Month: November 2018

Claw

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This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.

TW: Suicidal Thoughts.

I feel like I’m clawing my way to the top again.

But yesterday was so bad and I’m afraid I’ll end up back there.

Yesterday I came home from United Way and crawled right into bed.

The fog was so thick and the suicidal thoughts were so loud that I ended up texting the Crisis Text Line.   Telling them, I have a plan to die, but I also have a plan to go to the gym with friends in a few hours.  I just need someone to talk to me while I get out of bed and get ready for the gym so that I go with the right plan tonight.

Just reaching out was enough to break the fog and I didn’t need to talk to them for long, but having them there is an amazing resource.

Normally there is some sort of trigger for this, and right now there isn’t.  It’s just a biological thing.  I’m bipolar and I get depressed and sometimes my depression is suicidal in nature.

I’m sitting in front of my happy light as we speak, I’m getting plenty of water and still going to the gym.  I’m doing all of the right things.

It’s scary that people still die.

DBT is helping.  I don’t freak out about being suicidal as much.  It just kind of “is” and I ride the waves of it, waiting for it to pass.  I’m not as worried about acting on it because it’s just a thought and my thoughts won’t actually kill me.  That’s helpful.  It wasn’t helpful to be suicidal, AND panicking about being suicidal at the same time.

Last night, even after she brought me home flowers, I laid in bed and asked Wonder Woman to tell me, for sure, that she’d be upset if I were gone.  I needed to hear it, my brain was telling me she’d be better off without me.

But this morning I woke up and felt a little clearer.  I still fought for 2 hours to get out of bed.  I had to leave the dog waiting to go out while I immediately got into the shower because I knew if I left the bathroom, I wouldn’t be able to fight my brain into the shower later.

The thoughts are still there.  Not just the suicidal ones, although they are too.  The thoughts that are telling me I should stop taking my meds, or just not take this one or that one, or I don’t need to refill all of them.  The thoughts that are telling me it’s time to decrease this dose.  The thoughts that are telling me I shouldn’t eat for 24 hours.  Things that, luckily, I know are logically a bad idea.  Things that I can work around and short circuit.

Sometimes my brain is a real asshole.

But I feel like, maybe, I’m clawing my way to the top again.

 

Emergency Exit

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This is a really real mental health post.

TW: Mention of Suicidal Thoughts

I made in it to United Way today.

This is actually a huge accomplishment.  Normally when I’m crashing I call out. It’s a volunteer job and it wears me out. It’s the last place I want to be when I’m fighting my own brain.  Today I figured maybe it would be a helpful distraction.  I pushed myself to go in.

The last bunch of weeks they’ve kept me off the phones and put me on other projects.  I went from updating resource listings, that I would have been using 2 years ago, to alphabetizing and sorting lists of resources that their system wasn’t handling properly.  Today I entered something into the system that I don’t fully understand, but it needs to be done, literally, 900 times. Boring, monotonous, repetitive, unskilled work that shouldn’t take up the time of someone with skills to do something more.  Therefore it’s perfect for me.  Except I like the idea of feeling like I’m doing something important and this just feels like busy work to free up the other people to do the stuff that actually matters.

I also wonder if I fucked up on the phones and that’s why they took me off of them.

The other problem with repetitive busy work is it gives my brain three hours to continue ruminating.

Click here and here and here and hit submit.  “If I’d finished a degree I could be doing more.”

Click here and here and here and hit submit.  “I wonder what I fucked up on the phones to get me sent down to this.”

Click here and here and here and hit submit.  “I always start off so great, but it always falls apart and I fail again and again.”

Click here and here and here and hit submit. “Where’s the permanent exit from all this.  I’m tired.”

Its one thing to be in that fog while I’m sitting at home.   It’s an entirely different experience to be surrounded by the activity of office life and feel myself slipping further and further away.

Click here and here and here and hit submit.  “They’d be glad they don’t need to find something for me to do each week.”

My brain starts looking for a plan.  What’s on hand, what’s around.

I’m still not sure if it was good that I went in or not.  There were people there who I could have told, people who I trust, who would have talked with me, except right now I don’t really want to tell anyone during the worst of it.

