or that sometimes I feel in like I am in solitary confinement because those around me will never truly know what it is like to have bipolar. I accept my flaws and am quite up front about them. Here's a small list

1) I can be very high on life during mania and that means I am frisky, I spend money (but never to the point of not keeping enough to pay bills) and I am easily agitated but will calm down after a few moments alone.

2) When I am manic I can be a handful because I am extremely aggregated, and not doing something I find is important makes me very upset. During these times I cry quite a bit, or will be very quiet because I have nothing to say because I am in my own head.

3) I need attention. I don't ask for attention 24/7 but as a sensitive person I need attention from those I love. Perhaps this is not a flaw but some apparently think so. I liked to be hugged, kissed, cuddled, and caressed and I am very upfront about this.

4) When I get angry I don't get normal angry I get raging angry. Everything feels like it is on my shoulders, or I feel too alone, or I feel no one get's it. This is part of my illness that I cannot help.

5) I can become so depressed death is on my mind constantly . To date I have never tried to commit suicide but those thoughts have crossed my mind when I feel I am being attacked for being mentally ill. It makes me feel like I am nothing and like no one will ever understand or just don't want to. These moments are the hardest for me. Especially if they are a mixed episode. I am agitated, irrational, depressed, and I need attention. I just do. I need someone to just hug me and let me cry in their arms. That does the trick. If I am yelling and you yell back it will only make things worse. I you just hold me and tell me it's ok everything is ok, I love you I calm down. My mom used to do it and so did a couple of my ex's and it just did he trick.

These above things are part of me. I cannot in anyway control them on my own. I need medication to help me or I need someone who can be very understanding. If you cannot do that, if you do not take the time to look up and research what it really means to me bipolar then you shouldn't even bother with me because it clearly won't work. I am also a very generous person. I do everything I can for those I love and for strangers (I give to the homeless whenever I possibly can no matter how broke I am). I am very intelligent so I do not like to be treated like an idiot- that will really piss me off and you will get rage mode from me.

I have physical issues I cannot control. I have degenerative arthritis, arthropothy, a bulging disk, a pinched sciatic nerve, and a tear in my hip. This may mean I need help lifting things, walking at times, getting up (which can at time be very hard for me now). I need and cherish understanding. I know have illnesses is not sexy but I cannot help it. I don't need someone telling me to go workout, to tone up, or whatever. I will do what I please and would never let myself become a weak withering little lady. I am still strong but I just have issues.

My marriage to me was my life for the last year and a half. I never imagined that I would be getting a divorce so shortly after my marriage began. I meant my vows when I made them. I truly did. I did not ever intend to let things get in the way of my relationship. Sadly, the last several months have been awful for both sides I'm sure. The second we moved to his mom's we slept in separate rooms which was a red flag to me. I do not want to sleep without my significant other by my side. The difference between us was I don't care how small the bed is I want to be close to whomever I am with. If that is a flaw so be it. When we moved there it was like he reverted back to when he was younger and living there. We pretty much lived around each other. To be quite honest I did not want to move. I didn't. I love being around my family and I liked that we were around each other a lot more. Him sleeping in a separate room, a separate bed and us saying my room or your room was not okay with me. It made me feel alone. Very very alone. Yes of course I would snap and get angry because the second we moved there we lost all our intimacy all of our relationship had turned into something it hadn't been before. When you lose all intimacy then yes you do get very 'needy' because you are not getting what a normal person would find is an appropriate amount of attention.

I fought for it. I did. I wanted the love back, I wanted the attention and affection back. It was gone. It was lost somewhere. We didn't do anything for our anniversary, he last minute got me a card and rose for valentines and for my birthday I took myself to dinner. That didn't seem fair. So yes I was furious. I won't deny that. I feel I had every right to feel that way. I don't care about the gifts I care if you remember that I hate my birthday and so you make sure to distract me because it's what I would do for you. I would do anything for you if you needed it that is how love is for me. I will help you through horrible times and stick around to help even if your an ass because I can be that way too. I will do to you what I need for myself. But when you start pulling away there is not much a girl can do. Every attempt is turned down, every snuggle fest is forgotten. Cute texts are sent between each other and the second you get home there is nothing. None of those cute texts come true anymore. Kisses don't linger anymore no matter how much one wants it. Hugs become a rare occurrence. You get told "you broke them" like you are some sort of drill sergeant. You feel that the other cannot even get through his/her own thoughts of pride to see why you acted or reacted the way you did.

