And the fight goes on!

So it's been a while and it's not been easy. In some ways I do feel better but I still get frustrated but how my moods change. I still get depressed and I still get manic. It's not as extreme as it was but the changes in mood are still there.

I have been volunteering at the local library to see if I am ready to get back to work. The idea being that working in a job that does not have any pressure is a good way of seeing if I can cope with being back at work. When I work at the library I have to put on that positive, life is amazing face. It exhausts me. So I am not socialising much. I have barely talked to anyone outside of work or my family. I have cut everybody off. I know that I am not ready to go back to work but financial I have to go back over the next month. Money is getting really tough. I have cut down on everything but I still don't make ends meet  completely. SSP sucks. My next job will have proper benefits and training. If I have an episode like this again I have to know that I won't have the stress of mony on top of everything else. I also know when I finally go back to work (if they don't dismiss me) I have to face all the rumors that have been floating around and all the lies my 'friend' has been telling people. I know what she has said because I have had people texting me to find out what is going on and if what she says is true. I have not replied since it's non of their buisness. However, apart from those texts only 1 person has text me and met up with me, and 1 other who has sent 1 text to say they missed me but didn't ask about the rumors being spread. This leads me to believe that this person does care but I am weary of everyone in that place baring the 1 person who has been meeting me.   Work is going to be awful. I am looking for other work but it's hard in education right now as it's mid scholastic year. June/July is when jobs appear.

I don't see things getting better anytime soon. I just want to pack a bag and just leave. Everything just sucks.

I did a rotton thing the other week. I was feeling really horny and I allowed someone, who I know has a thing for me, believe we were going to try out relationship again. We ended up sexting. I felt awful afterwoods because I know that I would never go for a relationship with him. I didn't first time round and certainly not now. I was veing unfair and did tell him that.

I know I can't help having bipolar, it's as part of me as my grey streak is. But I hate it. I hate how it rules my life. The time to have the medication, having to watch my moods, being cautious all the time about what I say and what I do and most of all the way I have been betrayed my supposed 'friends' over all this. It has cost me much and it doesn't give anything on return. There is no pay off. At least with my dyslexia I have to think outside the box and come up with creative solution to issues and have been told my lessons are imaginative and fun and the students learn a lot from them. But with bipolar there is nothing positive about it. It screws with every part of my life. I can only try and enjoy the 'calm' moments I my life, which are few and far between.  I wish I didn't have this awful disorder but I do.

The is a Rollercoaster.

Every woman, every man

Life is in your hand

Take a look and make a stand

and pray that you will, pray that you will

Make the most of burning toast

Watch the wheels of the roller-coaster

Doctor, doctor I feel much older

Don't you know that the jokes are all on you

Rollercoaster - Let Loose

So I've been on my meds for quite a while now.  For a little while there I felt amazing.  I wasn't manic, I wasn't depressed.  I was productive and happy and glad to be alive.  I slept well (my normal 6 hours), I did course work, I went out, I talked to people, I socialised... it was amazing.

I got a letter from work during this time asking me to come in for a meeting about returning to work.  So I went along, put some ideas forward for reasonable adjustments.  They weren't really interested in what I had to say.  Two days later I got a letter to say that they were thinking about releasing me from my contract.  I went to another meeting and put my view across and the fact they should talk to my psychiatric doctor about whether I should return to work or not and not base it on the GPs letter that was 3 months ago.  The look on their faces were priceless, I will never forget the look of  'Oh crap' on their face.  I also said that I wanted their thoughts on my ideas of 'reasonable adjustments' because it really shouldn't be just me coming up with ideas, it should be a dialogue between us, but they refused to have that conversation.  I pretty much think they want rid of me, but as I point out, although the GPs letter said that [in Dec] I was incapable of work in any format but I should be able to return to my duties with a phased return but this could take months.... again work was not happy that I pointed this out.  I walked out of that meeting on a high.  Even if i don't keep the job at least I know that I made them think about things.  If I don't go back to work I will be taking them to tribunal.  I have worked out that the benefits I get due to being released from work due to mental health issues is quite a bit more than I am currently getting.

