The Worst Tragedies In Life Me As A Woman Went Through

Advisory: This post may be a bit long and if you appreciate hearing about the bad things that have occurred to others or you may need to find some support for read on my friends.

Some days are generally just harder than others. You can control yourself and show no outward signs of distress but internally there is a war. You do not always know why this war has erupted or why a certain thing has been triggered.

A lot of the time my trigger is the pregnancies I have lost. Something happens to you when you have gotten pregnant, been happy, so very happy, about it and then lost them. Forever are the memories of the physical pain that you felt when they were dying inside of you and when you almost died with them. The loss of energy, the sharp stabbing throbs from inside the womb letting you know you were literally feeling death inside you. Every time this happens in your brain, and it will over and over and over again, it brings tears to your eyes. 

I can remember my whaling when I knew. I just knew because I could feel it. I could feel my baby die. It is one of the worst things you could go through. I have been through a lot and I think it is why I have the serious triggers I do. I can tell you, but I will not describe it to you, I am still not ready, that I have been raped. I thought that was the worst thing to happen to me. I thought it had destroyed me for the longest time. I still to this day do not go out that much, or at least not alone because I do not trust many people. That affected me so deeply that I do not have many friends due to the circumstances of my abuse. I just simply do not trust many people. You should feel some honor if I have let you into my little circle of life I hold dear to me. I would only plead you don't destroy it. At any rate, losing those pregnancies was worse.

It may sound dumb to some people because they know women lose pregnancies all the time. Yet when you say women lose their babies all the time rather than they lose pregnancies it doesn't seem so cut and dry. It does not seem like oh she is simply 1 in 4 women. I LOST MY BABIES is what we want to cry out. It wasn't just a pregnancy it was our flesh and blood. It was our children we lost. Most of us never got to meet the children we lost. Regardless of your stand of whether life is sacred, if abortion is okay or not, if a fetus should have rights, when it happens to you, when you lose your pregnancy, no matter how far along you are you lost your child. I do not think I have ever written this thorough on the subject but I guess today is the day and I am not even sure why. Maybe because around this time two years in a row I had become pregnant. Maybe because I am sick of seeing women who lost their children, unborn or born babies, infants, toddlers, adult children whatever, as a statistic that stings every time. Or maybe it's a trigger from seeing so many murder and sexual abuse cases about children lately that it has triggered this. Or maybe, and this is definitely possible I see my two sisters with their children and sometimes it pulls those memories back to me.

Either way the triggers are there. Reminding you what you lost. I know there are many of us who lost our marriages or relationships along with those babies/children. Something was lost when that happened. At one point a bond was made for some of us. A tight bond with our lovers we never thought could be untied and then one day it fell to pieces. Losing the relationship is hard. It will never be easy especially if you were married and it takes time to repair yourself and for some of us longer because of circumstances in which it all ended. But you had already lost a part of yourself with those pregnancies and gained something new as well. Something changed internally, at least for me. Things I had thought were so important, so in my face, and so always there became nothing to me. I realized I had a dark tint on my eyes not letting me see the most vital things in life. So while to most I may seem like a very introverted loner, which I am totally, and I may even seem callous sometimes or shy, really things that are outside, like binge drinking or partying all the time or whatever thing I made more important than those things around me are now so futile and silly that I just let myself relax and take time to live. I gained an insight when I lost part of myself that not many people get or they do not accept. There is a way to be comfortable in the world without following everything everyone else does, or doing what you think you should be doing based on what has been spoon fed to you based on your society and culture. I even became more welcoming and satisfied with the way my appearance was. And I can tell you that was never true before. 

I can also tell you before losing those babies I was sometimes a wreck. Being raped can leave you feeling worthless about yourself. You may feel guilty for numerous reasons, disgusting, alone in a world filled with billions, suffering, and so so very blue. This can take over. It will destroy you if you do not get control of it. I would binge my way through life not giving any care for myself besides who I was around. I would drink until I couldn't remember. For the longest time I didn't, well I wouldn't talk about what happened to me or my response to it. I simply did not want anyone to know how vulnerable I was, or how vulnerable I made myself is really how I saw, and sometimes still do. Something clicked in my head though when I lost those pregnancies. Something told me that no matter what you are vulnerable and it is not a perfect thing but there is not much you can do. Your body will deceive you. It will hurt you and it will fail sometimes. Life will always do this to you. Because of this you need to realize what is truly important to you. Is it drinking all the time to rid yourself of your issues, or for some drugs? Is having a million and one friends truly important when you know that only a few are really going to be there always? Is it worth it to not love yourself? NO. It simply isn't. There are so many people who could read this and would be the ones to brush it off and not think twice about what they truly want in life. But I am not going to worry about them. They will either figure it out or simply will not.

I can say this though- having people who show you love, care, kindness, affection, happiness, hilariousness, sincerity, and true friendship (which is definitely also in romantic relationships) is where it is at. We can have great jobs, enough money to eat the greatest foods and wear the best clothes and drive the nicest cares but if you don't have sincerely loving people to enjoy it with it is worth nothing. If you do not simply have sincere and honest people around you who would be there always then your life is missing the crucial piece. We all need to love ourselves thoroughly and it can be so hard, and even harder to realize making BIG mistakes can just be a part of life that makes you better if you are good, but having those around you who are willing to help you realize that, or help pick up those broken pieces, or be the loving humorous friend who is just the person that accepts you for who you are you will feel alone and lost. 

I do not know if life ever gets easier for anyone. I doubt it. Even if you are rich and can pay for your problems to be solved more will arise. Remembering what is truly good for you what is wonderful in life is a gift. The pain I have endured throughout my life has not been easy. It in fact has been extremely challenging and it has negatively affected me in many ways. I still have these days were life seems helpless and I am down from what I have lost, or imagining what my life would be like with the babies I lost, even without my ex husband, and what kind of person I would be without those loses and without the rape. Death has occurred a lot in my life as well and I always wonder what if when it comes to them and it drags me into weird places that can be so depressing it is like having your mind locked in a dark damp disgusting cellar. But then, when all those tragedies build up and make life feel terrible, or like I am terrible, I remember they all made me who I am today.

I am humble to those who have donated to me to get me through rough patches, who have been by my side even when I seemed off my rocker, and simply just accepted me as a flawed, bipolar maniac at times and still loved me. While I would wish those things on no one and I would choose never to have to feel death inside me, or my own death looming, or being sexually abused in such a nasty way, it has made me stronger. It has made me courageous, honest, loving, caring, empathetic, affectionate, intelligent, introverted in just the right way for me, a non-alcoholic, a person wiling to give attention when you call upon me. It has also made me weird. It has made me find it necessary to find humor in small things and be a goof whenever I feel. It has caused some negative things- I sometimes am a hermit and do not want to associate with too many people in one day because for me it can be devastatingly exhausting, it has made me prone to social anxiety and even working anxiety, and has made me scared to ever want to get pregnant again or fall in love so deeply I make myself supremely vulnerable. Those things though are workable. Those things people who know me can understand why I do them. But the good things all people don't have or aren't willing to be. I am someone who experiences manic and mania and can accept the crazy in people and I usually gravitate towards it but others cannot do that or refuse to try and understand how to be there for you when you get that way but I have it because of all those tragedies in my life. So even when you feel lost in this world, alone, depressed, even suicidal think about how those negative awful things have made you somehow better or wiser because they have. Tragedies give us something we didn't have before while taking away a small part of us with them and that's OKAY. 