You see someone sitting there all day in fantasy land playing video games and you start to realize that that game gets more attention than you and what happens then? You get mad. You get hurt. You get upset. I played a lot of video games when we lost our first pregnancy but I was also very loving at the same time. However, when you come home to someone who doesn't barely talk to you because he/she is busy with a game, doesn't realize you are crying upstairs in your room for long periods of time you start to realize the other has no clue what they are doing to you. They cannot possibly realize why you are so upset and enraged. They call you the crazy one. You clean, you cook, you take care of business and there is a lack of appreciation. There is no way to get it in their heads that you are not being inappropriate with reactions, that you are being true to what the marriage you signed up for was. Then you realize that there is no caring left from the other side. He/she thinks you just are super different without realizing they changed and it simply made you upset.

The worst part is when you get so distraught from losing the relationship you had that you end up in a psychosis. You hear things, you see things. Things seem so manipulative. Your brain is no longer really yours. It has become its own entity and you are just a passenger in the your own body. Then when no understanding is to be seen you get told you are exaggerating your illness so you can act crazy. No. NO. I would love to not be feeling so crazy. I would love for someone to be there holding my hand throughout the ordeal not the controller. It is not fun to see yourself as someone else during a psychosis. The person in the mirror is not you. This doesn't always last a long time. Mine was maybe a couple weeks and then I got on meds asap. If your significant other goes through this it is because something in their life made them snap. You should look at your significant other, the relationship, and look inward to see if you had something to do wit hit. Pride is hard to get past but in a relationship you need to know that realizing you may have caused an issue or been neglectful then just realize it. It won't be a problem if you can realize it and work with your significant other to become stronger because of it. Do not just give them an ultimatum - deal with the game play or leave. That's not fair. I know marriages are never ever 50/50, sometimes you put more in than the other and sometimes they need to put more in than you but you never leave them hanging. You don't make them feel you are a chore. I listen. I care. I am kind. I am sick and I need affection. That's that and I have always been honest about it. I don't care what others think. People always take their families side or their friend's side and that's okay. I am grown up enough to know that. But during a time when you are going through a dissolution and being told you 'broke' them, when really neglect broke you is hard to deal with. How can you explain to someone that won't hear you that a psychosis comes due to strenuous difficulties that make you snap and that that cause is something that could have been fixed with affection. They don't get. They never probably will if they are too dense to get that you are the same you just had a bad episode. I didn't cause grey hairs all you had to do was love me. I didn't fight like crazy with him everyday. I was actually doing quite well the last few weeks now on my meds. It's funny because you get on your meds, you start stabilizing, and then all the sudden you are too much because you have proof of infidelity. It doesn't matter then though because that truth doesn't come out. A childish game of whose wrong and whose right happens. You cannot admit when you were bad and they can't either. Yet I can. I know I argued for the love I deserved. I know I was unhappy in that living situation because I was nowhere near my husband even when I sat right next to him. I know that bothered me beyond belief and I know I would yell when I would come to a snapping point. Sometimes others have a hard time seeing what they did, how they treated you, or how selfish they could be. I know that I asked for attention and it was not just because I wanted love it was because I wanted to feel cared for or feel like I meant something more than just 'this tucking crazy cunt". I am sorry if my arguments when shit was awful where 'crazy' but to me they weren't they felt appropriate. Maybe I flew off the handle because of my illness but that is only because when you mix a feeling of neglect with a feeling of manic you get the shit hitting the fan. But even when I apologize things need to start being worked on and if they are stagnant they go nowhere. It was stagnant. I did everything I could to get better and not fly off the handle- I got on my meds by my own free will, I started this very blog for therapeutic reasons, and I started drawing and writing to take my illness out on the paper. I gave understanding and even dealt with noting having much attention but that wasn't enough. Apparently being fine for weeks was not enough. Well so be it. I cried my tears. I have moved my stuff. I have yelled and I have talked and I have signed the papers. What can I say? When it is time to end a marriage you would have fought for under different circumstances, which you did fight for anyway, and when the other gives up when things get shaky the only answer is yes we can get a divorce.