I feel like I’m looking for the emergency exit from life.   Except jumping off this bus isn’t really the answer.  I know that, logically.

But the fog is so thick and that exit looks so clear sometimes.

 

 

Clean Kitchen

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This is a Really Real Mental Health Post

This morning I woke up to a clean kitchen.

Last night I went to bed with my brain still spinning.

The white hum of thoughts, death, and pills and quiet so loud I could hear it.

I never did eat dinner.

The depression is so thick I feel like I’m pushing through it with every movement I take and getting out of bed this morning was a three hour process.

Three hours of arguing with myself to take that first step out of bed.

My dog whining because she knew I was awake and she wanted to go out.

Then I stood in the bathroom convincing myself that I could do the next step in my routine.  Brush my teeth.  The smallest amount of movement needed seemed like scaling a building.  I argued with my own brain about how necessary it really was.  Could I just get away with some mouthwash or chewing some gum.  In the end I won and my teeth got brushed but holy shit, should I have to fight for 5 minutes just to get a toothbrush out of a fucking cabinet.

Taking the dog out and impatiently waiting, feeling the impatience curl in my lungs when she needs to sniff every. . . fucking . . .thing.  It’s cold and I want to be inside in my bed, but there are things to be done today and I don’t want to be a failure so I wait for the dog to sniff all of the things and then we go inside.

I get to the kitchen, lost in my own world, making up her food for the morning, and when I go to soak her fork I realize the sink is empty.  The dinner dishes are washed.  I blink and look around.  The kitchen is clean.

I smile for the first time in over 12 hours.

I giggle.

This was outside of the routine.

It took me out of my head long enough to look around and take a deep breath.

It was a gift I didn’t even know I needed.

The depression is still there.   I still haven’t eaten breakfast.  Things are still both quiet and loud all at the same time.  I’m still beating myself up and it’s dark in there.

But for a minute I was able to take a breath.

I really do love her.

Thought Prison

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Really Real Mental Health Post

Today you get two posts.

This one is long and rambling, and will give you a glimpse inside my brain when it’s acting up and ruminating.

TW:  Suicidal thoughts, also potentially triggering for those with Disordered Eating.

My brain is an asshole.

It’s partially my fault, maybe.  I forgot to take my morning medications before leaving for the gym, and I remembered pretty early, but I’ve been gone all day so I didn’t have a way to take them.  (Please, no “helpful advice” about carrying some with me.)

Somewhere in there, the innocent thought passed through “What if I just stopped taking medication.”  And I laughed, cause that’s a dumb thought, and I know better.  I’m the last person that would ever consider not taking my meds.  I start freaking out when I miss them for one dose.

Except this time the thought got stuck.

I knew it was a ridiculous thought, but just like with my suicidal thoughts, it started to take on a life of its own.  Replaying over and over again.  The thought of taking my meds became like the thought of taking poison.  Over and over “just stop taking them, I mean, you did it for 6 months around when Parker died and you were fine”  “Just stop, hypomania is fun, and you’ll get more done”  “Just stop, they’re poison and they make you feel like shit every night anyway”  “Just stop, they’re making you gain all this weight”   “Just stop, look at how hungry they make you”  “Just stop, I mean, you have to eat so much just to take one pill.”

I came home and without even stopping to take my ADHD pill out of the morning meds I took those.  I didn’t care that it was 3pm, I knew I needed to get those pills in me and that if I stopped to look at them I’d hyper-analyze and would have too hard of a time to take them.

I laid down for a nap.

My brain kept spiraling.

“Gonna be stuck on pills forever, might as well just die.”

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me, my brain is trying to kill me again.

I’m laying there beside Wonder Woman wanting to tell her why I feel so needy and that my brain is being an epic sort of asshole but instead I just act like everything is fine and normal because I’m Self Saving Warrior Princess and all that, and she’s got her own problems and I know it’s not bad enough to actually kill me right now.

