Fuck- I’m Tired and I Never Thought It Could Be So Daunting

For two weeks I haven’t really slept and when I have been awake I have a great time, because I am active and I love life and I think it may be an elongated manic episode.  One of the longest ones of my life.

And it’s slowing down.  Hopefully I’ll hit middle ground by morning and the meds can maintain that.  The fact that this mania was so extreme has me worried for a depression sink.  HOWEVER- I just had a major crash before this manic period, so maybe it’s currently in the reverse order.  (Normally I go mania to depression, not depression to mania).

I don’t know.  For the first time in a long time I really felt like me, which is interesting since I have no fucking idea what that means.
I just need to finish about 5 to 6 more papers, study for 3+ tests, cut 1000 extemp articles and then… I’ll be ok to sleep.  Fucking school, I really want to drop out.

I am Wo-MANIC hear me roar

shaking

can’t sleep

I just want to wake someone up, anyone, to talk to them.  About anything.  I feel like I am buzzing, like a bee.  I am not so concerned about right now because I am absolutely positively productive, YAY!  but i know that in the next few minutes, hours or days I will come off this high.  Hopefully (god willing) I will just decend into the normal range.  But if this is the high, then I hate to see the low.

What if the high doesn’t end? lol.  That would be sort of funny.  Or not.  I’m not sure right  now.  But I’m going to go do something  but I don’t know what.  Maybe write the essays I’m supposed to.  Yeah, I’ll definitely go do that.

I think.

My eyes are tired and my mouth tastes like a Naked smoothie gone rotten and melted onto every surface of my mouth like metal that has since cooled.  I am miserable, yet excited… for nothing.

I really don’t know what to do but everything in this room smells awful.  I tried to apply lotion and I almost vomited at the smell of it.  Something is wrong w/ me.  I think I can handle it, I just don’t know how.  Ride it out

just ride it out

Golly this is a weird entry.

Goodnight, I mean morning.

Off Kilter Yesterday

My stomach hurt so bad yesterday, plus I was already in pain, and I was sore from working out really hard the two days prior to that.  Long story short I missed out on debate practice, my workout and a class because I was at home in fetal position in my bed.

More important than that was the fact that my depression was really high.  Super high.  Or I was in a super low.  I’m not quite sure how to put it, but that’s how it was.  I was just ridiculously unhappy and it wasn’t even related to what was going on in my life.  Though, incidentally, my world was falling apart a little bit and the result was a tear filled confession to one of my professors.  I’m so sick of those.

I feel very disconnected and even in relationships where I am keeping myself together I have noticed a move away from me by the other party.  It’s frustrating to see the other side of the fence and keep my sense of personal security when the other person doesn’t really care if you’re there or even if it’s you or someone else that they are talking to/spending time with.  Now I am further inspired to try and focus on others instead of wallowing in myself.

****
In other news I am trying out a new site because fitday.com is a little bit outdated and requires a lot of personal action to find the nutritional information on pretty much anything I eat.

The goal: 137 by May 1, 2008

Weigh in occurs today but as of friday: 171

Weeks prior to May 1:  15

Total Weight to lose: 34

Weight to lose per week: 34/15 = 2.27

I’m really committed to it like I’ve never been before and I think that’s good.  Right now I need something to accomplish this semester beyond the usual grades/personal growth.  I think it’s something I can control and it’ll help me pull my life back together if I can actual keep that under control.  I know- what sort of woman puts her weight online for all to see?  I guess that type of woman would be one who honestly wants to get rid of it.

One Month Later…

So I have been taking medication (back on it) for my bipolar disorder again for a little over three weeks and I have to say that it really really sucks. My life is. . . together. I will give medication some credit for that. However, unknown to most people (everyone but one), I feel like shit, constantly. Though I have attributed it to my very poor immune system, the truth is that my problem sits in little orange pill bottles on my coffee table.

Now- I had to ask myself, “How do I really know it is the medication? I could just actually be sick or having an off week or something.” However, the last time I consistently took up the medication effort (last spring and through July) I suffered the exact same symptoms. I just thought it had to do with other things. Example, I thought my neck pain was caused by carrying around a really fucking heavy computer (which probably didn’t help), but my neck just fucking hurts due to medication.

The major problems as I experience them are-

1. Constant dry mouth/dehydration. Though this one was predicted, I could not have possibly consumed enough water or Gatorade to prepare for it. I fear I might have to give up soda/coffee/caffeine to try and stay hydrated.