Then you turn inward. You find yourself again. You find those friends who were the forbidden before who will help you. You remember what it is like to feel loved because you have friends and family surrounding you with care. You eventually will move past the pain, the hurt, and feeling of betrayal. You learn from your mistakes and may make new ones, but you keep going. He is not my life force. He hasn't been for a long time now as he hasn't been with me with me, just around me. I am not his life force. I don't think I ever really was. I knew what marriage was and I don't think he did. He is younger so that makes senses. The settings of our life changed and he reverted into some stranger. Funny he says he doesn't recognize me, but maybe that is because he has changed and the person he has become doesn't know me anymore only knows himself. That's okay. It's all okay. I can move on. I can now find someone who will take the time to understand what I go through, what I have went through, when I need support and will appreciate all my love, kindness, and generosity even if I am a little crazy. They will learn to just embrace that fact and love me for me. Won't blame me for them being overweight and stressed because really you cause yourself to be that way. No one makes you feel anything. You make yourself feel it. If you can't love who you are, you can't love someone else and that makes YOU feel something because of YOURSELF at that tine. He needs time to grow and mature. I need someone who is already there.

That is my peace. Thank you for reading my novel of a post.

Lea

Insider's Perspective Part Two

I left off my conversation in the last post on how I had to endure a second ectopic pregnancy, and how two months prior I took myself of my meds. The second pregnancy was not as far along as the first, and I had high hopes for this pregnancy. Although I had been spotting but I didn't think much of it. When I went to the ob/gyn I found out my numbers were really low, my hcg was at 90.Because I am high risk they checked my levels every other day because they should double. Well they never did double, they just stayed at 90. We though I may be miscarrying because of the bleeding (remember the first time I had bled internally) but the day my next appointment was to see the doctor I started to feel very ill, faint, started to feel very bad cramping, and the memory of the first pregnancy was haunting me. I waited for the appointment rather than going to the ER which worked out well because my doctor did an ultrasound and found the pregnancy right at the end of my tube by the ovary. He told me to go to the ER right away and he would be there shortly to do the surgery. This time my tube was salvageable. He made sure to clear out any scare tissue and a few months later he pushed dye through the tube and since it passed through it means I still have at least some possibility to get pregnant.

Losing this pregnancy sent me into another deep manic episode. This time it wasn't nearly as bad, probably because I had endured this loss before but it made me feel helpless like I will never be able to have kids on my own without some scientific technology to help, or without adoption.

Now many people would recommend a surrogate who could carry my egg fertilized by my husband's sperm but I absolutely refuse to do that. This is probably my bipolar, and ocd side coming out. If I even think about another woman being able to carry my baby to full term it ignites an anger and sadness in me that I don't normally encounter. Just typing it is making me agitated. So why is that, what is going through my mind? Well I feel that a strong amount of jealousy would wash over me because this person can actually carry pregnancies and feel MY baby growing and moving. I would feel deep resentment towards that person because they got to feel the baby, feel it hiccup, kick, roll, and so forth and I would sit on the side lines wishing I knew what it felt like to have my baby inside me, not her. Maybe that seems selfish or ridiculous because it is a very good option for those who cannot get pregnant but to me I know I would be whirling down the dark staircase.  I would despise the world, and my body and not find any enjoyment because of it. That is simply the way my brain works. Plus I would be even more angered if I got the crazy person that believed since they carried MY EGG and my husbands sperm that it is somehow still also her child. You know why people feel that way even though it isn't there biological child? Because they bonded with the baby through the pregnancy, and thus is why I cannot bear to think about it. I wouldn't get that bond someone else would. Weirdly adoption I would encourage more because while it may not be my biological child it is a child I want and I want to love, a child who was abandoned or given up because the mother knew it be better off. Yes someone still got to feel the pregnancy but I didn't have to sit by and watch it, and it wasn't my egg and sperm that I couldn't carry, it would be a baby that needed a loving home that was already created. There are so many babies that need homes that adopting, rather than using a surrogate, seems much more harmonious with how I deal with things mentally.

Back to the main point- Last summer is when I lost the second pregnancy, and this time video games were not really there to help. I certainly read a lot, and wrote a lot in journals scattered here and there, but I mostly laid on the couch not wanting to do a damn thing. I was so depressed again and I didn't want to have to talk to people about it, or really acknowledge or deal with it. I would snap at little things, small comments made that were meant to be jokes I took deadly serious. It was awful. Sometimes I would just sit and cry, and while it was partly due to losing the pregnancy it was also partly due to the fear of others dying because of all the people I had lost over the last couple years, and then partly because I didn't know how to cope with my mental illness but wasn't willing to admit it. That same year, on January 3,2013 my uncle Ron, who was like a dad to me and had always been there, had died in front of our house, in his car, due to a heart attack. So over the summer I obsessed a bit over the concept of death and what life actually meant.