We roll over and I manage to have nightmare filled sleep.  I don’t remember the nightmares but I woke up feeling gross, I couldn’t really see a purpose in fighting against the thoughts for that moment, so instead I got up and made dinner.

Part of dinner was a pretty big flop, the rest of it was just, food, nothing special really.

“You’re a failure, why are you even alive.  Really, you should just be dead.”

Would you shut the fuck up already.

“Doesn’t make sense to eat, you’re too fat, not like your gonna take your meds anyway.”

Fuck.

I sit down and let Wonder Woman get her food first.  I’m fighting with my own brain while it looks like I’m mindlessly scrolling Facebook.  I need to eat food to take my night meds, or at least one of them.  I’m mentally exhausted, I’m too depressed to be hungry.

I’m giving you one random sentence here and there that pops out of my head, but the dialogue is constant.  One minute it’s a suicidal though.  The next it’s about how I can’t take meds.  Ruminating thoughts that have me in a fog.  This constant hum of thoughts that makes time blur.

I lay back down and the thoughts get louder.  Ruminations on death, cutting, overdosing, while also thinking about cleaning up dinner, and the fact that I need to take my damn meds, which means I need to eat.

None of the thoughts have any real power, so they aren’t too scary.  They are just, noise.  Almost like a white noise machine, except the sound of my thoughts.

I’m trying to work through the steps to take the Latuda out of my night meds so I can take them without eating and my brain keeps short circuiting, and I stay stuck in bed ruminating.

I want someone to talk through this with but I also feel like that’s selfish and like I should be able to handle this alone.  I feel like reaching out would be the wrong thing now because I’m not really in danger, I don’t think.  The suicidal thoughts aren’t too loud, they’re just telling me to die, they aren’t telling me to actively kill myself.  I don’t have a plan, I just want a plan.

Finally I realize I can just take my meds as is, including the Latuda and get whatever effect I can get from it, for tonight.  It’s better than nothing.  It’s better than ruminating for another hour, laying in bed, curled in a ball, stuck.

The thoughts quiet some, I just needed to figure out my way out of the thought prison.  Figure out what had me stuck.

I cleaned up the kitchen.  The suicidal thoughts are a dull hum now, although the nighttime nausea has set in and that’s fucking annoying.

This is what it’s like to get wrapped up in my own brain sometimes, this could have happened even if I wasn’t 8 hours late on my morning meds (that isn’t that late really).

One random thought that came from nowhere.  I may be able to let it go after today.  Or it may get stuck for awhile.

Parallel

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This is Really Real ummmm, Life? Post

Really Real Relationship Post

Really Real Trauma Post

No?

Maybe a Really Real Mental Health Post?

I’m not really sure what kind of post it is, but it’s real.

Yesterday I was overwhelmed.  Part of it was a rough therapy session and part of it was because after that therapy session I walked outside and drew parallels between that moment in time and where I was 2.5 years earlier, walking out of the same therapists office after a conversation about a similar topic, the last night Parker was alive.

I’m not in my past anymore.

And I started to panic a few nights ago because I felt grumpy and on edge  and things just felt off and before I went outside to have my fire, Wonder Woman said she’d be in bed before I came up, and suddenly in my head I wondered if we were fighting.  Going to bed mad isn’t okay, Parker died that way.  And I came running back in with a panicked chest to make sure we were okay, feeling bad because yet again my trauma became the center of whatever was happening.

I’m not in my past anymore.

When we have difficult conversations I need a lot of reassurance because fights were never pretty in my past.  Afterwards, almost every single time, I thank her for letting me be me.  For not being angry with me for just feeling my feels.  For not getting angry when I talk in circles or take a minute to explain myself.  I’m thanking her for helping us to have healthy conversations around difficult topics.

I’m not in my past anymore.

I try not to compare, but there are parallels to situations.  Wonder Woman isn’t the people from my past and I don’t want her to be.  I’m not sure why I expect the same reactions and the same outcomes.  It’s really hard to be in a healthy relationship because I come from a history of mutliple relationships that became very unhealthy for many reasons and I expect this one to follow suit.

