World Bipolar Day - I'm Still Me

World Bipolar Day – I’m Still Me

I am proud to support the awareness for World Bipolar Day and to try to do what I can to erase the stigma society has towards this disorder and most mental illnesses.  It saddens me to know that so many people come from a place of ignorance and uneducation on mental illness and people who struggle with mental illness.  I can’t share everyone’s story, though, just my own.

As someone with Bipolar II Disorder, I am still who you think I am.  I’m still me.  The person you have always known.  I’m bossy and sarcastic and a smart ass and friendly and loyal and smart and honest and moody and bitchy.  Those things have nothing to do with me having Bipolar.  Those are parts of my personality and traits that I have.  They don’t go away just because I have Bipolar disorder.

Having Bipolar disorder doesn’t negate or change who I am as a person.  It doesn’t mean that I am different.  What it means is that, at any given time, I am riding a wave of cycles that may run from hypomanic (happier, more focused, more social, more productive) to stable/flat/plateau (kind of business as usual with no particular elevated or depressed mood) to depressive (my most severe problem with periods that are dark and intense and isolative and withdrawn).  These cycles may last days or weeks or months.  But throughout these cycles, I’m still me.  I don’t want my family and friends to forget that.  I’m still here.

I call these cycles my “up” cycles or my “down” cycles.  In between is just flat.  Up for me is great.  Life is good.  Down for me is hell.  Life just sucks.  Stable cycles are where I spend a great deal of time.  It’s stable, like I said, but it’s also a bit unemotional and not a lot of fun.  It’s not bad, just not good.  But no matter what cycle I am in, I am still the friend that you know.  I don’t change at a basic level, just maybe how I am able to present with my current “mood or cycle.”

My medication regimen has the goal of leveling out my cycles (or moods) so that I am stable but still happy and productive with little of the depression.  It’s a work in progress always.  Medications stop working or side effects happen or combinations aren’t positive.  It’s a moving target.  That’s something I deal with every day, trying to monitor what is working or not and how to change that so that I can be the best “me” that I can be.  But still, I am the same person I have always been.

I know it can be confusing to like or love someone who has Bipolar disorder.  We can confuse ourselves, too.  Maybe just try to recognize that I am working constantly to stay level in my cycles and moods, but I need to have my friends and family understand that I really am the same person regardless of what cycle I am in.  I still need to reach out to you and you to me.  I need your friendship not really your help.  I just need to keep it real with the understanding that sometimes, during my “up” or “down” times I may act or feel just a little different and my reactions may seem a little more extreme.  I’m still in here, and I still need those who love me to see me as the person I am.

That’s really it.  That’s what Bipolar Awareness means to me.  Just to be aware.  Understand.  Be patient.  Be kind.  Know that I am still the same person…not different, just walking on a path that you may not always understand.  But I don’t change who I am.  My actions may be different, my emotions may be extreme, but beneath it all, I am still the same person you have always known and don’t want to be treated differently.  I am still me.

An Open Letter To My Friends

An Open Letter To My Friends

I think the question I’ve been dreading has finally been answered.  What would be next?  An up cycle (hypomanic) or a down cycle (depressive).  I’m at the edge of a down cycle, hanging on by my fingernails, staring into a pit of darkness, hoping that I don’t fall.

It’s difficult to talk about.  It’s scary.  It’s sad.  It’s frustrating.  It hurts.

I know you (my friends) have reached out to me, trying to get me to share what is going on, and I have brushed you aside with platitudes while inside I am crying out with pain.  I want you to understand, but I don’t want to have to be the one to explain it.  I feel like there is so much to try to explain, that if I ever start, it will never end, so I don’t even want to begin.  I just try to keep it in.  I’m not trying to alienate you.  I just don’t know how to do this.

Aside from the down cycle, I am dealing with many outside concerns such as doctors, medications and changes, financials issues, and many other things which all heighten my anxiety and panic.  My mind runs in cirlces trying to find a way out only to find more questions.

So when you ask me how I’m doing, sometimes that simple question can make me cry.  I don’t want to.  But sometimes that’s all it takes.  And then the panic sets in and I can’t breathe or speak.  I want to share, but I can’t.  I’m not trying to pull away.  Please believe me.  I love you for your support even when I feel I don’t deserve it.

Just know that I love you all, and please don’t give up on me.  It may be tough going for a while.  It’s scary thinking that I may never again be the person who I once was who can enjoy going out with my friends to dinner or a movie or just to hang out.  I want to be the social person I used to be.  I want that more than anything.  But more than anything right now I need to feel safe, and safe to me means a safe place, and the only places that feel safe to me are my house and Kassi’s house.  Those are simply my boundaries for now, and I have to learn to live with them and hope that they can grow sometime in the future.