It made me so curious about what death actually is and how much someone, even my fetuses, felt pain when they died. Did they realize what was happening, at least instinctually? Does their energy just disburse or is it more than that? I know scientifically matter just re-disburses so we could have some of President Washington's atoms inside us, but I think the question of whether something happens to you at death or not is always on a person's mind when someone close dies, even if they say they are atheist I am sure they still sometimes wonder if they are wrong, or if science just hasn't realized what takes place.

These kinds of thoughts running through your mind all the time drag you down into a lethargic, haunting place. It really is quite hard to get back up the ladder, and even harder to deal with little annoyances. I do not know how many times I was super snippy and short during telephone calls or regular conversations. I just didn't want to talk to very many people. I felt left alone by everyone except my husband Nathan. Yea my best friend would try and get me to hangout but I felt like everyone forgot that I was still trying to cope with life. It's like this- If something bad happens to you, and let's assume you are NOT mentally ill, it takes some time to cope but you move one. If something bad happens to me it drowns my brain in depression, anger, grief, annoyance, and very little happiness or enjoyment. Then think of those around you- sure they recognize something bad has happened to you and may even realize that you have a hard time coping due to mental illness but after a couple days, maybe a week or two, they don't think about it much, if at all, anymore. They coped faster because it didn't happen to them, or did not affect them like it does for the mentally ill. This is very aggregating because they forget that you may still be fragile about certain subjects, or make jokes that aren't very funny to you because somehow they remind you of how awful things have been, the dark cloud around you, or the bad event(s) that have happened. Worse still they may also make you feel guilt or bad because you are more distant or don't want to talk for long periods of time, or because you can be very irritable, but guess what? That's just how it is with bipolar people sometimes. You may think well she looks happy and active today, (maybe for a few days), but you don't realize that we cycle through episode so one week, month, maybe just even one day we are manic, and the next day, week, month we are going through mania (hyper, sometimes aggressive, shopping a lot or doing things that aren't that safe or that rational), and then all the sudden we may stabilize for a period of time.
 
Panicking all the time is embarrassing too. The losses in my life have caused me to panic about losing others when I think about how x will die someday, or I panic driving because if I lose control someone could die, or in social places because I fear being around these people and them judging me or getting on my nerves, or prying too much etch. It can be humiliating when you start to shake with anxiety, or start sweating, or even crying and there isn't much you can do besides find a bathroom to be alone in, go home, wait it out, or take an anti-anxiety med if you can. When I lose someone close I tend to have more panic attacks, and when I lost the pregnancies sometime I would panic seeing small babies because I would start thinking how I may never have kids, and what if Nathan would leave over that (he wouldn't but that doesn't stop the panicking).

So it can be difficult and frustrating because others don't understand why you are so inverted, irritable, crying for 'no reason', or just not able to be social or diplomatic. When traumas happen we tend to fold inward and our brains just don't want to deal with other people's stuff because it is having a hard enough time coping with it's own stuff. Being patient may be off the table too. It becomes overwhelming especially when people expect you to do certain things, or act certain ways, or 'get over it already'. I tend to not have very many friends because of this. It can be extremely taxing to have to leave the house and be 'friendly' when you are exhausted from being maniacally depressed and agro.

For all of you out there with bipolar disorder and panic disorder all I can recommend is to try and stay on your meds, be honest when you are feeling manic or mania, and I tend to put things around rooms that are unbreakable so if I get too upset or too angry I can throw them and they won't shatter. For panicking I suggest keeping a rubber band on your gear shift in your car, and one in your purse, wallet or on your wrist. When I start to panic snapping the rubber band against something or my skin can sometimes help bring me back to reality, or at least make the panic attack have slower onset. I have come to realize I don't have control over my moods or my anxiety and I have to accept me for me. I have to be honest with people that it affects and I have to talk about it or I become too overwhelmed. I need meds to control it but I also know I have a tendency to think "I'm fine, I don't need these" or "these meds don't do anything". I realize how wrong I am once I get off them and the cycles starts again about a couple weeks to a month later. I should know better because even on my meds I still go through episodes and panic attacks, just not as bad.
For those who don't have this mental illness, or one at all, take these words seriously. My blog is not a joke and it may seem scattered but that's just the way it comes out. Support is needed when a person is being tried by his/her disorders. Joking, or insinuating that they can just stop feeling that way or acting that way is hurtful and harmful. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it cannot be real. I know it may seem hard to accept these things because they aren't seen, you cannot just take an x-ray of the mind and say oh they are bipolar. It's mental and I think a lot of people equate that to meaning "it's all in your head and not real so just find a way to stop". It's just not that easy and a lot of neuronreceptors are in play. But I should stop here because this has turned into a book. I suppose it makes up for not writing a post yesterday! Thanks for reading, please pass it on for mental illness awareness.

