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We got TONS of snow last night and it drifted by this morning. The dog had a great time trying to leap over the drifts – which was amusing for me. I’m not going anywhere today that I can’t walk or take a bus to. The roads are insanely bad.
Meds are making me feel weird this morning. I woke up at 4:30 am and couldn’t fall back asleep. Had very intense sexual dreams. Strange since I haven’t been dreaming since I started the depakote. I am also feeling a craving for the klonopin which makes me worried about how easy it’s going to be off of it by the end of the week.
I have been thinking about what someone told me about friendships and relationships. That consistency and steadiness are what you should work towards to ensure happiness in both. The excitement of that first meeting or that feeling of instant connection to someone is nice but only time and a person’s actions tell the real truth.
With the bipolar illness I have been more apt to go for the easy fix, that shallow friendship, the excitement. Only to have it turn sour or the person (or me) disappear when the fun started to look like work. I am lucky that somehow through all of this I have gathered a small set of close friends. We have known each other for years and have no illusions about one another. Yet we care and we watch each other growing older and changing. This sounds mushy but I feel lucky to be included in their lives.
By extension, I am learning that my own happiness will be had by the same consistency and steadiness. From my housing, to where I work, to my friends, and to whom I date.
Ack. This feels so grown up. I guess I am grown up.
So it turns out I’m physically addicted to Xanax. My present psychiatrist has been telling me to get off the stuff and I have been trying. However after two or three days I get dysphoric mania, which is the opposite of the “fun” mania where you feel like god and rack up all of your credit cards. Instead I get agitated in a way that’s hard to describe and want to bash my head into a wall to make it stop. Cool, huh. I’m really not liking my former doctor right now.
I get to go on another med that is suppose to help me wean off this crap and lessen the withdrawal symptoms. Methadone for the benzo addict. Grrrr.
It appears that I have begun the official grieving process for being diagnosed with this illness. I had kind of a breakthrough this evening while listening to a visualization exercise. The meaning of what it means to be bipolar, the implications this has on my life and relationships, and what it means to be on medications for the rest of my life has been realized. My therapist will be so happy.
So I accept that I have a chronic illness that has the ability to kill me. Those with bipolar disorder have a more than double the risk of committing suicide. With the added bonus of my having a close family member who has taken their life, my risk doubles again. (Someone please tell the doctors to stop telling me this. I get it already.) Life is painful but having seen what suicide does to those who remain I could never fathom doing that to my family again unless I was actually insane. In which case I should be hospitalized against my will.
In order to avoid this end I accept that I need to take medications every day for the rest of my life. I also accept that the meds suck major ass. I’ve never felt so old in my entire life. I’m tired, I can’t remember words, I’m operating at 50% the energy level that I had when I was hypomanic. How do normal people get anything done? Seriously. You have no idea how freakin’ slow you people are. Being ‘normal’ sucks big skanky ass.
I accept that even with the meds I will cycle and that I will need to learn to deal with this. The meds will make the cycling, peaks and valleys, easier to deal with, but they will still be there. Yippee.
I accept that I will need to attend therapy every week for probably a long time. Offering up my emotional vomit for examination. (Unlike posting it on an Internet site where anyone can read it.) On a serious note, I really don’t feel like I post anything very personal here. I mean I’m talking about my illness and my beliefs and all but I don’t write about the real personal stuff. I mean except for a minor gaff here and there I do have healthy boundaries, ask my therapist.
I accept that I am not to fall prey to self pity and doubt. It’s a waste of energy and I don’t have it to spare. I also accept that this isn’t a battle to be won. It’s a song that I need to learn how to sing. A very long, convoluted, shitty song.
Which leads me to the hardest part and something I haven’t accepted yet. That I am going to have to adjust my personal expectations of myself. I am use to being a high energy, get everything done faster and better than everyone else kind of guy. Well, this can’t happen anymore. This doesn’t mean that I will be slower than everyone else. Only that I am no longer operating on “hyperdrive” as a coworker pointed out.
I grieve for this part of myself.
2005/01/06 22:10
We all move uneasily within our restraints.
- Kay Redfield Jamison
I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life would have suited me – yet I sometimes long for it.
-Byron
I have been reading the book An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison and found in it the quote above. Byron sums up very succently what I have been feeling. Namely, that I can’t imagine being anything other than the moody, passionate person that I am. Yet lately I would like nothing more than to be able to wake up in the morning without a sense of dread at having to deal with the daily rollercoaster of emotions that awaits. The meds are helping. I have been holding moods for four to six hours each. Hopefully to be extended with time to days or even weeks. It’s hard for me to fathom the possibility or the meaning of that. What will be the consequences? Will my personality change for the better? Will I loose my creativity or will it evolve? Who will I become?
I am grateful – maybe grateful is the wrong word – better off that I am having to deal with this in my thirties rather than in my twenties. I am aware and less vulnerable than I would have been. With age does come a form of wisdom that comes from experience, if one is willing to look at it dispassionately and without ego. I was too immature to have dealt with this back then. Which is possibly why things are coming to a head at this point in my life. A small solace in the face of watching my mind fragment. I think that this is the most horrifying part of bipolar disorder. When you become aware of the mind’s insanity and having no choice but to watch helplessly as your world disintegrates around you. It is the awareness that brings the horror.
Those who speak