One of the real positives out of that whole fiasco is the fact I talked to the crisis team, my CPN, CAB, ACAS and a friend.  I put my hands out for people to catch me and they did.  When I talked to my CPN after all this happened she was impressed with what I had done.  Show's that asking for help is not a bad thing.  She was impressed with how well I was looking and how nice it was that I was being positive.

Then it happened.  The shoe fell.  Everything got on top of me.  I think I put too much pressure on myself to continue doing well with the course work, to keep being happy, to do the quilt, to go out socialising and to eat and drink.  I went to bed a few nights ago, and although I didn't cry, I did find my blade and I started cutting into my skin and it felt amazing.  Every time I do it I forget just how amazing if feels and how great I feel.  It is a drug to me.  The next day I discovered that I had lost out at my PIP application so that is going to tribunal as well.  So another night was spent cutting.

Now I have shut myself off from people.  I've only left the house if me mother has demanded it of me.  Like when she locked herself out of the house, when she took me to the doctors (I have conjunctivitis), took me to the garden centre so I can start on my vegetable patch.  Other than that I have not talked to anyone.  My phone is on silent so I can miss calls, I've not been on face book, I've not gone socialising... nothing except sit at home watching TV, read or sleep.

I also did another stupid thing. I got hold of a friend of mine whom I know has carried a flame for me for a great many years, since we went on a date where I fell asleep on him due to having just worked (and been awake for) a 24 hour shift.  I had been home 2 hours before going on a date to the cinema.  Anyway, I knew he has always had a thing for me.  So the other night I was talking to him.  Telling him how I regretted that I never gave us a chance back then.  I told him about the bipolar and the self harming and suicide attempts and he didn't flinch.  We kept talking and before I know it were sexting.  It wasn't doing anything for me but I kept it up (excuse the pun)  for him, leading him to believe that maybe we could start (a long distance) relationship.  The next morning I felt awful because I don't feel that way about him, I never have.  It was so wrong of me to do that to him and now I don't know what to do.  He has text me every day since until today I told him to leave me alone.  I don't know why I did it.

I'm still cutting.  I know I should phone my CPN or my friend but I can't.  I realised that with the issues at work it was easy for me to contact people because it was something I could talk about, it was a problem that needed to be sorted.  When I'm feeling down, shutting myself off, there isn't anything I can do about it.  It's not a problem I can talk about because there is nothing to be fixed.  It's just part of who I am.  How do I talk about that!!!!!

Severing Ties

Where are the stars? Where is the sky?

Where is the chart to guide us by?

Where is the map?

Where is the part where I melt your frozen heart?

Frozen Heart from Goddess

Depression is a funny thing.  It's full of contradictions and paradoxes, it never makes much sense to those on the outside.  When people ask me about it I find that I struggle to explain what is going on with me in a comprehensible language.  Even I don't understand my verbal and written language when I explain things.  If someone was telling me what I write and talk about I would get so confused and really frustrated with them.

I am in a real slump at the moment.  I have moments of uber energy where I can get things done, so I take advantage of those by doing some cleaning or going for a walk or even going shopping just as long as I'm in solitude.  I also have moments where I don't even want to move, so I just sit on the sofa with the TV on and I couldn't tell you what I am watching, I just sit there waiting for I-don't-know-what.  I just sit, on my own, not doing anything, not thinking, just staring at the TV.

Regardless how I'm feeling I just don't talk to anyone.  I don't go on to facebook much, if someone texts me I just leave it or if someone messages me I just don't answer.  I don't want to interact with people, it's too exhausting.  People want to talk about my feelings about stuff, be it my illness or what I have been watching.  People ask me if I want to go out and I can't make decisions about anything so I ignore the messages/texts.  And yet I am desperate for someone to come to my house, to hold me tight and just sit there with me in silence.  To sit there holding me for those times where for some unknown reason I burst in to tears.  To take my hand and lead me back to the light.  People take everything for face value.  I want to be left alone and I don't want to be left alone.

With how things happened at work because I told someone what I was going through I am finding it really hard to find someone I can talk this stuff through with, so I use this instead.  To write about it, to try and make sense of what is going on in my head and it does help to a point.  But it's missing that interaction with a living, breathing being.