If you really read this whole post I thank you for being so generous with your time and hope I educated you, helped you, or at least somehow entertained you for the few minutes you had to read. 

Lea

What a Mind

I have not wrote a blog post in awhile. I don't really know why, perhaps because I have been happier or maybe I just didn't feel like telling the world how I was doing. I met someone wonderful and amazing who keeps my spirits up (for the most part, but that isn't his fault). I fell in love with him and I feel so safe with him. I have told him things I hadn't even told my ex husband or really anyone for that matter. Matters that only my family really knew. It is nice feeling like someone is there with you and has your back; someone that says I love you back and his words actually sound like they mean it.

However, even though I feel happy I still have this internal struggle. I don't think anyone really gets it unless they are mentally ill, or have had a serious trauma. How could they? I don't know what it is like to be shot because I have never been shot so I cannot expect people to understand my brain or emotions. I have had this thought on my mind about how I had wrote this one blog post denouncing the love I had for my ex husband, it was just to make him angry and once I knew he saw it I erased it. Who does that? I guess that shows how hurt I was that I felt the need to hurt him back. I don't know why I thought about that but I did. Maybe because I still feel hurt. I don't have to be still into him for it to still hurt. I think what hurts more is I keep thinking about the pregnancies I lost. Like to a point where it feels like I am in those moments all over again. And why won't it stop? It doesn't make any sense for me to keep thinking about that for no reason. Maybe I fear I will never have any children and it's because I see my lovely little sister going through her own pregnancy, which is wonderful and I am over the moon that it is going so well for her. Either way it is still stuck in my head. I feel the lump in my throat when I think about it. The seize in my head from the pain it causes me. I don't want to end up that woman without kids even though that's what she wanted since she was a young girl. I am not in any rush. I have a lot of schooling ahead of me and I am in no position to have a child right now anyway, but I'm not ready. However, that nagging feeling is still always back there taunting me. Never leaving me alone and I have no idea how to make it stop. I don't like being so emotional and not wanting to talk about it with anyone. No one can make it better, and nothing but time can tell me if it will ever even be possible. It's such a sickening thought. What I think is even worse is when I think of what would have happened if those pregnancies went to term? Would my ex have kept liking me, would I have even kept liking him? Probably not.

So what do you do? What do you do when something tragic won't leave your brain no matter how much you try and distract yourself? It just gnaws at you. If it's not bad enough already being overly emotional, even on meds, then you have that fighting inside your brain. It's deafening. Not to mention the stress that I feel I am under. I have to ace my finals and I have to ace the GRE which I don't feel ready for but have to take Dec. 30th. Hoping to get into a prestigious part of CSU that is very competitive.   How do you get it together? Well I don't think that ever actually happens. You are always in this state where things can go better, or you could be doing something better or you could be blah blah. Is this what life is? Just some constant waiting game that is always ongoing and once one thing is achieved a million other things still need to be. Never feeling ready for a lot of things or maybe just not motivated to. I always tell myself I will get the things most important to me done but that doesn't always happen.

I try to tell myself that I am stronger when I am not. I try to convince myself that the constant nagging in my head will one day stop, even though it probably never will until I'm jumping out of a plane to my death. I guess that's the 'beauty' in life. Never knowing what will happen; never being ready; never understanding fully; never having no cares at all; being afraid of a thousand things. Without it life wouldn't be interesting. Without making mistakes living would be boring. Without loss you may not learn to truly love. Without loss you may not ever find out the things that you may really enjoy. Without trying or letting yourself experience things, huge or tiny, you won't ever know if you truly wanted it or didn't want it. How could you if you never take the steps towards those terrifying things.

Life isn't really bad. What happens can be bad but your life isn't out to get you. Chance is. I will never be able to stop it. I will never understand why awful things happen to me or why wonderful things happen. But being afraid is okay as long as it doesn't stop my life.

A stinger of disike, but a lot of love to make up for it.

Yesterday was the day of my final hearing for divorce and my marriage was dissolved. While in the courtroom me and my now ex-husband were nice to each other; it's an awkward situation why make hard on yourself by not being nice? Afterwards he wanted to talk to me and I said that was fine. He wanted to get some things of his chest and me off mine. However, I did not expect the words that came out of his mouth.

He said "I just started not liking you", "I disliked you". I asked why?, what have I ever done to make you not like me?, I did everything I could for our marriage because that's what you're supposed to do. I would sit and cry for hours alone in my room because I felt so unhappy because you didn't want anything to do with me and all I ever did was try. He responded with he didn't know why he disliked me. He doesn't dislike me now but he did then. He told me he was purposely pulling away/pushing me away. I felt that this was just so bad because it felt as if he used me for my trip to the Marlboro Ranch. He said of course that that wasn't it he thought that would bring us closer. I don't know that I believe that because my birthday was right after that trip and he didn't care enough to plan anything for it. He bought me a gift and after I got really upset he bought me a card and roses but then when the next day came we got into a huge argument and that's the first time I heard the words "I can't give anymore of myself to you, I have nothing left" spoken to me. I said this stuff to him yesterday. I said you didn't care, you weren't the man I thought you were, last year you did everything to make my birthday go by happily instead of sadly (I hate my birthday because I shared it with my grandma and she passed, and I miss all my dead relatives on that day so I am usually quite upset on my birthday). I also said " You weren't giving anything so how could you not give anymore? I gave everything and all I kept fighting for was love and affection." He replied that he had supported me for a couple of years and couldn't do it anymore. He didn't dislike me because I was bipolar or because I was injured and have a lot of physical issues. But it certainly feels like that. He did used to care and he would help me but he stopped that awhile ago. I even asked about after the second pregnancy why he distanced himself and he said because I was mean about the way he reacted (He shut himself down and I felt like he abandoned me in pain and emotional turn down and all I asked was for him to talk to me and be there). I never restricted him but he felt that I did. He can feel anyway he wants but that doesn't mean that I did that. I never said don't go workout or ride or eat healthy. He even said he has the grey hair to prove how stressful it was and he was 'literally dying from hypertension". I replied that I lost my hair and was left to cry alone. Neglected because he 'didn't like me anymore". But you know what maybe he stopped working out because he felt guilt for 'not liking me anymore' and for the way he was treating me. Maybe that stressed him out because he knew it was wrong and a husband should be there for his wife. Maybe he needs to look internally to see the damage he did to himself. I wish he had been honest and just said he didn't want the relationship before we moved out in December. That would have made life easier. I am not going to talk about the rest of our conversation because that doesn't need to be public. But this part of it really stung.