Lea Silva

The Insider's Perspective Manic Depression After A Loss

I often find it difficult to convey to those who are not bipolar exactly what happens, what the thought process is, and what it means. Forgive me if I repeat some things from other posts but I wanted to write clearly the inside perspective, at least in part. This may take more than one post.

I cannot tell you how many times I have gone through different cycles of manic, mania, depression, overtly happy, hyper-focused, etc. I do not know how many times I have fought irrationally, or even started rational and became irrational. It's one of the hardest things to deal with. Imagine feeling like you cannot control what you say, how you are feeling, or even who you are sometimes.

To give a good idea of what it is like I am going to refer to the hardest time of my life because it spiraled me into the worst manic depression I have ever known. Some back story is necessary. I have endometriosis, a disease of the uterus that causes womb tissue to grow outside the womb, causes scar tissue to form, and causes cyst growth. I had had two surgeries to remove this tissue growth and went through a time where my menses was way off. My doctor informed me that I was not dropping eggs on a regular basis which was causing serious issues with my endometriosis. At the time I was dating my now husband Nathan. Not long after we started dating I got pregnant. I knew me and Nathan would be together no matter what so I was ecstatic to find out I had actually gotten pregnant. We were both crying tears of happiness and just so excited.

A few days later I felt a pain ripping through my groin like I had never experienced. Now I have some pretty bad back issues that cause me severe sciatic pain so my first thought was that the growing of my womb was somehow causing bad sciatic pain. I called the Dr and he told me to go to the ER immediately. Obviously I knew I had tried to talk myself out of knowing the truth. I went to a hospital that did not treat me very well, and sent me home saying they weren't sure. The next day, during my finals, the pain erupted from my abdomen. It was so bad I walked out of the class room and when I just about fainted I knew I was losing the baby. I went rushing to my professor, crying my eyes out, and told her what was happening. (she let me do the final at home). I rushed to a different hospital, Metro, and the immediately got me in a room, injected me with diluated (sp?), and prepped me for an ultrasound. Sure enough the fetus was in the fallopian tube, the size of a golf ball and I was bleeding inward, which explained why I did not bleed out which made things a bit confusing. I ended up in emergency surgery bc we couldn't wait or the pregnancy would have ruptured and caused sepsis. I lost my baby and my left fallopian tube.

The fact that I was just told I wasn't dropping eggs regularly and that it may take a long time to get pregnant, if I could, this hit hard. By hard I mean like I was ran over by every single semi in Ohio. I was absolutely devastated. My tube was so scared from endometriosis that the egg was not able to get to the womb. My husband was devastated. It was the first time I saw him cry. I'm crying right now just picturing that moment in the ER when we looked at each other and I started to wail. Now one can imagine how hard this is in general, and then you add on bipolar disorder and it becomes a whole other thing

The couch became my sanctuary where I just laid for hours. Yea I would go ride my bike but I didn't care about it. I didn't care about anything (besides caring about my families well-being of course). I did NOT care about myself. I felt tricked. I felt cheated. I felt anger, rage, sorrow, such deep deep sorrow. I couldn't see a life in my future. I could not imagine how anyone could deal with this or deal with that kind of depression. Now I fall into manic depressive states when other very important loved ones have died, but for whatever reason this one brought me to my knees. I believe it is because I felt my baby dying inside me. I felt my body dying. I felt the world coming in on me. I had the scars to look at. I had the knowledge that now I would have even less chances of pregnancy because I was now more prone to ectopic pregnancies (which it happened again almost exactly a year after this one but my tube was salvaged), and I was missing a tube.

My world filled with darkness. While I got a new perspective on what was important, and what maturity really meant, I was falling down a very demented rabbit hole. I could barely sleep. I stayed up until 6 am many nights playing video games where I could kill monsters because I was so full of anger and sadness that I needed an outlet that took me to a new reality. Me and my husband became closer though. Very very close. He dealt with everything I went through. My non-stop crying days, my silent days, my aggressive days, and etc.

