Rambling on Bipolar and Goals and Going Forth and Doing

Did I mention in the last entry that I am going to be reading quite a lot this year?

I like to read.  I have been an avid reader since I was a little girl, but lately I have not read much other than my Facebook feed and the blogs that are posted to it on a regular basis.  While some of these pieces are certainly worth the time and effort it takes to read them they are not books, just like this is NOT a book, though I hope you enjoy it.

So yesterday, while Hubby and I waited for the ball to drop in New York, I downloaded free books on my Kindle.  I was pleased that many of the free books are non-fiction, though there are not nearly as many biographies as I would like.

And of course I had to download some fluffy fiction.  It's fun to get lost in someone else's angst now and then . . .and a book lets you do that without the side effect of drama and accidentally giving someone horrid advice and having it backfire all over you!

Anyway, I guess reading is part of my New Year's Resolutions.  Reading, but not just reading.  Reading and then jotting down the concepts that I find applicable to my life and learning how to implement them.

That means not just skimming.  I am great at skimming.  Dh is annoyed by the way I fly through books and is quite sure that I only read every other word.  He may be right, but I do get the jist of the story and if necessary, I can always flip back and reread.

It occurred to me this morning that there may be a whole demographic of people who might look at the title of this blog and immediately dismiss it.  After all, Bipolar!

It is commonly known that Bipolar is not a title that anyone asks to have bestowed upon them.

And yet we who have been called "Bipolar" know ( if we've done any research on it at all) that there are so many people who have accomplished SO much in spite of their condition or in some instances, because of it.  I don't know how much of the genius of some of these people was fueled by mania, or their charm by hypomania.  Just check out this link:

http://www.famousbipolarpeople.com

It makes a person wonder . . .what does it do to the path a person might have walked when one chooses to eliminate highs and lows and be stable?  Still, I'll stick to my meds because I value my life too much to risk becoming suicidal and ending everything.  I couldn't help but notice Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain on the list and immediately I thought of how their lives ended.

In another entry I talked about Abraham Lincoln and how at times his friends took turns staying with him because he was so depressed that he had no desire to live.

And yet here I am, sitting in my dining room, in my normal house in a normal neighborhood . . .blogging about universal themes ( God, keeping order in my day-to-day living, parenting, etc.) These things have nothing to do with my Bipolar because, thank God, I am stable at the moment.

The only way my Bipolar is affecting me now is when I think back about the story I have written by my actions in the past several years.  I know that there are moves that Hubby and I would not have made, friendships that never would have occurred if I hadn't had that first very traumatic episode.

I do mourn our lack of some of the "things" that other people who have lived their lives very steadily, like the tortoise.  Hubby and I are more like the hare.  We have experienced some amazing adventures ( life on a tropical island with your three children, anyone?) but then after that we had some tremendous setbacks .  . .like the hare waking up from his nap.

But life is not a competition and the best I can do is figure out what I am supposed to be doing at this point in my life ( some of the things I am to do are SO obvious and others are not clear at all) and then I must GO FORTH and DO.

I'd love to hear what other people know they are supposed to be doing and how they plan to accomplish their goals.

Do you care to share?

~ Jennifer

The Longest Summer of My Life ( My Story, Part Seven)

The Longest Summer of My Life

There's a reason that all those happy commercials on television about depression medicine fixing people have disclaimers.  People like me are the reason.

I was one of the people who "developed suicidal tendencies".  

I was so drugged up that I staggered around like a zombie.  I could feel myself reacting too slowly . . .I tried to fake being normal . . .but I couldn't.

I was wooden and unwell.  That song by Matchbox 20?  "I'm Not Crazy, I'm Just a Little Unwell."  That was me.

And I was my own worst enemy because I was afraid to ask for help . . .I thought that I had already asked for help and it didn't work, so I just had to figure it out on my own.

Hubby thought I needed rest.  He thought that being alone in my bed was healing.  I didn't know then that being alone was the very worst thing for me.  I sat alone in my bedroom, upright, knees drawn to my chest, head bowed and rocked and the thoughts in my head were cruel and unrelenting. Condemning.