Now it didn't sting because I am in love with him, it didn't sting because I wanted to keep the marriage because I didn't and don't. It stung because as an honest woman I put all my efforts into that relationship because I had made a commitment. I was not about to turn on my word regardless of if I was very unhappy the last several months of our marriage. I was willing to try because I gave my word. He wasn't. He left the relationship. He went into his own world and then started projecting things onto me (like his silver hair and hypertension). I didn't do those things to him. I may have fought and been emotional because I felt as a wife I was not getting the love or affection I deserved, but I didn't leave the relationship. He told me I had changed, but I explained that I only changed because he was gone and he was not there for me. He wasn't acting like who I thought I knew. That changes a woman because her emotions get all tangled because she doesn't understand what she could have possibly done besides give everything to deserve it.

So what's the point of this blog besides to vent a little?
I don't mean to make him look like a jerk, I am simply putting down what he gave me yesterday. I am not making this post to make myself look good and him bad. I just want people to know that by using a person, neglecting them, or 'leaving the relationship' while still in it, or by not being honest about how you feel you can crush the other person. You can make the other person feel so badly that they break like I did and go into a psychosis. You can hurt them so badly that they become extremely emotional and off the wall. He apologized yesterday and I believe it was sincere and that is all I wanted but I did not leave the conversation okay. I didn't feel closure really. I felt anger. I felt a lot of anger. I felt used for that trip I really do. I feel manipulated like he got me to move and then when we moved he reverted into this person I didn't know and our ship started to sink. I feel like it may have all been on purpose because he felt he would at some point end it. If you don't like who you are with do not torture them. Do not stay in the relationship because you will make them feel worthless, ugly, and perhaps suicidal like I was. Yes I am saying it flat out, there were days were I wondered if I would be better off just gone from the world. I couldn't be happy in my marriage, my husband didn't seem to care about me anymore, and nothing seemed right at all. But something happened when I packed my bags and then he said a divorce was in order. A pressure lifted off of me. I was hurt of course because who thinks that is fun, and who likes being unhappy in a relationship someone made a commitment to be in and then left it while still in it? No one. But a weight lifted. All the sudden I felt I didn't have to walk on eggshells with my mental illness, I didn't have to "not complain" about my body hurting (like saying 'man my hip is killing me everyday" and not wanting to say anything for fear it was 'unattractive' as I felt I was being a bit of a cripple). I no longer had to fight for something that was tearing us both down. Something that made me unhappy and clearly him unhappy. Something that wasn't meant to be. All the sudden I could be free from the stress of trying to save a severely damaged marriage that made me miserable.

Do not let something go on if you are not happy. I am at fault there too because I was super unhappy as months passed and he pushed away but I kept trying. It's all I had so I kept trying. However, if you can't like yourself you can't like who your with, and maybe he started disliking himself so he started disliking me. I have no clue but don't do that to a person you once loved or do love. Just be honest. Don't make them feel used, or manipulated by the actions you take because even if that isn't your intention that's what it feels like. Let them go.

Now the last month and a half I have grown my hair back, lost weight, felt happy and stable like I said in my last blog. But there are several reasons why and now I will be honest and say what they are. I have been elusive about the matter.

First, my family. My mom has been my rock ever since I was a child and she still is. No matter what we go through she is there picking me up or me trying to pick her up. She has made me feel so loved that even just writing this is making me tear up. She has let me cry on her shoulder, talk as much shit as I want or don't want, has listened, and has talked to me and made me feel better. Everyday she gives me a hug and a kiss at least once and tells me she loves me all day long. She takes care of me right now and I don't have the words to thank her properly.

Second, I have my sisters. Lauren I now live with and if you knew her you'd know how funny she can be and how kind and caring she is. She has talked shit with me because that's what you do when you leave a relationship and you're angry lol. She has vowed to help me with my surgery making my life easier and she doesn't have to do that. She has taken me out shopping so we can have fun couponing and it was a great distraction. She always has a story to tell and it brings me up. She too always hugs me or gives me a kiss and we always say I love you to each other. My older sister Tiffany has also been there. She has helped me through the process, took me to the divorce hearing, talked me back up from a collapse in tears, and has supported me. She too always says she loves me. She is also helping me with the surgery and is taking me to it and I know if I need her I can call her and she will be right there if possible. My littlest sister Emily is just adorable. While I haven't seen her too often over the last month and a half she did something so sweet that I will never forget. For doing so well in school and getting her grades up I gave her my old camera that started my love for photography. She loves photography too and is very good at it and she is only 12. When I took it to her she read the letter I gave her before opening the present. She threw it down, started crying and hugged me in a way that I will never forget. That moment I will never forget. EVER. She showed appreciation on a level out of this world for an old camera. She made me feel appreciated in that instant. She hugged for a few minutes and didn't want to let go. She showed me what love she had for me and what appreciation looked like. My nephew Ben was also quite funny but I won't put what he said here. He always shows his love for me and that brings me up too. He is a funny little man and I am thankful he is in my life.
My friend Tina and numerous others have also been there for me to push me back up into a place where I know people truly care about me. Even my friend Fran, who I have not met but chats me up online has been there for me. That is something I am eternally grateful for. Also, since I have edited this three times as my mind plays tricks on me, let me thank my Aunt carol because not only did she buy one expensive cab ride home from me to help me out, she is constantly sending me uplifting texts, and comments on my Facebook and they really do mean a lot to me. I love you!


So my advice for those who are unhappy in their relationship, if it seems the pieces will never make sense, if happiness is not readily available for either of you, if you have lost what you thought there was, then it wasn't meant to be and let it go. I should have let go sooner, and he should have let go sooner. We should have waited to see if marriage was really something that was right for me and Nathan, and if we had we would have not gone through what we have in the last several months. To be in an unhappy relationship is unhealthy. If you leave a relationship and don't feel a severe loss, you don't feel like you lost love because you have been so unhappy then you know that relationship is not for you and you don't ever need to be a part of it again. Sure you may be upset, it's natural, and you may be sad that things went the way they did, but know that it wasn't meant to be and that is okay. Like me and my mother have. Like me and my sisters and nephew have, and like me and my friends have. Don't be fooled into thinking because you made a commitment that you have to stay apart of it if the other one is pushing you and you know it's because they aren't in love with you, and they aren't right for you.


Love is something that evil shouldn't be able to take away.

Lea

Terrifying Feelings of Surgery

In about six days and ten hours I will be getting a pretty serious surgery. This is the procedure that is documented to happen on my PT script: Scope/Labral Debridement/ Labral Repair/ Femoral Osteochondroplasty/ Psoas Lengthening/ Capsular Repair/ Capsular Plication / and Microfracture.

What this all means is I will have my labrum in my hip socket repaired and anchored. They will clear out all extra debris. They will suture the ligaments around my femoral neck, while also reshaping my femoral neck. Then Microfracture. This is pretty terrifying as this means they will drill lots of little whole into my bone so that stem cells will reproduce and grow new cartilage in my socket. Now this is kind of scary since I have heard it is quite painful to heal from. All this will be quite painful to heal from. My hip has been hurting me so badly this last year that I am actually excited for this surgery to occur because I can't take the pain anymore. It's awful. Not only was I left not being able to do all the things I wanted, I started having limited range of motion. No not because I didn't work out enough but because my femoral neck grew new bone and so when I try to raise my leg the next bone gets in my way. It's quite awful to be frank. I have been doing what I can to strengthen my leg more so the healing is easier on me. I will be wearing the bionic woman brace which will be so fun! Plus the rebound crutches.

