plummet

January 5, 2014

Well, that happened faster than I thought. I thought I might at least have another day or two before paying for the good days.

After the valium kicked in last night I fell asleep easily enough. I don't remember dreaming anything. The baby woke up for her morning feeding around 5:30, Bradley is still sick but I still let him take care of it, even though I shouldn't have. I guess you could say I felt impending doom and that I needed sleep to take preemptive measures, so to speak. I feel like I need to keep reminding myself that I am just as sick as he is and need to take care of myself just as much. It doesn't make me feel any less guilty though. We stayed home from church today so that Bradley could rest and I could take care of him and the baby (and also rest. I didn't tell Bradley, but I sensed something was coming. I felt like the best thing I could to to prevent a breakdown would be to rest or sleep as much as possible) but I had to duck out for an hour to help out in Primary. Around 9, I got ready to go, gave Bea a bottle and put her back to bed. Bradley thought I was going to take her, though I don't know why. I was supposed to be leading music in Primary. I couldn't very well do that while taking care of an infant. I don't know what he was imagining I would do, but he acted like he was doing me a huge favor in letting me leave her home, asleep in her crib.

I'm not expecting him to read my mind. I know it's not obvious to anyone but me when I'm starting to feel things in my head are getting soupy. But I do, unrealistically I suppose, expect him to always be mindful of the fact that I have an illness, and often need help or at the very least reassurance that I can do the everyday tasks that need to be done. Instead, he slept. It shouldn't bother me. He's sick. But so am I. It was very difficult for me to get out of bed this morning. It was even more difficult to face Bea on a day when I didn't feel up to it. It was difficult for me to look presentable enough to go out in public. It was difficult for me to leave her in her room with a video playing in hopes that she'd fall asleep and not disturb Bradley while I was gone. It was difficult to get out the door. It's difficult to explain why all those things are difficult. I suppose the irrationality of it all is part of why it's an illness. It's my brain refusing to accept normal things as normal and instead turning them into things that cause me immense pain and anguish. Most often it manifests itself at night, when I think of when, in the morning, I have to face Beatrice when she wakes up. Instead of feeling excited to see her, as I would on a good day, I feel grief and often terror. Grief that she's been cursed with a mother who can't be happy when it's time to say "Good morning" and terror that I'll never be enough for her. That's how I feel right now.

 It had rained in the night last night and had frozen over this morning so everything, including our car, was covered in a thick, icy film when it was time for me to go to the church. On my way to the car, my boot slipped on a stair off my porch and I slid down the entire set of steps. Up until that moment this morning I was managing. I was on the edge, but I was managing. Falling down those steps, something inside me snapped. I'd given up. I was done. I almost turned around and walked right back inside to crawl back into bed, but I felt too bad for our understaffed ward to do so. I picked myself up out of the snow, pried open the car, which had frozen shut, and scraped and scraped and scraped until enough ice had chipped away to allow me some visibility out of the windshield. I remained stable throughout my time in Primary and came straight home. Bradley was in bed, and Bea was crying in her crib. He hadn't fed her any breakfast.

I'd always applauded Bradley in the past for never getting the "man cold". He usually plows through sickness without a complaint. I don't know why he chose this one time, this one crucial time when everything was so fragile, to become "too sick to function". I would have felt more sorry for him had I not had the exact same bug last week. I spent one and a half days in bed. He's spent three. Maybe that's why I'm resentful. I need help. Returning home from a vacation for a bipolar person is like an infection to a wound. It must be attended to immediately and delicately and with lots of patience. I don't think anyone without the illness will ever understand how important this is. I used to think Bradley understood, but the longer we're married, the more I realize there are things about my illness he just doesn't, and may not ever understand.

I can't return home and get back into a routine like a normal person. My body senses a shift and my brain reacts improperly. My brain catches a bug. When that happens, it's a lot like what would happen if a circuit shorted in a robot or something. It either crashes immediately and shuts down completely, or it malfunctions and malfunctions and malfunctions rapidly and then shuts down. Rather than recognize a shift in routine, my illness acts as a bug. And in this case, I've malfunctioned through hypomania two days in a row, teetered between normalcy and darkness throughout today, and tonight, I crashed.