I don’t want to compare my relationship now, to my relationships then.  But so much about then scarred me.  So much of me is built on trauma.  A lot of of that trauma is because of situations I was in, and a lot is because of the people, including me,  in the situations.  Either way, even with saying “They were doing the best they knew at the time” I’m every bit of a broken beautiful mess.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop because in my past it always did.

I’m not in my past anymore.

Things are still hard.  We still have to talk and work things out and it’s not always perfect.  But there’s not some big reveal waiting to take me out from behind.

Even as I’m typing that I’m wondering what I’m missing.  What’s going to come out and blindside me.

I’m not in my past anymore.

 

Overwhelmed

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This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.

 

I’m overwhelmed

I feel it starting in my gut.

Crawling into my chest.

It fills my lungs.

Threatens to escape in a yell

With every single breath.

I’m overwhelmed.

 

I’m overwhelmed.

I want to run.

The easiest way to run is to die.

The easiest way to run is to leave.

The easiest way to run is to hide.

Everyone leaves in the end.

I’m overwhelmed.

 

I’m overwhelmed.

I start seeing all the things that are wrong.

I start seeing ways that I’m failing.

I start seeing needs that aren’t being met.

I start seeing conversations I can’t seem to have.

I start seeing things that upset me.

I’m overwhelmed.

 

I’m overwhelmed

All of it’s coming so fast.

Life seemed just fine before.

Why is it bothering me now.

Am I just looking for trouble.

Are things really just fine.

I’m overwhelmed.

 

I’m overwhelmed.

Sitting with difficult feelings.

Finding peace with the chaos inside.

Distance from the emotions.

Waiting before I react.

It’s okay to not be okay.

I’m overwhelmed.

Script

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This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.

I overthink about a lot of things.

What?

That’s not a shocking reveal?

At one point I wanted a tattoo that said “Let me overthink about it.” (But then I overthought about the tattoo and decided not to get it.)

One of the undercurrents of my overthinking is scripting.  I will script entire days with my partner, except I forget one crucial part of this, I don’t give them the script.

And then I get really grumpy when things deviate from the script because I don’t like change, and they changed the plans without any warning.

It’s not MY fault they didn’t know there were plans and scripts to be followed.

Except I’ve started realizing it is my fault and that almost makes it worse because I’m like a kid throwing a temper tantrum who realizes I look a little ridiculous.  I need a personal time out.  “I just need a minute here to get my ass back under control.”

Lets back up a step further.  How ’bout I just stop overthinking all this shit in the first place and stay in the moment.  I’m trying to plan for every conversation so that I have an answer for everything, and so that I don’t screw up and start a fight.  And for other unknown reasons that I haven’t quite figured out yet.  It’s an anxiety thing, it’s a trauma thing, it’s a “this is who I am” thing.

But living in the future, trying to script all this stuff, is supremely unhelpful.

It’s hard to stop.  Really Fucking Hard.

“If she says this, I’ll say this.”

“We can do this, and then this will be easier to say. ”

“If I ask this in this way, very carefully, maybe she’ll react this way instead of this way.”

Yeah, it’s a trauma thing but it’s not helpful in my current situations.

Living in the moment is much more productive.

Scripting just leads to fighting change that isn’t really happening.  Change that’s all in my head.

Scripting isn’t helpful.

It’s time to rip up the script.

Don’t Wanna

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This is a Really Real Health Post

For the last bunch of years, even after getting healthier, I was dealing with some weird symptoms, sporadically.  I would retain fluid in my hands and feet, they would go numb, sometimes it would coincide with my autoimmune illness flaring (even though it isn’t related), other times it wouldn’t.  It happened every time I took vitamins, but also happened other times.

Finally we decided to send me to food allergy testing.  Some strange things popped up, spinach, which I already knew,  but also broccoli, shrimp, and potatoes.

I was hoping they could find out why vitamins cause this problem in me, but not medication.  There’s something in the filler.

We never did find out and the allergist said it’s not really possible to.

But potatoes are part of the nightshade family, and for some people, nightshades cause inflammation.  I cut potatoes out almost completely and noticed a significant decrease in swelling, pain, and my autoimmune illness flares, and just started watching myself around tomatoes, peppers and eggplant (the other nightshades), hoping I wouldn’t have to cut them too.