With all the stress from the divorce and moving into my mom's again I started smoking a lot more. So I have actually been utilizing my E Cigs to help me cut down because no one, not even me, is smoking in the house after my surgery because it is such a big procedure that I don't want any chance of infection. Emotionally I have been up and down and I have finally become more stable. My anxiety is still on high alert but I think that for obvious reasons that is not surprising. It's difficult thinking about walking into a court house in 3 days and a wake up to get a divorce and then three days later will be in an operating room. I'm just grateful the divorce is before the surgery.

I believe I was so stressed inside my marriage that I lost some of my hair. I say this because it was noticeably thinner, my skin was duller, and I just was becoming more and more unhappy from lack of a lot of things. Now it's crazy my hair has actually become a bit thicker which was pointed out to me. My skin is finally looking better, and I have lost weight. Well that may be from the extra workouts and the couple attempts at riding before my surgery. I ride flatland and I just haven't been riding because the pain is a lot of times overwhelming so I decided forget it I might as well ride a few times before surgery because full recovery is six months. Then I will have three months of non stop physical therapy and who knows if it will go longer. That depends on my lovely hip which has dysplasia. Wish I had known that a year ago but I cannot say every radiologists does a great job.

My life is changing in crazy ways and sometimes it all makes sense. Even though some of it is bad it led to me realizing what I want and don't want. Plus I will finally get this hip taken care of and that's a blessing in itself. The pain physically from the hip and the back, and sciatica, mixed with bipolar emotions, anxiety, stress, and then of course the feeling of neglect do not mix well together. It's weird because at one point in my marriage my soon to be ex seemed to care that I was hurting and would help me, and then that stopped. I don't know that he lacked complete care but he even said "I'm going to stop coddling you" which I thought was strange. I don't think it is coddling when I am legitimately hurt and in pain and need help sometimes. Shit I almost fell flat on my face today when my lovely hip gave out on me. That was fun. I guess I don't get why people stop either believing your pain is legitimate or why they think it's good to let you just struggle to do stuff. I suppose it just got tiring for him but my family has not grown tired. My little sister is actually working all nights for a week so she can help me which is awfully nice of her. I have good friends that have been here for me through all the stress and bringing me back up, and I have my wonderful family. My days aren't sad anymore. It's a nice feeling. I don't feel like I have to walk on eggshells because I am a little crazy and some people just can't deal, even when they knew I am who I am.

I know I am all over the place with this blog post. I just guess I have a lot of different feelings at once I want to release. I don't understand the world sometimes but things start falling into place and then everything all the sudden makes sense. All I want is an apology. I know I can be a pain, I know I need to be medicated, I know I need a lot of help physically sometimes or I just get worn out from pain. I know those things about myself. But I also know that I still show care and I still show love, and kindness. I don't just leave that behind me. I don't just give up even if I really want to. I know I wasn't the only one unhappy. Maybe his unhappiness rubbed off on my unhappiness and then it fell apart. But to be quite frank I'm not even mad. I don't actually mind at all because that was not the type of relationship I want to be in or anyone should be in because all was lost. There was nothing. It was a separation within a household. Two people - one fighting for things to be OK because I'm just that way and the other well whatever. Now in a few days it will be over. That part of my life will be gone. It won't feel so weird anymore maybe because it will be legally done.

My life has changed dramatically in the last couple months. I have gone from extremely low, to the point where there were times I contemplated killing myself, to a state of shock, to a place where I felt safe and taken care of, and then finally stability. STABILITY. Something I haven't seen in a long time. I feel confident in myself once more. I feel happy to wake up and not feel pressure to be perfect or not be 'crazy' when all I ever was was me trying to feel happy, trying to feel better. I love waking up in a house where people don't give up on me and help me. Where people tell me they love me with sincere genuine love. Where I get hugged and complimented and told you're a good person, a kind person, a beautiful person. I get helped up again when I can't get up. I get help up stairs or down stairs and I get understanding when I need to be on a couch all day because my entire leg is on fire and my hip feels like it's crumbling beneath me. I haven't felt the way I feel now in a very very long time. I just haven't and there's no point in lying. I haven't been in my room crying for long periods of times or needing to take a shower so no one can hear me cry. No staring at myself and not recognizing myself anymore. I feel alive. I feel well. My issues will always be with me. ALWAYS because I have mental issues and physical issues but I am around people with a very deep understanding of that, of me, and what I go through. My mom said to me today that it doesn't matter if I need a painful procedure because I'm tough as hell. I walk around and get shit done even though I am always feeling pain. I may need a nap because it's exhausting but I get up and do what I need to do. Last year I worked on this hip, and stood for long hours on this back and some nights would leave in tears once I reached my car because the pain was horrible. But I had shit to do and bills to pay and I did what I had to do. I got through it. I get through it. So even if this surgery is painful, even if it does take me several months to have an almost normal hip, I am tough. My mom watches my struggle everyday and she told me today "you're tough as hell you can get through it no problem if you can get through everyday with that pain". That is encouragement at it's finest.

I just want to thank everyone who is there for me. Everyone who is helping me. Who is going to be helping me get through my surgery and recovery. I love all of you so very much. I couldn't be happier right now, and maybe some people think that's fucked up but it's not. He asked for a divorce and it turned my health and life around to a stable, happy, comfortable, encouraging, supportive and loving new leaf. So I will report back after surgery since I will have a lot of time on my hands.

Thanks for reading.

Lea

Bipolar happy about divorce and Setting things straight

My final hearing for dissolution is on the 16th. I am good with getting the dissolution as I don't want to be with somebody like what my husband turned out to be. I find it sad that he blamed me for his weight gain, stress, sleep apnea and high BP. It really isn't my fault he sat on his ass all day playing video games. I guess him saying that really got under my skin because not only could he not respect me enough to not cheat, then not even tell me the truth even though I had 100% proof, but now he is blaming ME for his actions. I'm sorry but I know when people break up they try to make themselves look like they did nothing wrong and blame the other for all these things they probably didn't cause so I am not surprised he is saying it is my fault since he is super self absorbed and cannot take responsibility for his own actions.

I never force fed him the candy, chips, and whatever else he ate. Nor did I tell him not to workout or go get healthy. Actually me and his mom tried to get him off the video games so he could get off his ass and all he did was yell at us. Then of course he now is saying how I didn't 'allow' him to watch dragon ball z and didn't let him play video games. I find this quite hilarious since we used to argue because he never paid much attention to me but would sit in front of that TV and play video games all day, and while I was busy doing house work or homework he was watching his anime shows so I have no clue how that equates to me not 'allowing' him to do those things. Clearly he is a person that needs to get attention and sympathy for something that isn't actually true. It's quite pathetic that he cannot take responsibility for his own actions, and then lies on top of that accusing me of not allowing him to do things he constantly did to the point where he neglected me because he was in front of that TV all damn day unless he was going early to school to 'study' or doing his homework which he had ME help him with and edit his papers yet I was such a horrible person right.