After I got Bea out of her crib, fed her some breakfast, and put her back down for a proper nap, I finally cleaned out the closet. I couldn't handle it any longer. But instead of cleaning it with manic zeal, I did so tiredly and begrudgingly, resenting my compulsion rather than reveling in it. I did the dishes. I sat down to catch my breath. And Bea woke up. Something snapped again. Or splintered I guess.
I have more to say about all this but my Valium at long last is kicking in and I need to sleep or tomorrow will be worse than today. I'll pick up where I left off but it may be difficult, as I often suffer from "bipolar amnesia" where I can't remember exactly how bad things were once the wave subsides. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true but we can talk about that another time as well.


-edit- September 2, 2014-
While skimming my blogs today I realized  I had never posted this post so I went back to read it. I have nothing to add because the next day, I woke up fine. I didn't plummet again, and haven't yet since we switched my doses right before our Christmas trip. The only thing I remember from that day is sadness and frustration, slipping on the ice, and apologizing to Adrianna for being late for primary. Everything else is gone. Bipolar amnesia strikes again. I'll always be grateful for the blessing it is to forget.

mom

my mom is the best mom. she cooks better than anyone else, she can do a million things at once, her house is always clean (maybe not always tidy, but ALWAYS clean), she's funny, she's compassionate, everyone wants to be around her, she never judges her children, and she doesn't pick favorites. she's always busy doing something for someone else. i don't think i've ever seen her take a full day for herself in all the time i've know her. she gets stressed but you'd never know it, she just pushes through any trials that come her way. she is fiercely independent. i always wanted to be just like her when i became a mom. it was a lot to live up to and i was scared i would never be able to be as good as her. i was always a tiny bit scared to have kids because i knew i would never be as good of a mom to them as she is to me.
i got sick right before i got married. the fiery energy that propelled me through life was suddenly gone and i'd almost completely forgotten who i was. it took years of therapy and different cocktails of medicines to bring it back out. and right as i was coming back to consciousness, i knew it was time for bradley and i to finally start a family. that fear i'd always had that i wouldn't be as good as my mom came back tenfold. not only was i going to be not as good as she was, but i'd be sick. i'm a sick mom. and that sickness is never going to go away. i'm never going to be like my mom. but the deeper i get into motherhood, and the more time i spend with my little one, i realize that i don't have to be exactly like my mom to be a good mom. i don't have to be 100% well to be a good mom. i just have to do my best. and some days, my best is just holding my baby girl close while i cry. some days my best is snuggling up with her on the couch for hours at a time while i mentally prepare myself to stand up, because sometimes, that's all i can do for the day.
i think all it takes to be a good mom is loving your children the best you can. i may not have a perfectly clean house, i may not be able to go weeks at a time without calling my mom for advice, i may not be able to cook a five star meal every night, i may not even be able to get off the couch for days except for to change a diaper and feed my baby, but she knows i love her. i can tell. and if that's all i can give her, i think somehow that will be enough.

philadelphia

I wanted to like Philadelphia. I really did. I tried. But then we got here and everything was just so awful on so many levels. Exhibit A: we got sued the first week we lived here. We accidentally opened our car door too close to a biker at a red light and he scraped his elbow, so he sued us. How's that for the city of brotherly love? I feel like Philadelphia is this food that everyone else likes and no matter how many times I try it, I still don't like it. Like eggnog. Everyone in my family loves eggnog. And every Christmas, I give it a taste, because maybe this time, I'll see what everyone else is talking about and I'll magically like eggnog, but it never happens. I still don't like eggnog. And I still don't like Philadelphia.
I don't know if it's because my expectations were too high, or if I was expecting it to be something it's not, but everything about it just completely rubs me the wrong way. Aside from being surrounded by angry people who want to sue you all the time, there's the bad drivers, the ubiquitous and absolute filth and garbage that is literally everywhere, the negligence of every single public employee in the entire city, lack of things to do, the horrible weather, the inconvenience and eyesore that is "urban sprawl", or the fact that everyone who is from here LOVES it and thinks I'm an idiot for not feeling the same way. The list goes on and on. I'm just not drinking the kool-aid.
I don't know how much longer we'll be here and I'm no neuroscientist, but I have a feeling hating where I live may have a little something to do with my roller-coaster moods.
I have a doctor here who only sort of knows what he's doing. My last doctor was one of the best in the field at a premiere mental hospital. I had the same shrink as Catherine Zeta-Jones. I had it really good. Every time something felt off, I went to his office and he knew what was wrong and how to fix it within five minutes. My new doctor is constantly asking how I'm feeling and what paths I think I should take to fix it. I'm not a doctor. I have no idea. That's your job, pal. Putting the pressure on me is just another stressor I just don't need. And having a doctor who is unsure of himself is definitely unsettling. But, apparently, according to Psychology Today, he's one of Philadelphia's best. Which I have learned, is not saying much. There's a saying Bradley and I have: Welcome to Philadelphia; lower your expectations. It almost always hold true. I'm not a negative person. I give Philadelphia so many chances each day to prove itself to me, and it has failed, time and time again. I just can't like it. No matter how many times I drink the eggnog with positive expectations, it's still eggnog, and I still don't like it.

