Anniversary of Loss

a year ago today, at 16+ weeks i found out my baby’s heart had stopped beating.

a year has gone by, i do not have a baby, i am not pregnant, and i did not even lose all the weight.  My grief has not lessened it has only increased.

i am so sad, every day, all the time.

There is nothing beautiful about depression, there is nothing beautiful about mania, suffering might provide experience which produces beautiful things.

but there is nothing beautiful about being unable to live, to be empty of joy, to be full of fear, to hurt so much that you cannot even form a sentence.

no, there is nothing beautiful about my illness, and the biggest tragedy is that you think there is.

the romance of self medication

i’ve had mental illness all my life, i had my first depressive episode when i was six.

The idea that you can self medicate with drugs is always there, like, when i am really really depressed i know, i could, induce mania. 

But i do not. Do i think i am strong? NO. i know i am lucky, that it would be just as easy for me to be stuck in a cycle of mental illness and self medicating with drugs and alcohol as it is to type this.  

Addiction is a crap shoot, your upbringing, your genetics, where you live, who you were friends with, any and all these things can make the difference between being an addict, and not being an addict.

That’s why i get so nervous around people who misuse alcohol, or who do drugs, especially the ones who say that weed is ‘safe’

It’s not safe.  Maybe it is not dangerous for everyone, but it changes how your brain works, and can cause a break in people who are prone to mental illness.

You might never have mental illness in your life, even though you are at risk for it, until you start using, cocaine, weed, meth, all these drugs change the chemistry in your brain.

do research, be careful, and examine why you are tempted to use, if you are self medicating, get help.

http://cannabisandpsychosis.ca/more-information/what-do-we-know/psychosis/what-is-psychosis/

Sometimes Depression is Silence.

When depression is silence is it is a gift, a cold isolating gift where you feel nothing and care about nothing. It hurts. It is a void, and you are alone.

But depression is rarely silent. It is an assault on your well being in the form of doubts, regrets, your memories become weapons against you, what you have is violently replaced by intrusive thoughts of what you don't have. Happiness is a sensation you will never have again.

All your hurts, all of your insecurities, all those dreams you once had that now feel so unattainable, they haunt you, they assail and incapacitate you to everyone and everything. And there is no rest, no reprise.

Logically, you know that this assault on your very core is all lies caused by your depression, but that same depression strips you of any tools you possess that could help you fight it. It tries to isolate you from everyone, even from the Holy Spirit that you know, came to dwell in you, so that you would never be alone again.

But God is bigger than depression, His weapons are LOVE and HOPE. i must take comfort in that one truth, even when under attack from all depressions lies. i might succeed in pushing away anyone that ever cared for me, or loved me, but God will not be separated from those who LOVE Him. 

He will never leave and He is determined to be close. He will give me strength to get up and face each day when depression has robbed me of all my desire to do so.  i must hold on to that truth, no matter what lies depression tells. i have to survive, because i know that God has better things in His plans for me.

Depression is seductive, it tells me that if i just let go, if i let everything end, then the pain will stop, and i will rest.  i will not let it win, i will find my comfort in the TRUTH that God loves me, that He does not make mistakes, and that the day will come when there will be no more pain.

 

Living with Mental Illness,
  Live Journal Post, January 7, 2008

I have been re reading Rosamunde Pilcher...

all full of hope and love, and disappointments, bittersweet loves that turn right in the end, even if the love walks hand in hand with untold misery.

Her books are often about living during the second world war, i like books about that time, the misery and the hope so desperately in twinged much like how every day seems to go for me, any time hope can be dashed away taken by fear or despair... when you suffer like i do, and the medications seem to do nothing to ease the pain of living, those bright points of hope, they are what you survive on, hope and the responsibility of being loved, because when you are loved, by your friends, family, your children, you have a commitment to them, to be what they need, to help and love them as they love you, and hard as it is, you have to push through the despair and the misery and the physical pain and carry on

i know that more often than not, i mess it all up, the agony of intense emotion lays heavily on my soul, and sometimes i am so overwhelmed that i can scarcely turn on the oven, or even hear what is being said to me, tho my attention is fixed on the task, it comes through a heavy mist, or from far away so that, i am short tempered or inattentive and still manage to raise my voice, or burn myself, or do some other silly damage that reduces me to tears of frustration and loss.