He told me he thought I exaggerated my mental illness-which is bull shit because there are plenty of days where I wish I could feel normal. He told me how I needed to work out, and do more squats so my butt didn't sag! That one hurt. He also downplayed what was going on with my hip. He would tell me how I need to get over the pain, would send me links to stories about how pain can be all in your head, and would say I shouldn't get surgery. Well guess what? My femoral neck is not curved like it should be; it is straight and rigid with new bone growth and on top of that I have natural dysplasia (shallow socket) so I guess that was all in my head right. So I guess it really burns my britches that he said that stuff and tried telling me how I was doing it all wrong and needed to work out. Yet I did at night. I didn't do much no but I did squats, I stretched and I did do crunches right before I went to bed. I workout more now because I am so close to surgery that I need my muscles to be nice and strong. I also have been riding because I figured my bone needs to be reshaped anyway and the tear is going to be fixed so why not get out there and ride flatland bmx. I am strong yet I don't think he ever saw that in me. I may have married him for the wrong reason- because we had lost a pregnancy together- but the man I married did care, helped me get up and understood I had a mental illness and accepted it. The man I am getting a divorce from is someone I don't even know. He is selfish, lacked any empathy for me, seemed to be instigating me so not only could he hold my temper ( my bipolar temper) against me but I think also he wanted to either make me distance myself from him or he wanted to distance himself from me because he was no longer very nice to me.

Here I am going to talk about what I did wrong and take responsibility for MY actions without blaming HIM for them because I am a mature adult. I did not get back on my meds which was a bad decision because that made me feel a lot more, made me feel manipulated, made me get angry very quickly because I was irritable, and I ended up fighting with him because I felt he never gave me enough attention (I felt very neglected and alone). Yes I can be a pain in the butt because I can become very irritable, depressed, hyper, or angry. I know those things about myself and I was honest from the second we started dating. I felt so neglected that I went through a psychosis that led me to be even more paranoid about feeling manipulated, I got upset very easily, and yes I would yell. I would let him know that him playing all day on his Xbox affected me very negatively, and no I didn't always do it in a nice way because sometimes I would get so frustrated I would just yell. When my birthday came around this year sure he bought me a $75 dollar ukulele but he didn't even buy me a card until two days later when I had flipped out. I took myself out for dinner. He never did take me out to eat. He then convinced me to stay at home rather than drive through the snow to go to Sephora because I wanted to treat myself if no one else was going to (him). He said we would go the next day after my family birthday party. When we were leaving I asked if we could go and he was like 'I don't really feel like it I want to go home" but I brought up our previous conversation so he gave in. While there I picked myself up makeup and he decided to pay for some eye shadow saying " girls like makeup that should make you happy." WOW right. It amazed me how dense he was about the whole thing. On my actual birthday he had stated how he had dropped the ball and felt really bad yet got mad when I was really upset because he still had planned nothing even though he knew I was hurt so fuck yeah I yelled. It was like he waited to go on the trip I won and then was trying to instigate me to leave or something. When I got super upset about my birthday that was the first time he said I can't give anymore- How could he not give anymore if he was putting nothing into our relationship? If I asked for more attention he got livid, if I asked him to play less video games he freaked out, he maybe spent a few hours a week actually being close, but mainly it felt like he was using me to help him with his homework. It made me feel worthless to the point I slipped into that psychosis ( which is when he told me he thought I exaggerated my illness).
These last several month have been horrible and while I may have gotten into arguments because he instigated me, or ignored my needs, he is the one who made himself the way he was not me. He gained weight by sitting on his ass for more than 12 hours a day playing games which caused sleep apnea because the more weight you have on you the more likely you are to have sleep apnea. He got sleep apnea from gaining weight which caused his high blood pressure. I had nothing to do with that. He stuffed his face with whatever he wanted - I didn't force feed. He can go tell people I "verbally abused" him because I know the truth. He can't handle being told you are wrong, you are neglecting your responsibilities of being a husband, being told you are selfish and all you care about is yourself, being told that you are being an asshole because you are yelling at me for childish bs, or that you are a coward and a self absurd douche when I found out you cheated so if that's what you want to call verbal abuse go ahead and make people feel pity for you because it's pathetic.

I am not sad about the divorce because I felt so alone. I felt so stressed. I felt so neglected by the person who made vows to always be there and then said his vows weren't as serious because I changed, when really he reverted back to being a teenager who couldn't understand what a marriage meant. This is why I am happy - because I now get to have better things come my way. People who actually care for me. People who give me love and affection. People who I can trust. I am not being told I am either lazy because I have limitations, or that I need to workout more or make sure to do more squats so my ass isn't saggy. I get told how beautiful I am without anyone prompting. I don't get told "you don't get pretty for me" (meaning I hadn't put on makeup because apparently that is when I am pretty). I get told I am beautiful without my makeup on. I am free from feeling secluded. I am not getting my mental illness hung over my head and my physical conditions are not being downplayed or treated like they are in my head because my family and friends care enough to go to the doctors with me, to see what is actually happening to me and how I am doing. I know I was never truly in love with Nathan because what we had was based of a bond we made from losing a pregnancy and he became so distant that I started not recognizing him. I don't think he was truly in love with me either because when you are you accept all the flaws and perfection of a person. You accept their mental illness and if you can't you don't ask them to marry you and then all the sudden say you can't take it because vows are through thick and thin. He didn't truly love me. I heard when he first hung out with me he was acting like I was a 'trophy fuck' because I rode bmx and was pretty and whatever else so I think when I couldn't ride, nor be a baby maker, all the sudden I wasn't attractive. That isn't true love. I stuck through it even when I was unhappy because I did marry him. Even if he was the wrong man or not the man I wanted to marry or be married to I made vows. I guess these things have been bubbling under my skin and I just needed to vent. I over him because he is obviously not someone I want, nor do I find him attractive at all anymore, nor do I want to be with him because he isn't the one for me, plus he is a cheater. However, that does not mean what he says and rumors he makes don't affect me. They do. They do affect me because he can't even respect me enough to stop the games and stop being self absorbed and just wanting sympathy and empathy and pity for shit that isn't true. So that is why I wrote this. Because I get to say my side too. I get to have feelings now without having someone hold it over me. I get to feel love now from people who actually love me so I feel empowered enough to vent the last of it out no matter what anyone thinks. In other posts I didn't say everything because for some reason I didn't feel like I could or like it was my right to do before divorce but now I do because he is spitting out lies so I get to spit out the truth. Truth that actually acknowledges that I am taking responsibility for my wrong actions.