intro

it's snowing. i don't like snow. i wish i liked snow as much as everybody else seems to like snow in december but i just can't get into it. apparently, philadelphia hasn't seen this much snow in several years. i wouldn't know; we just moved here in june. but i suppose everyone is jumping up and down about the snow because they haven't seen it in a while, which i can understand, but having come from connecticut where snow is more than abundant, i am underwhelmed---nay--less than underwhelmed. i am de-whelmed. anti-whelmed. the opposite of whelmed. whatever. i just don't like it. anyway. i'm avoiding the point here. i'm writing for a reason. my mother wants me to write a memoir. i suppose she thinks it will be good "therapy" or whatever. let me see if i can find the text message she sent me....right ok:
Mom: Do you keep a journal?
Me: sometimes, why?
Mom: you should start keeping one consistently. you could compile it into a memoir. you're just such a good writer, you should really be writing your thoughts down more often.

i can only assume she wants me to write a memoir about my mental illness. nothing else about my life is specifically unique, and she hasn't asked either of my brothers or my sister to write one, so it's not a run of the mill "my kid is just so talented" idea. so that leaves the mental illness thing.
it's not a bad idea really, i do like to write, and i'm sure it would be great therapy but there's that thing about writing where sometimes people actually READ what you write and i'm not all over that...! feelings make me all kinds of uncomfortable, and writing about mental illness involves lots of feels. and sharing feelings like that kinnnnndof freaks me out. so here's what we're gonna do. i'm just going to pretend no one will ever read this. that should do it. and if someone ever DOES happen to read it i'm sure there's a nice rock somewhere i can go live under for the rest of my life.