2. Constant neck pain. No amount of massaging, ibruprofen, or prayers seem to solve this one. I wake up, it hurts. I sit down, it hurts. I lay down- some relief, but still hurts. It’s like my head is too heavy for it to carry.

3. Inability to orgasm. Yes, “How does she know this? Who is she sleeping with??”, is on your mind. Rest assured good friend, I am an avid fan of masturbation. (Were you really surprised?) I am completely capable of making myself get off every time but recently I am tempted to fake it with myself simply to make myself feel better. It feels good but there is no climax, leaving me wanting and frustrated.

4. Exhaustion. Though I sleep better and sleep less than when off the meds, as soon as I take them my body wants to fall asleep. However, I cannot take them prior to bed (rather than early in the morning) because after about an hour or so I feel like I have been giving a direct shot of caffeine to the heart. These ups and downs continue throughout the day, making it a battle to stay awake. This is only further aggravated by the fact that I cannot level it with caffeine because it either makes me more dehydrated or compounds the situation during the moments where I get a high off the drugs, leaving me shaking and cursing myself for the caffeine.

5. Food. Food has no desire in my world. Even when hungry I cannot fathom what might be good to me. This is aggravating because even when trying to be helpful while choosing a place or thing to eat with others I must guess what I might desire once it is made and I can smell it. Yes, only the scent of the food really makes me want it. So I gamble, a Russian Roulette of the stomach. I also have to guess hours in advance when I might possibly be hungry, since I rarely have that feeling and when I do it is fleeting. I don’t even know if that description makes sense. But I hate the medication for the hell it brings to my palette.

The second problem with food is that if I am dehydrated (caused by the medication) everything has what I call “donut taste.” The story behind it is so long and arduous it is not worth the effort to tell, but primarily it tastes like you burned your tongue with coffee and then ate those tiny yellow cake/chocolate frosting donuts you buy at a convenience store but it melded to your tongue…. for the next 8 hours. No brushing of teeth, no differentiation of food, no hope will fix it. Just a fuckton of water and a lot of waiting.

******

I know the medication is good for me and I plan to stay on it. So if I made you worried, don’t be. I am just so frustrated because it causes me to exist in a world where in order to emotionally enjoy life and not kill myself I must live a physical life that is toiling and … less than adequate.
I suppose my final complaint on it is simply that it is expensive.  Fucking medication in this country, I swear to God.

I just want all the side effects to go away and have the ability to beat this shit. I’m sick of it, all of it. I’m sick of having to go talk to professors and admit I’m struggling in an easy class because my concentration is shot. I’m sick of lying to friends and family about how I am doing in school. I’m sick of school because of this. I’m sick of trying to pretend that I care about what types of food I eat, I’m sick of acting like I’m sane when I’m freaking out and then having inopportune breakdowns on people that never deserved it. I’m sick of losing people I love. I’m sick of not being able to say- That isn’t me.

I’m sick of being seen as crying wolf simply because it’s been years and I’m not better.

I’m sick of being sick of all of it and not appreciating the fact that I didn’t die one cold day in March of 2006.

More than anything- I’m sick.

I’m sick and I need your help. There it is. Hiding behind my computer or not those few of you who read this- help me. I don’t even know how- but keeping in mind that not everything I say should be taken as honest, even when I completely believe it to be. My perspective is skewed, and I often don’t even trust myself. My memory is shot and my nerves are raw. I’m hollow. Help me fill it. Please.

Keep talking to me when I cry and you know it’s irrational. Give me that hug, lay beside me as I sob, pray for me.

Or do nothing. I wouldn’t hold it against you. I wouldn’t ever know. And keeping in mind the fact that my memory is gone- by tomorrow I might even forget this entry, never remembering I told you all of this.

I guess in the end I just sincerely hope that I have something to add. Something to give to you. A smile, a laugh, a good memory. The people in my life give me a lot, and I just do not know sometimes (perhaps a cause or symptom of depression) what worth I have.

Since I don’t have anything but now- I will enjoy it. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Who knows if I will be successful? I am going to go drink water, take something for my neck, and play Mario Party with my roommate. In some convoluted way- simply expressing my deep dislike of medicinal side affects has helped to alleviate them…. for the moment.