I have felt so much love from all the people around me. SO much so that it is more than I had felt from my marriage in months. I feel pretty again. I feel like no one is trying to treat me like I am dumb and they know I am extremely intelligent. No one is trying to say some bs to me that is stupid and not true like he did thinking I was an idiot. Sorry to say it but I'm smarter than you Nathan and always will be. I don't have people negating me constantly because they respect my intelligence and are not so narcissistic  that they have to be right just to be right- meaning they accept new information and don't tell me I am wrong and then spew out bs that is false, and then the second some other person sides with me finally decide to say I am right. That doesn't happen anymore because the ones that love me know I am smart and don't talk down to me or act like I am an idiot. My dear friend held me and I had forgotten what it felt like to feel such love and kindness that I cried for awhile. I no longer am neglected. I have people all around me that know me, accept me, understand me, understand my ailments and who give me love and can hold me or console me. I feel free. I feel like an empowered woman again. I feel strong. I feel like I get to shine in my spotlight now and show the world what I am made of instead of feeling so depressed I don't want to leave the house. I am motivated now and I am determined. I know what I want. I know exactly what I want. I am going to get what I want and need. I can thank Nathan for this- Thank you for being so neglectful, so selfish, and so disrespectful because it got me out of an unhappy and unhealthy situation and me into a much much better and brighter situation. Thanks for being an asshole and cheating because it solidified just how much we shouldn't be together and just how selfish you are. Our divorce is in two weeks away and I can't wait. Thank you for saying you wanted a divorce because it made my life so much better and brought me back onto the path I have wanted to be on for a long time now. I wanted it for awhile but held to my integrity. So thank you for that. I kept my integrity and you lost out on a wonderful, patient, generous, kind, beautiful, and strong woman. A woman who has so much love in her life now because she isn't secluded, or feeling secluded, that I feel only disrespected because of how you were and what you did, but now heart broken, not sad about losing you, and not upset about the divorce.

A Free Write By A Bipolar Woman

As many know I am going through a dissolution (divorce), and atop that my brother in laws mom is dying. It's just really all sad. I have thought through a lot and realized that who I was married to isn't who I thought he was nor was he something good for me. I will now attempt to free write my thoughts publicly uninhibited. It is not to insult anyone it is just to get what I am feeling out.

My 'husband' used to want tattoos on our wedding ring fingers and I did not like that idea. But one day he told me he wouldn't ever do that. First sign.
He reverted back to someone I did not know when he was at his Mother's house. He was a stranger to me. Definitely not the one I married. Second sign.
We bonded because I had gotten pregnant when we first got together and I honestly don't think we would have lasted if that had not happened. Part of me knew that when we got married but as my perspective on life had changed, his did not. At least not that I could tell.
I felt hurt at first when I realized he must have been with someone else. All the dots started to connect. Him fighting with me telling me he couldn't do it anymore (he always said if he was going to or did cheat he would leave me) so clearly that was sign three. Then he did it again. Sign four.
I at first was very sad about our departure from one each others' life because I had become accustomed to it but then I realized he wasn't what I wanted I felt calm and peaceful. He didn't understand me, he never cared to post about me (which seems dumb but when you love someone you usually include them in statuses here and there or post pictures of them saying look at my beautiful wife, husband, boyfriend, so on). He would want me to look at sites that told me about his issues (his hiatal hernia, or his acid reflux or whatever it may be) but yet when I wanted him to discuss with me what I went through physically and mentally it was really a no go. He never knew me. He never ever really knew me. How could he? I obviously did not know him either because I didn't think he was the person he turned out to be. Excited to get rid of me, and as I think about it I am actual okay with that. Since we had started sleeping in separate beds because our beds were apparently too small even though when we first dated we slept in a queen, and since we barely cuddled, barely made out, really never passionately kissed for a long time, and even our intimacy was gone, it only feels like I am losing a kind of friend, or a roommate. How could it feel any differently? When you are neglected and argue about attention and affection you start to become very unhappy and lonely even in a house with your supposed significant other. Getting mad at me for disliking him playing too much on a PS3 or PS4, and giving me an ultimatum - if you can't deal with it then maybe we shouldn't be together- like I am dating a teenager- you start to not feel loved, cared for , understood, or important enough.

I feel through the mistakes I have made with most of my past boyfriends that I have punished myself and become broken like a dog whose trained to kill. I will stay loyal until the end because that is my integrity. I will try to make things work, even if I do yell or become very upset for being neglected, I will still try and better myself in the hopes that the other will do the same. However, when the other does not do those things, or it only changes for a week or so you should know something is off. I felt alone. There were plenty of days I sat in 'my' room and cried for hours without him even noticing because he was too busy on his games. There were plenty of time I thought dying may be more suitable for someone like me that felt like nothing. Philosophically I do not mind being nothing in the grand scheme of things as the universe is infinite and I am but a wee dot in the picture. But when you feel like nothing in your life, when you feel like you mean nothing, when you feel like other things are more important than you, and you are no longer a priority and that makes you feel pretty worthless and  you should know that something has gone miserably wrong in your relationship. It is not healthy to feel that way, nor should you feel that way. I did everything I could because I did take vows. Even if I was unhappy I did take vows and I am a lady of my word. Through thick and thin I would have tried. Yet when what happened happened those vows were torn. Those vows were made void.

We were not meant to be and that's okay. I'm okay with that now. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because I will find my happiness without him. I will find my love without him. I will find someone who has always understood me and will always understand me, and who will be okay with who I am. Nathan said he wanted us both to get healthy-whatever that means- I know he was no longer in love with me and I had already kind of accepted that. How could I have not known. When you don't go out anymore, or you start going Dutch all the time, or you don't feel a caressing hand touch you out of joy of being by you, there is a problem. Our relationship was no longer healthy. I was very unhappy and denied it to myself because of the vows I took. I know now I made my vows to the wrong person. We made vows to one another because we bonded over a pregnancy. There is no way we couldn't have. But facing the reality of things, that is why he was in love. I feel now that because I may never be able to carry my own child, because I may not be able to give someone a family of their own DNA that he was unattached. It's funny because he wouldn't really recognize things I would do to try and look nice yet in the last few days I have been complimented on the smallest of things. Like my nails look nice, or my eye shadow is really pretty (thanks Lauren) and so on. He once said "you don't get pretty for me but you do for when you go to school" he is referring to me putting on eye shadow and all that fun stuff. But I put that stuff on all the time. But that statement made me realize something that I never said to him- that was an insult. That mean that I couldn't be at home without being all done up and mean I was getting pretty. I should have someone who thinks I am beautiful and 'getting pretty' if all I do is blow dry my hair. It's clear he was no longer attracted to me. We went on a vacation and we were not intimate that was a big sign. I feel worn by negligence because all I wanted was affection. Perhaps I have rewritten what I wrote in past blog posts but I feel this all needed to come out. I wish I had a time machine and I could go back. I also now think I understand more why I lost my pregnancies. If I had had those pregnancies go full term I would be in a huge mess right now bc it be harder to separate. It be harder to let go. Right now it's actually quite easy.