I want to clean out my closet in the middle of the night

It's 12:30 am. I am lying wide awake in my bed; despite taking two doses of valium, one dose of lamictal and one dose of risperal over an hour ago, I am lying (well, now sitting and typing) but nonetheless wide awake in my bed with a pervasive urge to clean out my hall closet.
Bradley is sick, so I forced him to take some NyQuil, else he would be snatching the computer away from me and forcing me to sleep. Or, rather ordering me to lay down and stare at the ceiling in the dark for several hours before eventually lulling into a likely fitful sleep. Sleep is never restful when you are experiencing mania. But, alas, he is snoring away, and not likely to budge even if a tornado came through the house.
I am completely aware that the urge to clean my closet in the middle of the night is a sign of mania settling in, but that doesn't lessen the temptation. It is taking every ounce of self control I have not to go clean and organize it. I don't know why I've decided to write about it instead of doing it, but here we are. I suppose this option seemed more productive. How good of a job can one do with cleaning a closet in the middle of the night, anyway? This seems a more appropriate and acceptable outlet of manic energy. At least it seems so to me.
We just returned from Christmas vacation at my parents' home 2 days ago. The weeks leading up to said vacation were absolutely horrible. I was lower than I'd been in months, suicidal several times over the course of 2 weeks, and so depressed I couldn't muster the energy to get off the couch without bursting into tears of premature exhaustion. But then we left for my mother's house, and what I'd expected to be a very stressful 10 days, turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. 10 days of absolute relaxation with the people I enjoy most, doing the things I love most. We were a little more booked and over-scheduled than I'd hoped, but I, surprisingly, given my previous state, took it in stride and thoroughly enjoyed my vacation. (With the exception of one breakdown on Christmas Eve. I always have an episode on Christmas Eve, I can't say why, but there you are. Positive stress wears me out just as much as negative stress, I suppose.) I wasn't ready to leave, and was prepared for a complete and absolute breakdown upon our return. 2 weeks of joy often means 2 subsequent weeks of misery for people with my condition. We pay an enormous price for each of our good days.
When we arrived home Thursday night, we put the baby to bed, then went to bed ourselves and I burst into tears. I couldn't face the next day knowing it would be as bad as the days before we left. I wasn't ready for another depressive episode, not so soon. Not after I'd been doing so well for 10 (9) straight days.
Surprisingly though, I awoke the next morning with copious amounts of energy. I threw all of it into shoveling a foot of snow from around our car to make way for an extensively complicated couponing trip (which involved going to 3 separate stores), a trip to the bank, a lunch outing, a thorough house cleaning, several lightbulb changes, and another quick outing for some storage supplies. Before I knew it, it was time for bed.
Chalking up my energy burst and complete disinterest in turning in for the night to the time zone  change, I decided to do the smart thing and take a sleeping pill instead of valium for the night, to get myself back on a proper schedule.
I slept in til 11 am.
Luckily today is Saturday, so Bradley was around to take care of the baby until I awoke. It is an unspoken rule in our house that I am not to be awoken whilst asleep unless it is 100% necessary. I suppose the attitude is that sleep is part of my medical treatment, and to deny me it in any way would be an offense equivalent to withholding me my medications.
I had almost the same amount of energy today as I did yesterday. I funneled today's mania into overcleaning our bathroom. I cleaned the tub twice and the floors twice. Since Bradley was sick I insisted we stay inside the whole day rather than brave the snow and 10 degree weather in pursuit of errands and a computer repair that still needs to be attended to. (Bradley talks in his sleep more when he takes NyQuil, by the way. My typing keeps being interjected with mid-sentence nonsense from the other side of the bed.) While we may have stayed home and, technically, done nothing today, it was a manic day, nonetheless. Aside from the obsessive bathroom incident, our day was spent indulging other obsessive behaviors. We watched an entire season and a half of Downton Abbey while I constantly fidgeted, wandered the apartment, perused craigslist for new desk setups that will more properly accommodate my coupon printing, and obsessively searched for coupons on my laptop.
I get it. Obsessive behavior=the beginnings of a manic episode.
But I still hate it when my mother and Bradley tell me my new couponing habit/hobby/what-have-you is obsessive behavior. I almost always have it under control (with the exception of today) and I only shop for the things I need. I feel like it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do and it is benefitting our family greatly. I save 35-50% on groceries every week from couponing. It's incredibly irritating to have every new interest of mine immediately questioned and chalked up to the "obsessive behavior" of the mentally ill. It almost makes me not want to ever try anything new, in order to avoid scrutiny and speculation on its influence from my illness. It also makes me worry that, if in fact it is an obsessive interest developed from my illness, that, once my mood changes, I will lose interest in it almost immediately and it won't be of use to me anymore. Which is especially relevant in this case because this particular interest is of such use to our family.
But of course, they're right. The whole reason I want to clean out my closet at 1 am in the first place is because I want to make room for a proper stockpile. It's already accumulating and I'm running out of space to store things, and so much of that closet as it is currently is wasted space. I figured if I wrote about it long enough, the urge would subside and my medicine would kick in and I'd finally be able to sleep. It's working. The valium is finally kicking in, I can feel it. It feels like warm, relaxing syrup slowly drizzling in a viscous drizzle from the top of my head and sliding down to my toes. That's when I know I will finally stop thinking of things to do instead of sleep, and think of how nice it will feel to sleep.
So here's to hoping that all of this manic energy will last, and that, with the help of my medications, I can harness it into something useful. And pray that I don't pay for it so dearly as I payed for my last burst. I know it's a long shot. The incredible ups are almost always followed by their equal opposite. Bipolar lives are mirrored by physics. Each action has an equal and opposite reaction. Or rather, each mood is followed by its equal and opposite mood. I will ride this wave until it subsides, and after that the darkness will envelop me again and I'll suffer immensely, as I did last time. It sounds defeatist, and earlier on in my illness, I would have scolded myself for such cynical thinking, but I've learned that I simply can't deny the inevitable. I can only take it one day at a time and hope to God that I don't give up when the going gets tough, as I know it will. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that I have to try my very best to live in the moment. It's become imperative to embrace the days that I feel are worth living even though I know the opposite days are on their way. Because if I don't, it will become so that none of my days will seem worth living. And that's no way to live.