On Hold

I just spent one of the best and very emotional weekends of my life, with my girls and Alan,  that I've had in a very long time.  I'm so used to having emotional and mental crashes after weekends or even one day like this that I'm on hold, waiting to see what's going to happen and babying myself for the day.

I was elated and grieving all in one moment several times this weekend.  I had to keep fighting with myself to keep my focus on the present and in the moment instead of in the past or the future or on the huge transitions I'm going through.  Yesterday B and I wandered around the mall and I found it hard to enjoy myself, it felt like the last time we'd do anything like that again.  Last night the three of us shared laughs watching one of our favorite comedians.  I didn't dwell on what it meant or didn't mean, I just enjoyed it.

I was successful in losing myself and just enjoying the moment throughout the weekend often enough that I feel like things can get better.  I just have to remember it's a matter of changing my thinking and controlling my focus.

I actually found a positive in one of the transitions.  I never thought I'd be able to this soon; it's a blessing.

Even though I woke up, and still feel, anxious today I feel a little bit lighter.  Maybe the antidepressant is beginning to help but I think the bigger help is that I had a HUGE emotional purge Saturday night.  Alan and B had one of their comedy shows (they go back and forth giving each other a rough time and it's absolutely hilarious) and I ended up laughing so hard I was crying and I couldn't breathe.  I finally had to beg them to stop so I could catch my breath.  It was good but a little melancholy too because of the transition.  That seems to sum up every day right now, every interaction, melancholy and bittersweet.  But I'm building memories in overdrive.  I don't know if my family understands what or why I'm doing it but I'm thankful they're happy to do it with me.  I need them.

I'm working out a plan to help myself feel more connected to the World and humanity on my own terms.  I watched a couple of talk shows this morning and I watched the news.  I need to be in touch with what is going on around me in the World in order to alleviate my sense of isolation.  This is step one.  Step two is simple on the surface, get out and interact with people, make friends and socialize.  I believe this one will take lots of baby steps to complete.  But it's worth it right?  I hope so.

Melting Down

It seems like I am spending most of every day melting down and crying my eyes out and the rest of it trying to suck it up and make the sadness go away.

The sadness is ever present in my heart and my mind.  I'm grieving losses, I'm stuck in loneliness, and I can't seem to define myself.  I stopped having fun a while ago and I can't seem to start again.

My heart is breaking for me and all the time I feel like I've lost and am losing.  I feel like I've missed out on life and like it's over or will be over soon and I don't know how to stop feeling this way.  I don't know how to stop thinking this way.  "Focus on the positives" "It's all in your mind, you can change it".  True and true but (you knew there had to be a but) I'm not very successful very often or for very long.  I try to pretend that B is just going off to school but my heart feels like she's leaving forever.  My head knows this is the end of being "Mom" in the sense of mothering her.

I am so depressed and so sad that I want so badly to ask her to stay with me.  How could I even think that?  It's so incredibly selfish but there it is.  I don't want my baby to leave home, to leave me.  I love her to pieces and she's been my friend.  She kept me company when Alan was at work late at night.  She's been my buddy since she was born.  She's been Alan's buddy too.

I'm proud of her.  It's been a bumpy road this past year or so as she started asserting herself and taking more control of her own life.  Choosing her own direction and going for it.  Detaching from Mom and Dad and doing her own thing.  She's so single-minded and determined to do this thing and accomplish her goal.  I to admire that. I try to focus on that and pretend that she's just going away to school for a little while, to console myself.

To add insult to injury Alan can't go with us to see her off when she ships out or when she graduates from basic training like we'd planned.  I want him there with us, we had plans, we were going to make a vacation of it before she heads off to Florida for school for two years.  I'm sad for all of us and I wish I could think of a way to fix it.  Where's the effing rewind button?!  I can't say goodbye to her for both of us.  I can't do it alone!  I don't want to do it alone dammit!

But what about me?  What do I do now?  I need to get my depression under control no doubt about it.  I've slowly slid into depression ever since it hit me that she's leaving but all the mental health meds I was on kept it kind of under control.  Now that I'm off most of the meds there is nothing to control the depression at all.