It's easy because we weren't meant to be. It's easy because we didn't sleep in the same bed so I don't feel alone sleeping by myself. It's easy because I have people that understand me around me reassuring me I am a beautiful, strong, loyal, kind person who deserves to be truly happy. Nathan was not happy either. Which also makes it easy to let go. He can find his happiness with someone else tomorrow and I would be okay because I do not need something so unhealthy in my life. He may have initiated the divorce but I was not actually going to work on anything if he had been honest with me anyway. I would have asked for one. I only said I would so I could get the respect of being told the truth. But I don't even need that. I don't need that because I am stronger than that. I don't need to waste the breath talking about it There are more important things in my life. He may go his way and I go mine. I am hurt only because of the fact that I gave my everything to someone I was 'trying' to keep loving, to someone who didn't love me like a wife. Goodbye to that mess. Goodbye to an unhappy marriage. Goodbye to a façade. I am okay. I am fine. So no reason to ever worry for me. I don't need anything in my life not worth living for. And that is how I felt. Lastly I would like to point out something my sister pointed out- When I went through my psychosis I didn't go to the psych ward because I was worried about school. I didn't want to miss classes and do poorly. What's wrong with that? I was married and I refused to go to the psych ward not because of my husband but because of school. My husband wasn't that understanding through that phase. He didn't turn in internally to maybe see what he may have been doing to my mental state by ignoring my needs. That said it all right there. When my sister said that I felt soon our relationship would come to a fork in the road and we each would walk our own path. May he find someone who he can actually love because it wasn't me Goodbye to that part of my life. Tomorrow I am filing for dissolution and I'm okay with it. I really am. I feel happy right now. I feel stable. Things are good right now besides losing my sister's mother in law. She I will miss dearly. She I will cry for. She I respected. She was tough. She was wonderful She loved her family and her husband so very much. That I will miss. I only hope when she passes in a couple days it is not painful. While her family and extended family will feel pain because we will miss her, she will never be forgotten. Not ever. She will always be loved.

I truly feel now that I had to make the mistakes in relationship choices that I have to make myself grow. To make myself into someone better, stronger, smarter, wiser, and someone who has a better perspective on what love really is. What I really want. I will grow beautifully, and I have. I have realized what makes me trigger an episode, I know what I don't want, and I know the reason for why things were in the past and now they are making sense for the future. I am thankful for my life and for further experience in life so I know what actually means something and what really doesn't.

Thank you for reading my novel of a blog again. Soon enough I will be writing about different things. At this moment this is on my mind. Soon it will be all over though.

Lea

The Stigma

Often times those who have mental illnesses are stigmatized. Even those with physical disabilities are often stigmatized. It is not fair, it does not feel good, and it certainly is not right. With mental illness people cannot physically see what is wrong so it becomes almost a joke to some people because if they cannot see it it just is not real to them. I have said this in previous posts that people will ask if bipolar disorder or anxiety disorder is even a real thing. To those that suffer from those issues it is more real than a lot of things. Everything can become broken in seconds for you. The oppression from anxiety is so overwhelming that sometimes during a panic attack the thought of death seems more satisfying. When you are going through a panic attack you are overtaken by irrational ideas/ thoughts that at a better moment you know are not reasonable. When you have compulsions people do not understand why; they simply think you are some weirdo. There is a lot of stigma behind OCD because most of the time people think of persons who are germ-o--phoebes or clean freaks, and other times they think you have some irrational idea behind your compulsions (I admit I thought that for the longest time until I was told I had compulsions). I have a compulsion that drives me to constantly look over websites on certain information I hear about, or read twenty different articles about one topic because I feel the need to know it, actually know it and that means looking at things repeatedly.
Bipolar disorder has been so mislabeled by some movies that there is just a huge stereotype on what being bipolar actually means. I once watched that ridiculous movie "running with scissors" (I believe that was the name of it), and it was quite wrong. It was almost insulting. I am sure there are people out there that were represented by that movie, but speaking as someone who has severe bipolar disorder with rapid cycling episodes I can tell you that that movie did not do what I go through justice. Shoot I sometimes have a hard time explaining what I go through.

I bring all this up because today in my book club we discussed the book "Metamorphosis" and most people felt that Gregor turning into a 'vermin' was an analogy for mental illness. Indeed the author did deal with insomnia and his father abusing him so this was obviously a source for his book. This book never explains why Gregor turned into an insect, nor what it was really supposed to represent. There was only one person in the class that associated the change as just how life goes, you change day to day. It made me realize that depending on life circumstances you may view this book differently. As someone dealing with mental illness and having felt the stigma I genuinely believe the metamorphosis represented that. It did not need to tell me why he just morphed into a new creature, I already knew. When I first started becoming angry, and then angrier, and then depressed and then more depressed, I could recognize I was changing in behavior and mental thoughts, but I did not full out come out and say 'Oh god I am becoming some raging monster' and when my panic attacks started I realized that something was off but I didn't know really what. Again I did not come out going 'Oh my god I am becoming hysterical for no reason'. I just dealt with it and went on living how I lived but adjustments due to my changing mind were made quietly and I did not have any need to stop and really analyze it until I became older and it affected me more. But it still wasn't a dead stop in the road revelation about me being mentally ill. In the book Gregory recognizes he has transformed but doesn't care he just wants to go to work. He doesn't think him taking shape as a 'vermin' will impede him in anyway, he can go on being a traveling salesman. That's how most of us feel I am sure. We just feel OK I am different or I have some issues but I am just going to keep on keeping on.

However, as the book progresses you realize that his sister, who could not even look at him even when she was trying to take care of him in his new form, started to feel he was just a burden, and so did his parents. Before he was treated well but before he was also the bread winner. Now they had to do all the work--- Gee Gregor what were you thinking! His father even throws apples at him and impales his back so badly that it causes him some paralysis. No one ever took the apple out of his back and this apple stayed there for months. Hmmm metaphor for stabbing a person in the back? Perhaps. In the end his sister and parents say  that they just cannot take him anymore, he is just a burden, and they have to get rid of him. They had wished he would just understand that and leave on his own accord.

I am not saying all families are like this or even that most are I am just trying to point out that those with issues, especially issues that affect one's daily like and prevent them from doing what they'd like or what they need to do (work, go to school etch.), make people look at you differently. I had a conversation with a girl once, no names given for this, and she believed that most of the people on disability and welfare and food stamps were just lazy people. This is a stigma that runs hot in the United States. There is a HUGE debate on whether our welfare systems are good, or if they just let the 'lazy be lazy'. Now this absolutely disgusts me when people say this kind of stuff. I would like to say that many of those people probably have a mental illness or physical disability that makes them unable to work or to live a normal life. Yes there are always people who abuse the system, that is not a new concept, and yes many people who use welfare systems are not disabled but strictly need help in a time of need. But to just outright denounce all of the people on a welfare system meant to help people establish themselves in a country that is super capitalistic is just ignorant and distasteful.