This was longer than I meant for it to be.  I wanted to explain where I am and where I am coming from to those who have reached out to me and why I may not respond in the way you expect or hope for.  It’s not that I don’t want to.  I’m just trying to hold things together right now.  But knowing that I have you as my support system even when I’m not being the best friend in return means so much to me.  I love you all.

It's The Little Things

It’s The Little Things

Usually when I write blogs, they can be full of angst.  Even when I am not in a depressive state, I tend to be more introspective, and that can bring on feelings that aren’t always joyful.  So while I’m still in a state of limbo (neither up nor down) I’m feeling pretty good in general.  I’m appreciating the little things, which during this time are really awfully big things.

I have a family who loves and supports me and friends who do the same.  I have a daughter I love more than life itself.  I have a puppy who is my spoiled little baby who showers me with unconditional affection whether I want it or not.  I bought a comfy new bed which is amazing! I have a (sort of) job with one of my best friends which gives me purpose and satisfaction.  I have pizza!  I actually get out of bed now, at least on most days.  I’m trying to believe that my panic attacks are not actually going to kill me.

And even though I’m stable, I’m ready for a change.  I want to try to be a better version.  I want to try to move forward and maybe even hope for the beginning of an upward trend in my bipolar.  To that end I’m going to talk to my psychiatrist about making a couple of medication changes.  I’ve been doing a lot of research, and I think there are two medications that I haven’t tried that sound very promising.  Although it will be a slow process I’m willing to give it a try for the potential positive outcome.  I’m looking forward to it.

I may have bad days.  I may have ok days.  I may have better days.  Today is a better day.  That doesn’t mean tomorrow will be, but I will take it a day at a time and try to remember the small things.  After all, small things matter…a lot.

Accepting Reality

Accepting Reality

I’ve worked very hard my entire life for everything…in college, my career, mostly as a single mother.  I say this as a precursor, as if I need to justify my current life to everyone, including myself…and maybe I do, or at least I feel right now like I do.

I’ve been disabled (Bipolar II) for about two years now.  Before this most recent diagnosis I was pretty fucking successful in most aspects of my life, certainly when it came to my career.  I took great pride in my success, my ambition, my competence and capability and skill.  I didn’t really know what it was like to fail in this arena.

For the past month I have been working at an (unpaid) job with one of my best friends.  She has her own company, and I asked her if she could use me in some way.  Together we created a position that would be tailor-made for my particular skill set and limitations.  I was able to use my knowledge and expertise in the sales, marketing, and social media fields to help with her brand.  At the same time, I was able to work from home, at my own pace, on my own schedule, with no defined hours or deadlines.

The first couple of weeks were amazing.  Not only was I having a great time working with my friend, but it felt so good to be back in the game again.  I was still there!  The education and talent that I had built and honed for so many years hadn’t left me after all.  I was able to be productive and useful, and I felt like I was a part of something that I had been missing for such a long time.  My friend was also very appreciative of my help and made me feel very good about myself and my performance.  I had energy and motivation and purpose.  Not all of the time, but more than I had had in a while.  I was full of ideas and plans.

A couple of weeks into the project I noticed that I wasn’t able to stay focused for as long or as frequently as I had been.  My mood began to shift.  I doubted myself and my decisions.  I began to unwind a little bit.  Then things would pick back up.  I was losing momentum and needed a break.  How did things dip so quickly when nothing had changed?

I had an appointment with my therapist at this time, and I talked this through with her.  I came to a few really stark and harsh conclusions that left me shaken.  Over the past two years I know I have become comfortable referring to myself as disabled.  But did I truly accept that?  Was there a small part of me that still believed that if I truly had to that I could return to my former high powered career full time?  There must have been.  But seeing that I couldn’t manage this perfect-for-me job for even a month without folding gave me a serious fucking reality check.  I was fucking disabled.

I really thought I had accepted that.  I truly did.  But it hadn’t sunk in until now, when I realized that I couldn’t do a job that I should be able to shine at for even a brief period of time.  I did not have the option of working again…ever.  That chair had been pulled completely out from under me…for real this time.  There was no going back.  There would be no going out on top.  I had let myself down, and I was ashamed.

So that’s my new reality.  After two years of being disabled, guess what?  I’m fucking disabled.  I had talked the talk, now the hard part was going to be to walk the walk…and it was going to be a long walk.  I had never grasped what being disabled would truly mean to me until now.  All of the things that I worked so hard for that made me so proud now had no place to go.  That education, those skills would go unused, unnoticed.  I would go unused, unnoticed.  I would be irrelevant.

That’s my new reality.