I need to find something to do that's my own.  I need friends.  I need to learn to have fun again.  I want to be happy and have fun again.  I want to feel connected to the World and it'd be nice to feel like a real person again too.  I hope that's not asking too much; to live the rest of my life as I am now would be torture.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

So, even though they're late, the pharmacy has flagged a medication conflict.  I have to reduce my dose of Valium to 1/3 of what it is now if I want to manage my pain with a narcotic.  Most pain medications are narcotics.  If I don't do it I can die.  I can just fall asleep and never wake up again.

I've tried so many medications to manage the pain that I think I've exhausted the non-narcotics.  We tried gabapentin and it threw me into a several days long panic attack.

I've tried anti-depressants, combinations of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds, and mood stabilizers to manage the mental health issues.  I finally find an anti-anxiety med that seems to help a bit and now I have to drop down to a less than therapeutic dose.  We started at 15mg per day and had to bump to 30 mg per day because it wasn't working.  WTF?

My moods are getting more unstable because I don't have as much of the stabilizer and will have less in a couple of days til I'm completely off.

I feel like I have to choose now between holding onto a little bit of sanity or coming off all pain medications and dealing with the full-pain.  I understand why I have to reduce the Valium but it still sucks ass.

It would have been helpful if the psych nurse and my pdoc would actually listen to me.  I'm not changing pain meds because the pain is out of control, it's financial!  And the pain is not why I'm panicked and anxious!!!  FUCK!  Why won't they listen to me?  I don't understand.

I feel so stuck.  My options suck.  How am I going to live beyond mere survival or existence??

Negative today for sure.  Panicked just because I could die.  I could just fall asleep and never wake up again.  I already fall asleep if I stop moving.  They say it's because my breathing is being depressed.  That's not the only thing that's depressed.

What is the Point?

I give up.  I really do.  I've been waiting for two years to get a damned hearing with SSI Disability now I find out that I should get a letter sometime in October but my hearing might not be until November and then it takes TWO MONTHS to get a decision after the hearing!

WHAT THE FUCK!?!

Some people have a pocketful of miracles, not me, I have a pocketful of crazy.

What was the point?  I can't remember now.  Alan can't support us for another four months on his reduced income and I can't be selfish and ask him to try.  A few weeks was barely acceptable for me.  But four months?  No.  Dear gods, who the hell is in charge of this bureaucracy and how do I fire them and get someone with some fucking common sense??

I haven't been sitting here off work because I love having nothing to do with myself and feeling like I'm wasting my life.  I am in PAIN!  The very last day I worked I came home and sobbed, wracking sobs because I was in agony from sitting at work.  I hid in the bathrooms crying because I couldn't handle the stress.  I used scalpels to cut myself to ease the emotional pain.  I wanted to DIE and two years ago October I tried to kill myself!  Does that indicate mental stability to you?  I'm losing the one medication that seems to have stemmed that extreme response.  I wonder what happens next.

Why the hell would my doctor list me as disabled if I were able to work??  Dear Social Security Disability people, please get your heads out of your asses and understand that I am a real person, in real pain with a real need for your pittance of an income so my husband doesn't have to stress out so much trying to support us. I'm so tired of worrying about paying for medication, bills, and food.

What was I thinking?  Believing I deserved an actual life, not just a survival or existence?  I have been such a fool.

I'm going to make one of the med switches now and get it over with.  No one can job hunt or work and go through withdrawal.  I can't.  I can't work, I sure as hell can't work going through all that too.

From Lost to More Lost

I was already in an identity crisis, who am I if I'm not a Mom but a Mother now?  I no longer have children who need a Mom.  They're grown and the last one is moving out in early December.

I have been a mental patient of my psych team for a few years now and somehow I became Alan's patient too.  He became my caregiver, taking care of me when I'm not able to do it for myself.  It feels like I am his wife only on paper.

If you had asked me just three weeks ago what the biggest issue in my life was I would have said it was my marriage. Not so today.

Last week Alan was dealt the worst blow a man like him can be dealt.  He was fired and I know a lot of people say it but it's true, he didn't do anything wrong other than trust the wrong people.  That is not something he can be blamed for.  Some of the worst people are so good at pretending to be trustworthy that they slip under the radar of the most cautious of us.  One of these people was just such a person.  He vented to her and for some unknown reason she got a bug up her cooter and hatched a plan with one of Alan's co-workers (who doesn't like Alan because Alan expected him to actually *gasp* work!) to accuse Alan of threatening this man.  There is a lot Alan won't tell me about it because apparently they're continuing to embellish as they go along.