I’ve spent the last few weeks feeling like I might have to cut them because I’ve been noticing more problems when I eat tomatoes.  Last night I had spaghetti and I woke up half a dozen times with my hands falling asleep from swelling.

Allergies are annoying.  These aren’t deadly.  I can technically eat them, so I guess it’s more of an intolerance, my body just doesn’t process it correctly.

Potatoes have been a big enough pain in the ass.  I miss McDonalds fries, I miss hashbrowns, there are some Gouda potato puffs that Aldi’s makes that I’m completely bummed about.  Tomatoes means no more Caprese salad or Caprese chicken.  Bell Peppers are a little easier to work around and I only had eggplant once or twice a year as it is.

But, I know that cutting out potatoes made a significant difference in my pain levels.  It was a big ‘ah-ha’ moment for me, as far as what had been going on in my body for so long.

I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to tomatoes completely, but I’m getting closer and closer.  I have a feeling there will be one last Caprese chicken in my future before I cut them out of my diet.

Fire!

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This is a Really Real Trauma Post.

Five years ago today I woke up to the sound of fire alarms going off in the house we were staying in.

Parker and I grabbed our, “Coats and shoes, coats and shoes, coats and shoes” like had been barked at as over and over again while we went through the monthly fire drills at the shelter.  We were still living a very condensed life at that point, we were lucky enough that a guy let us stay with him.  Parker and I had most of our stuff in our room in the basement.  Kidlet had a room upstairs because it was easier for him to get to when he was still healing from the accident 6 months earlier.

“Fire, Fire, Fire!”  I figured someone was cooking, but for some reason, we grabbed our coats and shoes from the back of our door.

No one was on the first floor.

Kidlet met us on the stairs heading upstairs asking why he smelled smoke.  We sent him outside and went looking for Kevin.

We tried to put the fire out and instead watched it spread.  Everything we’d spent 6 months regaining, after spending months in the homeless shelter, we lost again.  Most of Kidlet’s stuff that had been saved while we were homeless, was lost due to smoke damage.

We were so lucky to have friends and family who came to our aid.  Kidlet’s electronics were replaced by friends, for Christmas.  The place we went for therapy, gave gifts of clothes and gave Kidlet a handheld game system and some games.  One friend spent hours washing all of Kidlet’s clothes repeatedly to try and get the smoke smell out.

We were even luckier that it was a relatively small fire that only consumed one room (with loads of smoke and water damage to the rest of the house) and that all of the humans walked out alive.  We were devastated to lose Kidlet’s pet cat, Shadow.

Five years later I’m sitting outside with a fire in my fire pit.  Smoke alarms only freak me out for a few minutes now.  I no longer grab my “Coats and shoes, coats and shoes, coats and shoes” as soon as I hear one.

I live less than a block from the house where the fire happened.  I pass the house pretty much every day.  New tenants live there now, but there is still a little buckle in the roof line from the heat.

So much has changed in 5 years.  At the time, it was one of the worst things I’d been through.  At this point I know better than to test my luck by even trying to rate things because there’s always something worse out there.

But life gets better.  And I’ve always had some pretty amazing friends and family around to help out after the tough times.

If I could have

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This is a Really Real Widow Post

TW: Talk of Completed Suicide.

I’m a suicide widow.

I went to bed a wife and woke up a widow, and from that moment on, there has been a part of me that wonders ‘what if.’

‘What if’ I hadn’t fought with her that night.

‘What if’ we hadn’t put her medications near the bed.

‘What if’ I had gone to bed earlier.

‘What if.’

But

If depression could be loved away, I would have.

If darkness could be loved away, I would have.

If suicidal thoughts could be loved away, I would have.

I loved her.

And because I loved her, in spite of her depression, in spite of her darkness, in spite her suicidal thoughts, she had moments where she felt that love.  She knew, not only from me, but from others in her life, that she was loved.

What if she didn’t have that.

If love could have kept her here, she’d still be here.