“Play Everyday…”

So this entry was going to begin with me pouring out my internal pain, but I found something right before that made me smile and I recommend to you all that you read that instead.  It is some light reading for you all. Though it is the ranting of one frustrated parent, I thought his sarcastic remarks were exactly what I needed to lift my moods.  Hopefully it can make you smile as well.  He tells the story of a CD that is sent home with his son that is entitled ‘Play Everyday!’ While providing commentary on the individual tracks he also states- “It should be called play once, then use as a drink coaster.“

My favorite line had to be his comment about track ten-

10. Play Everyday – “I go to the playground with your mother.” I don’t care if you’re 5 years old, them’s fighting words.

So I recommend enjoying his blog and not reading below the line on this entry. Trust me, the rest is rubbish.

*****

So in other highlights and a more personal note- I hate school. I really really really hate school. While I appreciate the opportunity I’m being given right now and I know it will open a lot of doors for me, I just cannot stand it.

This week has been the epitome of my attempt for perfection and my complete failure to achieve it. What a humbling and silent tear filled experience. Relationships maintain mediocre at best despite my best efforts and obviously I am dissatisfied with that result. Uggh. While I am less externally aggravated with others and have managed to decrease the “drama” I bring into the room, the hatred and OCD has been turned inward. What began on Sunday as the most beautiful and OCD-free experience of my life has now become an internal haunting providing no introspective wisdom but suffering and pain. It’s frustrating because there’s no one to blame, no one to hate, no one to yell at or scream at and crying only satisfies for so long. Then it is off to hang out with friends, go to class, or simply get ready for the day, and God knows that no one has done this to me. So it stews inside of me. I want to shout out everything I am thinking and everything I am feeling and everything that is bugging me, but in the end it does not matter. There is no satisfaction in this but whining. So I work to fix it. I wake up and I work to fix it and I think ‘Maybe if I work on my relationships with other people, try to get scholastically in order, and organize my life the rest of it will fall in place.’ But as this week shows, medicated, well slept, well eaten and even fairly well exercised, I am dissatisfied.

To be even more honest I will admit what is really bugging me. I cannot have the only thing I want and I think it may kill me internally. At the same time, I somewhat have it now. To be so close and know that I only have it so much for so long is… torture. But even this is an unfair perspective for me to hold because I do not at all deserve the thing I want most and so I just attempt to enjoy what I have now without question but, something stirs inside me. I wonder.

I wonder what people think when they realize that death is eminent. Is there solace, a moment when they pass gently from one life to the next? Is the end really the end? They are aware that what they have now, so limited and almost gone is all they have left- do they enjoy it? Do they frantically and desperately hope that they may have more to go?

Though I will continue my physical life for (knock on wood) many years to come, I must wonder- will there be peace when this ends? Or will it only continue to plague me? No one wants to die and similarly I do not want this part of me to either, but it is imminent, though I wish with all my heart it wasn’t.

But why do I blog this? What good with this do but only exemplify the whining I so much do not want to put onto others? In putting this down I hoped I would find something, maybe even hope. I hoped to find hope. I don’t know what to do anymore and I don’t know how to express any of this truly and openly without costing myself everything. What a catch-22.

I have an icecream sandwich to eat and a philosophy take home final to struggle through for now. Perhaps I should start with that.

The Medication Dilemma- The story of bi-polar options

I’ve been off my meds for sometime deepening my understanding of my mother and my illness.  It was like an undercover operation on myself.  I’ve discovered that I can live without my medication but it is a very very poor life to live.  But yet, so is life w/ medication.  It’s definitely a trade-off, a listing of priorities, and I’m not sure what mine are.  But for months I have tried the ‘no medication,’ so now it is time to try the opposite.

I’ve been off my meds for sometime deepening my understanding of my mother and my illness.  It was like an undercover operation on myself.  I’ve discovered that I can live without my medication but it is a very very poor life to live.  But yet, so is life w/ medication.  It’s definitely a trade-off, a listing of priorities, and I’m not sure what mine are.  But for months I have tried the ‘no medication,’ so now it is time to try the opposite.

 

Reasons to be on Medication:

1. Normal Sleeping habits; decreased amounts
2. No chance of suicide
3. “Normal” operating procedures
4. Better relationships with loved ones
5. Better grades
6. Better ability to organize arguments
7. Increased memory
8. No really big freak outs
9. Average efficiency/care for most tasks

 

Reasons I hate medication:

1. Constant dry mouth
2. Food loses taste/bad aftertaste to most foods (especially chocolate)
3. Complete loss of sex drive
4. No desire to write (as seen by the summer of no blogging in 2007)
5. Insomnia (when I sleep I garner no rest)
6. Decreased IE success/drive to succeed
7. Weight gain
8. Dependence on medication and withdrawal symptoms if for any reason I go off them or skip them, even for a morning.
9. Inability to be manic and have instant payoff in short amount of time

 

Can you tell me which one you would choose?