I'm being selfish now and I feel guilty for it but I'm scared, worried, lost, confused, and unsteady.

What now?  Who will I be now?  No longer a Mom, no longer a wife, and now no longer a more stable mental patient.  Being fired means we lose health insurance, which means we lose our medications that we can't afford.

For me that means I lose the mood stabilizer that has kept me from raging, abusing, hallucinating, questioning which reality was real.  It means I lose my muscle relaxers for my chronic pain and will have to switch from one that works a little bit to one I have no idea about... it means I have to go through withdrawal from my main pain medication and taper off of my mood stabilizer.

I can already feel the rages coming back.  I can feel things knocking around in my head but I don't know what they are yet.  What will happen to me?  I'm fantasizing about cutting again.  The only thing that has stopped me so far are the large and painful scars on my left arm.  My scars keloid and the nerves don't grow back together right as the cut heals.  They burn, they itch, and they hurt.  They're embarrassing, and I have developed a habit of hiding them the best I can from view.  I don't want more like that but I know I can cut in places they can be hidden.  Unfortunately, I cut my arms because I'm stuck somewhere between passive and active suicidal.  How long before being trapped in my brain and stuck in the mental/emotional pain will it be until I cut again?  What if I cut too deep?  What if??

I can't check myself into the psych ward to protect myself.  I can only make myself a promise on a day to day basis.  "I won't cut."  "I won't cut today."

I'm scared.  I'm angry.  I don't want to lose my lucidity.  I don't want to lose the peace I've had.  I don't want to lose the trust I've rebuilt with Alan.  I don't want to hurt my loved ones or myself.  I don't want to go through withdrawal!  It's not fair!!  I feel like I'm a kid in the corner crying, sucking her thumb, snuggling a dirty teddy bear, and rocking back and forth wishing for a Mommy to hold and rock her.

I'm scared of all the 'what ifs'. 

Ghosting

Life.  I don't know if I'd call this endless, empty, existence a life.

I don't feel real, I don't feel like a person, not unless others are around me pulling me into existence.  Until they leave again or until it's time for me to leave.  Sometimes I wonder if I succeeded in committing suicide and this is my personal hell.  I feel like a ghost just drifting through the World with no meaning to whatever this existence is.

I don't feel real.

Am I defined by my illness?  Is it who I am?

It has lost me a husband and gained me a caretaker instead.   He is just existing too, between work, sleep, and taking care of me because I can be a danger to myself.  I have to hide the proof of my past transgressions.  Long sleeves in the summer are a misery but I think I deserve it.  The painful scars aren't enough punishment for putting my loved ones through the worry I've put them through.  Seeing the scars every time I glance at my arm, they won't fade, being reminded of that day, knowing that I was serious about ending the pain is not enough.

I would give anything for 5 minutes of total sanity and happiness.  No I wouldn't.  The pain would seem more pronounced, the depression stronger, all because of those 5 minutes of peace.  You never realize just how much pain you're in until you get a break from it.  When it comes back, when it comes back...

I'm in a bad place again.  I want to numb the pain, trying to stop it is too dangerous and makes me less trustworthy in the eyes of my friends and family.  They wonder how far I'll go.  What if?  It scares them.  I wish they knew how much it scares me.

I'm ghosting through life looking for meaning.  Like the Velveteen Rabbit I want to be real.  I want my life to have meaning.  I want it to be worth something.

Separation of Life and Life

Consider this the Christening of my mental blog.  I want to try something new, separating parts of my life, compartmentalizing.  Mental/life/whatever stuff from my kink life/relationship stuff.


That's why I started the other blog, to discuss my relationships and kink as I grew into the kink lifestyle.

Then mental illness happened, peaked, and got a name.  It began to take over my kink blog and I lost my focus.  I just bled my entire life all over one blog.  I need to separate the two so I can track my mental health ups, downs, and in-betweens.

So, hello, how do you do?  I'm Joy and I am delightfully difficult.  I know you'll come to agree with me as you continue to read.