Most of our homeless here in the US are mentally ill, and they cannot get proper health care so they do self medicate. Or they get the meds that are so sedating they no longer feel anything and so they of course go out and find a way to feel something. Now a lot of these people could be severely mentally ill and no one who think those people are lazy would notice the daily struggle of those people. I hate the arguments like "well I did it all on my own, got a loan and blah blah" or 'well I worked three jobs and managed just barely to stay afloat without using any government help". Okay well that's good for you but that's not how life works for other people. Before I was treated and diagnosed I had a very bad habit of quitting jobs. I couldn't take them or they would bother me or make me depressed and I would just quit. See ya later. Even with school sometimes I need to take a day off of classes because I am having a hard time dealing that day. That doesn't make me lazy, nor does it make me a person that uses others. It makes me someone that is mentally ill and struggling. If you were poor and able to keep afloat working minimum wage jobs without the use of government help well good for you, but it's okay to ask for help, that is why those systems were built. I think pride is one of the reasons many actually don't take advantage of systems that help you get assistance, or free health coverage, or whatever. But all those kinds of sayings put a stigma on the homeless man sitting in front of the gas station who does not know what is really happening, or does but doesn't know how to fix it because his mind works differently. It puts a stigma on people like me, someone who is pretty productive but has serious lapses in her mental well-being, and that yes will use assistance and free health benefits because I literally cannot work three jobs mentally or physically, nor can I deal with not having medical treatment.

When people hear me speak so adamantly about mental illness some get sick of it, or don't care, or think it is ridiculous, and others actually take something away from it. I speak allowed because I am sick of being treated like I am less than. Doctors have been known to speak in a way that makes me think they believe I am incompetent or have the intelligence of a 15 year old. No not any doctor I see now but there was one in particular and I ended up cussing him out and storming out. People have heard I am mentally ill, or even very close people has used it to try and attack me. Being looked at like you are 'dumb' because you deal with something so exhausting and daunting is quite frustrating. And more people need to learn how to cope themselves with having a child that is mentally ill, a wife or husband that is mentally ill (or has a break and becomes severely mentally ill), and general people need to have more awareness about what we go through. Our day is not like your day- we think differently, react differently, analyze differently, become affected by words and acts differently. My view on life is much different than those I know who are not dealing with mental disorders. My outlook can be very dark sometimes but other times it is more like an obstacle course that I am planning. I get overwhelmed easily but I use it to teach me. I can become very frustrated and agitated but it's not something I intentionally do. I become stricken with panic and start flipping out but I don't need anyone pointing or staring or making fun of me, I need someone to comfort me and tell me it's okay. A simple hug that gives a person security during a panic attack goes a long way. I am not less than just because my brain is different than yours. My intelligence may even be much higher than yours so that stigma is just a sad way to say I don't know anything about mental illness so instead of asking what that means I make fun of you or get scared by it, or sickened by it because 'you're different'.

I am bringing this all up because it hurts. Today I felt a ping of it and it felt that me even saying I deal with bipolar disorder made some people feel uncomfortable. Is it that big of a deal? You don't have to deal with me being bipolar, and you certainly don't need to feel uncomfortable that I am open about my issues. I am a person just like you. I am a very open person that feels hiding behind a mask will no longer suffice and introducing myself to the world as I really am is much more appropriate and freeing. For the longest time only a few people knew I had panic attacks, and even fewer knew I was bipolar, unless someone else told other people. I don't know that I was embarrassed but I know at one point I did not want to believe it. I saw my uncle struggle with mental illness and I didn't want to become that way. Not knowing what was real, and feeling disoriented. I eventually came to realize that my mental illness is different than his and while I may still endure some things that he did, my experience will be different. I do in fact deal with bouts of feeling disconnected and disoriented from the world. But rather than letting it scare me like I was I have come to find a way to cope. I let it happen and take everything in as a dream, or as an observer watching myself. It can still be frightening and it is due to my extreme anxiety but it is part of who I am. I am no longer scared of how this will turn out as I age. If I start to become paranoid, or hear things or see things that aren't there well I will just deal with it. I will go on living just as Gregor did. Even if the closes treat me like a burden (which I cannot believe they ever would) I would just keep going, doing what I could and making it matter to me. I have come to the conclusion that there are some things you just can't change and those things make you who you are; they can either make you into a spectacular, unique, mindful, and creatively articulate person, or can leave you in a state of mind that is not particularly nice, that makes you feel like you are drowning beneath your mind, and no matter what your abilities are becoming oppressed. By accepting yourself you can use the different way your mind works for new purposes. Creatively writing about your experiences, blogging, using it to make beautiful art, to write wonderful philosophy, to capture photos of things most don't spot, or simply becoming a very compassionate and kind person. Do not let anything stigmatize you. A person who discriminates or tries to make you feel uncomfortable for who you are, or stigmatizes mental illness is a person who lacks understanding, and knowledge.

Thank you for reading my vent of the day. Another novel I know. Please feel free to comment and add your stories.

Lea Silva

What a HORRIBLE ride!

It's been one of those days where you wake up feeling great and you do your normal routine, feel like a million bucks, and then start driving down the highway and feel completely disconnected from life. Here comes the PANIC!

How miserable it is to feel as if your brain is being weighted down. Everything appears so surreal, like it is all just a dream. You try to talk your self down saying things like "it's okay you are not going to crash and kill people. You are not going to fall asleep for unknown reasons and crash. You are not going to go blind while driving. This is real, take deep breaths and realize you are being irrational." None of these ever work of course. Sometimes I think "just hold on until you get off the exist and then you can take a klonopin". I don't take them while I am driving-That would cause a problem!


You feel your heart pumping faster, literally feel your blood pressure raising (it feels like you are swelling up), fingers, toes, tongue, or some other part of your body starts tingling, and then the shakiness from being on edge, and then BOOM here it is. The dreadful moment of a full on panic attack! Concentrating on anything but irrational thoughts is out of the question. Calming down will not happen for about 20 minutes, and even then your blood pressure will still be high. When you panic it feels like the world is coming in on you through a tunnel. It is eating away at your security, your confidence, and your motivation. It is disturbingly horrifying, especially because deep down you know you are overreacting and NOTHING has or will happen.


How do I deal with this?
I stay for the ride. I have no way of escaping this panic attack unless I am in an area where taking klonopin is acceptable and not dangerous. It is the longest 15 to 20 minutes but it will end. I just keep saying "this will pass" over and over again. Swallowing the lumps of fear, trying not to shake too badly. Eventually it will end. However, this panic attack will make you not want to do the activity that caused the panic attack to begin with. For me it can be driving, social areas filled with people, or having to talk about something medically serious.  It's one of the toughest things I deal with besides manic episodes.
It started when I was 19. I was singing an oldies song and this awful feeling washed over me like the world was about to come to a halt. Not knowing what was happening I of course started to panic more! Thinking to myself "I am having a stroke, or a heart attack, oh my god what do I do". I ended up in tears parked in a store's lot. I called a friend to come get me because while the house was only three blocks away I could not force myself to get back in the driver's seat. My mind absolutely forbid it. This happened more and more and got worse and worse to the point were I barely drive and barely go out. I finally did see a doctor when I was 20 who diagnosed me with Bipolar disorder and panic disorder. All the previous years my mom would say I would have 'episodes'- I would rage out and just be so angry, or I would become so down it would scare people because I went into a very dark place. So when this doctor told me what was happening I did not know how to feel. Good because I know now, or Bad because this is going to be my life forever?

More on this later!

Class time.

Lea