CD and I broke up, no big surprise and I get why we did, I'm not angry about it just disappointed.  I can't help though thinking that the reason he didn't fight was because of the Bipolar and I told him about the cutting.... don't think I told him about the suicide attempts.  But it makes me wonder, is there someone out there who will ever understand about it, who would be there to support me in this.  To take the ups and downs, the me who gets manic, the me who get's depressed, the me who gets irrationally angry, the me who is anxious, the me that doesn't make sense and contradict herself constantly.  Is there someone out there who would even try and understand all this and love me regardless.  I am defiantly better of by myself.  I can't get betrayed, I can't get hurt and most of all I don't have to try and put into words stuff that doesn't make sense to me a lot of the time.

I sit here in the grey, knowing there is light somewhere but not sure where it is, knowing that the darkness is easy enough to find.  Hating the fact I have to take medication every day, that I have to see a CPN every week, knowing that this is here to stay.  I am alone in this, I can only rely on myself and I don't think I can even do that any more.  I don't trust myself.

I know I have to take it one day at a time at the moment.  Looking to the future is terrifying and overwhelming so right now I don't do it.  It's too much.  But one day at a time is too hard.  I honestly don't know what I should do.

I tried doing the Beating Bipolar website.  There are a number of videos to watch that help someone to understand what Bipolar is and how to manage it but there is an emphasis on the idea that Bipolar is something that can beaten but it's not.  It is something you learn to integrate into your life so that it has minimal impact.  It's not easy and there are always moment that regardless how hard you try it rears it's ugly head and support is required.  So how can you beat it?

I have read how important it is to have trusted people around you who can recognise when you get ill again and encourage you to get help.  Me Mam won't talk about it, not allowed to talk about it with me sister so that rules out family and I've stopped trusting the people around me.  I just don't know what to do.  I am on my own.  This is not going to change any time soon, so unless I manage to recognise I am ill, which historically I don't because I am so good at compartmentalising it thus cutting myself off from it so I don't have to acknowledge it, so somehow I have to reverse this.  Can't see that happening any time soon.

There is so much uncertainty in my life and I wish I could find something I could hold on to something.  Faith/God doesn't comfort me any more.  It's all just too hard.  I wish someone was holding me telling me that everything was going to be alright, because right now I don't believe this in any way or form and I'm really considering to stop fighting, stopping the meds and just see what happens.

Noramilty

So I have to reassess what is meant by 'normal'  For years my normal means that I'm either dangerously depressed or so hyper that I have no idea what to do with myself.  These two extremes is what I am, nothing more and nothing less.  However, since I've been on medication I'm in neither extreme and it's so strange.  For a number of weeks I have struggled with being able to sleep and just dozing during the day because I am too tired to do anything else.

Today has been different.  Today, although I am still tired, it doesn't feel so bad.  I'm beginning to get through the tired part and am more awake.  My brain is still working slowly but not as bad as it was.  I do feel more on the ball.  It's like I'm coming out of a thick fog into a more minimal fog.

I suppose I do have to work out what I man by normal, what am I when I am stable, what is the new me.  I know I'm not me any more.  I just don't know who or what I am.  And it terrifies me.  What will people think of the new me, people only really like me when I'm hyper.  Any other way I am no one wants to know.  If I don't go hyper any more I'm just going to disappear, hyper was the only thing that  got me out and about. I'm scared that I will just sit at home and not manage to do any thing, not because I'm depressed but because I don't have the energy to do anything, I will not longer manage to go out anywhere, I will fade away and shrivel into to nothing.

Part of me wants to stop taking the meds so that I can feel like me again, but I know this would not be a wise idea, but I miss the other me, the hyper active me, even the depressed me.  At least I understand who I was then.  At least the get out was easier, right now I don't know how i feel about anything, I don't know how to react to anything.  I just walk through the world and hope I do the right thing.

Weather

I feel that the weather changed at the right moment for me. Without the change my depressive state would have continued and I dread to think what state I would be in at this moment.

Looking back on what was happening to me I am extremely grateful for the support, and in some cases.the protection, they provided to help me cope with my work and everything else.

My depression cycle is something that I will never be rid off but with friends like I have discovered recently that I have make it just a little easier to know that I will make it through.

P.s. can I please have the sun and heat back.