They say tomorrow is a new day, but it is not really, its just a continuation of what has been happening for the past 30 years of my life, and i have enough skill and intelligence to read the writing on the wall and know that it can be better at times, but it IS a progressive illness so in the long run it can only get worse.

this paragraph from The Shell Seekers, hit me, because i realized that this is the only way that we can survive, and that is sad, because it means that no matter how hard i try, i cannot hope to have anything more than i have right now, because at any moment the war could be over, and when you have mental illness, i am not so sure the war would end in my favor....

"There is a war on.  We don't know how anything is going to end.  We just have to grasp each fleeting moment of joy as it whizzes by.  If he loves you and you love him, then you just go on ahead.  I'm right behind you both and i'll do everything i can to help.  Now, for God's sake, let's get these dishes out of the way before the boys get home and it's time to start cooking the supper."

so i am going to get the ironing out of the way, and maybe play with one of the rabbits, even tho i feel that i am falling to pieces and am always with one foot in the grave.

The problem with bi-polar is yes, this too shall pass, only to be replaced by a worse bout than the one before, and a cycle that becomes so rapid that i think i have whiplash, sleep, real sleep, is something i remember from a time so long ago that i wonder if it really exists,  i do not like to leave things on a note of sorrow, because that always makes me feel like i am wallowing.... but i remember the promise of love, and i will keep faith for my friends, and my family, that is the best that i can do, tho i cannot think for the life of me what such a miserable creature as i have done to deserve such love..... 

Just another facebook status...

What bipolar means, continued....

compilation of facebook statuses

bipolar means not being able to trust any memories or anyone. It means not remembering what happened 10 minutes ago. It means having no control over what your brain is doing. i admit, the past 3 months have been some of the hardest i have ever experienced. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. I honestly wish i could go back to the mind numbing depression that casued me to sleep for 8 months. That was not living, but it was not as nightmarish as this is right now. 

my illness is bad enough, but other people not being able to get shit done, when they are fucking healthy? And me seeing all the things i work so hard on fall apart? i am friken pissed off.

i cannot stand this one day up, one day down chronic pain, dizzy shit, i don't know if it's me, the meds, the lack of meds, i am just a mess. i hate you bipolar. 

You are no longer fun

Welcome!

It's not like what they say on tv. My teapot never talks to me, i don't have voices telling me to hurt others, no whispers, no taunts. Not in the way that you think i hear voices. If i stopped taking my medication, the only person that would be in danger is me. 

Depression is a voice, a voice of anguish and despair, a cold cruel voice. Deceptive and compelling, full of lies. It admonishes you for your actions, or rather the inability to act. A desperate pain filled voice screaming that you are worth nothing. You deserve nothing. A certainty that you are not worthy of love.

Sometimes i think i am lucky, because being bipolar, there is another voice, a voice that encourages me to greatness- pushing me to be MORE. And then i remember that the voice of mania is a relentless voice. A voice without mercy that will drive you right to the edge. Vulnerable to the other darker voice that waits to pull you back into despair. 

There are drugs made to silence both voices. Seductive drugs that claim to ease the suffering, to quell the two voices of my disease. To make us 'normal'. But those drugs blur my reality and steal my intensity.  Colours become muted. It becomes harder to know God. To know me.

Somewhere inside the pain and elation i know there is still me. My being, Who i am does not change. Those medications can mute who i am. They bring numbness and apathy, worse than ever the depression could bring. Anti-depressants take some of the pain away. A blessing. But the mood stabilizers take me away, and that is worse than anything this disease can do to me.

Don't believe the lies when the media tells you that people with bipolar are 'crazy' or dangerous. Try to remember that the danger is to ourselves. It is true. There are horrible things going on inside my head. But there is also beauty, inspiration and so much empathy.

We are intense. We are often self-loathing. But above all else we are the first to reach out to someone in pain. Remember this when you hear people using 'manic', 'bipolar' or just plain crazy as a dismissive insult. Remember i am not my disease.