the origin of my demons

"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you."

                                                                                           

 -Rita Mae Brown

I said before that I haven't had a proper diagnoses, or one that I felt was justified. But I can tell you from my own research and talking to my family physician I've come to the conclusion that I am rapid cycle bi-polar. Which means I have severe ups and downs that come very quickly but also can change very quickly.

When something upsets me, and it can be a little thing something stupid, incredible insignificant. I can actually anticipate my mood coming down immediately.  Almost like I can feel the sudden cease of happy chemicals being produced in my head. I think of it like the little workers up there suddenly went on strike. No more neurotransmitters (the chemicals responsible for carrying signals in the brain).

Now I'm not saying that I need to have my way all the time and that people need to walk on egg shells around me, but I've had to really practice holding back and not running away with my emotions.

Breathing exercises, taking a long shower or just having some "alone" time are some of the tricks I use.

It's taken me a long time to admit to myself that this is something I'll carry with me forever. Mental illness is not something that will just go away. It is something I will always struggle with but I would rather do it my way than with the drugs the doctors throw at you. I'm happy to say that I'm on only one anti-depressant and a very small dose at that. But it wasn't always like that. At one time I was on no less than 8 medications at once. Anti-depressants, Anti-anxiety meds, Mood stabilizers, Sleeping pills and even an Anti-Psychotic medication which was completely unnecessary.

These drugs had terrible side affects. I gained 60 pounds in less than 6 months. I literally woke one morning to discover the pants I had worn the night before, no longer fit me. You can imagine the damage this would do to someone's self esteem, yet alone a 120 pound, 19 year old girl. I slurred my words. I tripped and fell a lot. I pretty much slept for 2 years straight. I lost touch with all my friends and slipped into this isolated hermit lifestyle. Not only did I become 50 times more depressed on all these medications that were meant to help me, but I could no longer function.

My mother would yell at me for slurring my words and being "high", when all I was doing was exactly what the doctors told me too. I felt like a complete failure. No matter what I did it was always wrong. I could never make the situation right.

I became very very angry and I bottle that rage for a long time.

Blue Monday

"Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well".

-Sylvia Plath

I've started and re-started this post a number of times already....I hate forcing myself to write when it's not coming naturally. But I really what to try to write every night. So what to write....that is the question. Last Monday, the 17th was "Blue Monday", the most depressing day of the year. The third Monday in January. This was figured out by some equation that has to do with the weather, debt, time passed since Christmas, failing your new years resolutions and so forth. It got me thinking what I was feeling or doing on all those Blue Monday that have passed in my life time. Checking my journal I can see that last year I was quite cheery. A typical day at home with my daughter, other than the fact I was 7 months pregnant. I write about doing puzzles with Stella and the frustrations of trying to get your young child to stay in their own bed at night but nothing about feeling sad or lonesome or anything along those lines. I think I'll make it a project to look through my other journals and poetry books and find the other Blue Mondays....lucky for me I've recorded a lot of life into journals and calendars.

And I think that is all for tonight. It's one of those nights where my mind doesn't want to get active, just relax and watch a movie....."The Town" to be exact.

The first cut is the deepest

"There is a classic moment in ‘The Sun Also Rises’ when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, and all he can say in response is, “Gradually and then suddenly.” When someone asks how I lost my mind, that’s all I can say too."

                                                    

-Elizabeth Wurtzel

 

 

 

The first thing I can think of that strikes me as odd about myself and my childhood is this strange fascination I had with cutting myself, without actually cutting myself. In middle school I would use a ruler and this really sticky, partially dried red Crayola ink pad and I would rub the ruler around in it and then slide it across my wrists. The result was a scary realistic looking slash, and if I wet it a bit, it would actually look like blood, fresh bleeding cuts. I search myself now for the reasons I did this and I come up empty. I can only remember doing this and not the reasons why.....

 

It wasn't until I was 16 that I actually started to cut for real.

I remember that night and the situation that led up to it, it seems so insignificant and stupid now.

My mother wouldn't let me go on a boat cruise with my friends on a Friday night and this enraged me so much I took it out on my fresh.

I had been dealing with a lot of rejection from the opposite sex. I would focus all my attention on one boy. I would make this boy a god and then be rejected and fall hard. I could name names...my list of loves that never were, but the weekend before, my friends and I had gone on a boat cruise and I had ended up actually , while let's put it this way, there was sexy dancing and kissing and I was in Heaven. I felt so good about myself. Although looking back now, it's embarrassing and pretty much a bad memory. I'll never think of "Mambo #5" the same way.

But my mom stopping me from going out with my girlfriends and feeling like that again, just made me blow up. Cutting myself that night was the first and only time I can remember cutting because of anger. Later it became a way to numb the hurt inside. I wanted to feel a hurt greater than the one inside my head.

 

And this is how it started, the gradual and then sudden depression that started to brew inside me.

This is my truth...

"Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."

                                                              -Dylan Thomas

I've been tossing ideas back and forth in my mind about how I should write about my experiences with depression and all the baggage depression carries.

I've never been properly diagnosed. I've seen many doctors all of whom asked me simple questions, none pertaining to any of the problems I was facing or struggling through and from that labeled me either Manic or depressed or both. I've been told I have border line personality disorder with a slight anxiety disorder, really I've heard it all.

But I always wondered how from the 2 minute Q&A asking ME things like, "How are you feeling today?" which I replied "fine." or "Are you sleeping at night?" which I said "yes.", were they able to come to that exact destination and say this person is this or this or this.

It almost would be easier if we all came with labels on our heads saying" I'm bipolar", because the shit I went through with my treatment and all the drugs that were put in my body that weren't necessary have caused more problems than the depression I was suffering with in the first place.

I wanted to start blogging because I'd eventually like to put a book together about my experiences and all that I went through in high school and the years that followed.

I'm the kind of person who really keeps what's going on in their head quiet. Most people have really never heard me discuss these things, In face some people in my family didn't even know I had been struggling with  mental illness or being hospitalized for years until many after the fact. So I just want to put it out there that these are my personal feeling and memories and opinions and if you don't like reading them to simple not read them. I don't want pity or anything like that. This is for me. I want to lay my cards on the table and look'em over. This is my truth from my mouth and my head and my heart. I've been keeping a lot inside for far too long and it already feels good getting this out.

till tomorrow or when I get another chance to write in peace.

xo