I was ashamed of myself.  I believed that my incompetence was my fault.  I had medicine.  I should be better.  But I was not better.  I was worse.  I began to believe that I quite possibly would never get better;  I was horrified by my lack of concentration.  I could not read to my two year old.  Going to the grocery story and trying to decide between cream of chicken soup or cream of mushroom soup was like trying to make pigs fly.  I could not pray.  I could not get anything out of my Bible.

I began to believe that my babies would be better off if I was gone.  I knew I wasn't taking care of them the way I believed they should be cared for and I thought that if I were gone someone else would step up to the plate.  Either my parents, or perhaps Hubby would remarry someone brighter and more capable than I.

Part of me knew this thinking was faulty, but the other part, the part that believed I was horrible and that the problem was MY FAULT and therefore I should be ABLE TO FIX IT BUT BECAUSE I COULD NOT I SHOULD DIE. . .was very convincing. 

I spent hours arguing with myself in my head.

Suicide really did begin to look like an attractive option.  I started to spend long periods of time daydreaming about the easiest way to die.  The problem was I didn't want anyone I loved to find me.  And I don't like pain.

I didn't realize that I was flirting with disaster.  Think about anything long enough and you will act on it.

I really wish I'd known that other people . . .amazing people had suffered from this very same disorder and lived wonderful lives  in spite of it.

I was in really good company!  Winston Churchill!  Abraham Lincoln!  There are more people in the long list of "People with Bipolar" but I didn't know that I had Bipolar . . .I had no idea that I wasn't the only person who had felt this way . . .

Abraham Lincoln once said "I am now the most miserable man living.  If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.  Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell.  I awfully forebode I shall not.  To remain as I am is impossible.  I must die or be better, it appears to me." ~ Pre Civil War Era.

I didn't know that there were times when his friends never left him alone because they were afraid that he'd kill himself.  ( From the book "Bipolar Disorder, Insights for Recovery" by Jane Mountain, MD.

I started losing the battle with myself.  One out of every five bipolar people kill themselves.  ( From the book, "I'm Not Crazy, Just Bipolar" by Wendy K. Williamson).

Hubby had no idea how ill I really was.  One sunny morning I started taking pills.  I didn't stop until our terrier began barking.  I remember shaking my head and thinking that I probably shouldn't be taking all these pills.

I knew it was wrong and yet . . .the idea that I could take some pills and lay down and go to sleep forever . . .not have to hurt anymore . . .was such an attractive thought. . .

But the other side of me was uneasy about the pills.  I called Hubby, told him what I'd done.  He asked me what I done, how many pills, what kind?

When I told him and he googled it he started to swear.  

I'm not going to go deeply into the painful aftermath of that decision.  It hurts so much even now thinking about how I kissed everyone of my babies before I left to go to the hospital, how my mother asked me "Why?" when she arrived to stay with them . . .

The hospital was cold and bright and the feeling of being there was surreal. I was lucky.  They were able to give me a disgusting potion that took care of me . . .

I was supervised in the ICU because my doctor understood about the pysch ward freaking me out . . .

And Hubby begged her to find me a new psychiatrist.  Bless her, she pulled some strings and got me into see a doctor who wasn't taking new patients. 

Amazing man.  He was from Pakistan, very kind, very professional and he gave me my diagnosis:  Bipolar II.

He was spot on with the medicine that he felt would help me . . .Depakote.

Hubby says that within two weeks I was starting to be the person he knew before my life went to pieces.  But I came out of that episode feeling shattered and scared to death that it would happen again.  It would be years before I started to feel like God was really and truly on my side.

It would be years before I learned the fact that Bipolar II usually presents around age 28, ( I was thirty when mine manifested),

And years before I accepted that I didn't break my brain.  It was genetically pre-programmed to break.

I wish I'd known to be kind to myself . . .

I wish I'd known that even though I couldn't feel Him, God was on my side . 

And I wish I'd known that just because things aren't beautiful . . .

It doesn't mean that life isn't a beautiful thing.