In my mind I felt worthless and like the life I had was nothing anymore. I lost my dad two weeks after losing the baby. Talk about a horrible month. When he died I thought I couldn't grieve for him. Well I did but it was delayed. I had to grieve over that pregnancy first.  I tried to control my emotions, and I didn't do well because I took it out on others by yelling, or by quitting my job, by throwing my manic fits of rage. Finally when it really hit me that I would never get the chance to build a real relationship with my dad I drowned.

Imagine yourself in a dark ocean bottom. So dark you cannot see anything. Lonely and frightening you sit. It starts to feel like things are around you prodding you, hurting you, tearing you apart slowly. Your brain feels like it is just melting, that is the best way to describe it. Just mush. Your thoughts seem to be continuous streams of negative dark thoughts. Then out of nowhere change to self defeating thoughts ( like what if's and imagining what your baby would have been like, how beautiful it would have been, how you and your dad could bond over the baby, how I will never hear my father again, and I will always still be sitting wishing I would hear him on my birthday). You get the point. And then you start thinking- is anything worth it? I am going through so much misery and pain and everyone else is able to keep going and living , so does my existence even matter? Would my lover be better off with someone without problems, who could have a healthy pregnancy, who won't be medicated for their whole life because they are depressed, because I feel so differently day to day or even hour to hour? Would it matter if I disappeared? Would my family really feel my missing presence? Would it have been better to die with the pregnancy? And then it emerged into this

I wish I had died with the pregnancy. How many times do I have to feel so down that it feels like it be better to not exist at all? My body and my mind are against me and here I sit self loathing and pitying and that makes me pathetic. My lover deserves better than me. I am truly nothing ( I did not mean this I the philosophical sense, bc I do believe that in the philosophical sense which isn't as dark as the sense that this was in).

I did not care if I got hit by a car and died, or if I was murdered, or if I simply died from a broken mind. I felt crazy. I felt like I was falling so deep into a hole that I would never get out.

This is what mental illness does. But still more than this. It goes beyond what I have written just now. It is much more complex. To say a few last important things:

Eventually I got into a horrible fight (verbal) with my now husband. I just yelled and yelled and never got what I truly wanted to say across (hang on I will tell you what it was in a minute). I would then break and start sobbing and fall to my knees or lay in the fetal position and he would just suck it all up for me and hug me. He knew. Then I went rage out a couple days later, and I spurred out "I wish I had died" and that's when it all poured out. Every thought I had either knowingly held in or every thought I didn't even know was causing all my manic problems, came gushing out of me. My mind felt like it was on fire. Searing with pain and suffering. If I hadn't had my husband I don't even want to say what I think would have happened to me. He let me get it all out. He dealt with it all. He took me to a doctor who gave me anti-depressants. Big mistake because I flew into a whole other whirlwind so we went back. I literally broke down in her office. I told her all of my dark feelings, and how my anxiety was very severe. She drug tested me!!!!! Can you believe that. Here I am finally being honest and she drug tests me to make sure I am not lying trying to score drugs. REALLY! I passed by the way. (She checked for crack, meth, heroin, PCP, cocaine, and marijuana! Really do I look like I take hardcore drugs or something. I came to you because I needed to be medicated not because I was self medicating). I have been diagnosed since I was like 19 or so. Anyway she put me on my meds and it was a miracle.

I had never been given Seroquel, even though I had asked to try it several times as I heard it combated severe bipolar and anxiety well.

While I still feared that everyone was going to die, or got scared I would somehow lose Nathan to something horrible happening, the medicine smoothed me out within a couple weeks. I was put up to 500 mg total, which I am currently at today, and my perspective on life came back slowly. While I still do go through manic depressive episodes and have anxiety still, the Seroquel helped a great deal. Then klonopin was added thanks to the NP at psych, who didn't feel a need to drug test me. Rolls eyes. Then also lamictal. However, after several months I stopped taking my meds thinking I was fine and normal, and didn't need meds to keep control. Typical bipolar person! Seriously I have never met a truly bipolar person who hasn't done that. This is after I got married to Nathan, and got accepted into the upper division Honors program at school. Guess what? J got pregnant and again it was ectopic. So the story goes on, but not now, you have to wait until later.

To be continued....

Lea