An excuse for #7 and #8

#7

The words I need(ed) to hear from you just came in a facebook message from someone I barely know anymore.  

********

#8 

I’m off my meds.  I have been for a while and because of it my schoolwork and teamwork has suffered.  I don’t know if I’ll go back on them soon, but I do plan to eventually.

For the first time in a long time you brought me to tears

Written on Saturday Night I started:

 I didn’t think you had this power over me, this control and it angers me that you do.  I don’t want to ‘win’ I just want some feasible amount of control.  This dictatorship you call a friendship is not reasonable and leaves me wanting to riot against you.   

*****

I finish the entry tonight.  I don’t think ill of you.  I cried because I want to fix things, I want them to be right, but I don’t think they can be.  

You think I’m more confused than I am.  You think I’m less intelligent than I am.  Yes, I know you’re not calling me a fucker, but I must ask what you are calling me then.  An emotional bitch?  I’m not.  In fact, I’m not even upset.  I’m not upset at all.  If anything I am confused by these accusations and a bit amused at their lack of application.  I just wish you would give me a hug when you are instead walking away.  You often do the opposite of what will solve the problem.  I can’t stop you, and I won’t.  

On Saturday night I cried out of frustration, heartbreak, and hurt.  I want things to be right, and I’m tired of wishing they were different. 

This is the start of numerous things I have to say, but it is a good start, and one I will finish later. 

A Surprisingly Sober Entry From A Heartbroken Soul

God I feel like such a fuck up today.  I’m heartbroken and lost and really trying to cover it not just for the family or friends that are gathered about, but for my own stupid self-preservation.

I began this entry with the intent to spill all but have discovered in the process of writing even the title and first two sentences that maybe I don’t want to say anything at all.

I am disgusted, repulsed, angry, frustrated, sad, depressed, in love, and heartbroken.  I am angry that my family and friends are so loyal.  They are dangerously so, often failing to tell me when I am in the wrong and supporting me ad nausem against ex-boyfriends and lustful dangerous lovers.  They try to be the helmet for when I take my bicycle ride but the result is training wheels, kneepads, and a pat on the back for good effort.  I just want to try by myself.

But I want to be held.  I want to be understood.  I want to be loved.  One of my greatest flaws ever might be that last one.  I love individuals and often strive harder with individuals who do NOT love me more than with those that do because I fear losing.  It is a game to me, a sick, demented, cruel game that I am the only player in and so even in winning, I lose.

Tonight I exist in a stream of consciousness that brings nothing but confusion and never clarity.  Just anguish is all I feel tonight and I wanted so badly to talk to you, but when I did, I got no satisfaction.  I suppose I was looking for you to be looking for me.  Desiring me maybe.  But you don’t, you won’t, you didn’t.  I must either deal with that, perhaps try and change the second statement to ‘you will’, or give up.   

Perhaps my biggest realization tonight is that I should not watch romantic comedies at early morning hours.  It is very disastrous for me and leaves me wishing I had my own Hugh Jackman.  Uggh, what a waste of a human I am right now.

A bigger realization is that I try and exist in a world of maybe’s and perhap’s.  I should state my opinions without question or hesitation. 

Right now I call to mind my poetry program- 

Oh how a simple and naive song would do now.  But as both listener and songwriter know, there is nothing simple or naive about a country that is lonely….

 I am lonely.  Yes, my country is lonely….

But can the simple and naive let us be alone long enough

to cry to cry to cry 

Manic Episodes Leave Me Tired

“In four hours you’re going to feel like an ass.”

Last night I got into a fight w/ FWD over that pizza place I mentioned in the other entry.  I don’t have some sort of introspective solution, I don’t have the answer to my problem, I don’t even have the beginning of a journey.  I just have the realization that manic episodes come on quicker than I thought and often w/ more force than I can handle.

I don’t really want to reflect on this too much or I’ll end up just using it as an excuse or as a crutch, but I really don’t like being manic after the fact.  During it, I actually get sort of an endorphin induced high and it’s pretty damn enjoyable, which makes it even more dangerous.  Why fix something you enjoy?

It’s sort of like sleeping with someone you know you shouldn’t.  Why stop fucking yourself over when it feels so good?

Rereading this I realize- what a waste of an entry.