Letting it Wash Over

Rambling post with not much in the way of structure coming up…

I was up in Newcastle this weekend for my Grandma’s 80th birthday party. I love being with my family, I don’t see them that often. They’re all mad (or rather, eccentric) and I fit in very well. We went to a restaurant on Saturday night, there were a lot of us, it was very loud and chaotic. I got overwhelmed when the waiters were calling out the names of what people had ordered, and my Dad noticed. He also struggles with that sort of situation.

However, he laughed at me and said that it was odd that that sort of chaos overwhelms me, but the chaos that the family generates doesn’t. In fact, I am often the instigator of that particular brand of chaos. I told him, “but you see, I understand Smith (not our real name) chaos”. I fit with them.

Hubby and I stayed with my Grandma over the weekend and she talked. A lot. She didn’t actually stop! We were looking at the family tree and she was describing how bonkers the family has always been. That’s how my Dad describes me: “Karita, you’re plain old, stark, raving bonkers! That’s why we love you.”

I’ll stick the rest behind the wall.

Paddling

Here are some of my thoughts from the past week or so:

I had an odd few days last week that have continued through the weekend and into today. It’s like I am having heightened emotional reactions to events. I’ll read something moving and all of a sudden my eyes are full of tears. I get overwhelmed with details at work and I feel like ripping everything up or punching a wall. But my sense of humour is spiked as well and I laugh quickly. On my way home on the train I started thinking of my sister who lives in Scotland and I got this powerful sense or memory of what it’s like being in her company and I missed her so much and so suddenly that it really took me by surprise. I thought of the two of us spending the afternoon in a pub somewhere getting gently drunk, talking and laughing.

Anyway, all this made me realise what extreme emotional reactions I was having, to events, memories, and so on. Weird. I still feel like it today. Easily frustrated by my job. Easily sparked off to tears by reading my book, which is just one of the books I used to read as a kid.

I don’t think it’s a mood episode, it doesn’t feel like one anyway. The nearest I can get to that is agitated hypomania – but the frustration is fleeting and I think it’s borne out of tiredness more than anything else. But I definitely feel … something … different.

The way I figure out if it’s a mood episode or not is by seeing if I am reacting to an actual event or not. If my emotions are one way and have no connection to events then it is a mood episode. Also, if something bad happens and makes me feel bad, but I continue to feel bad after the event has passed, then it is usually a mood episode.

But if the emotions are related to an actual event then I am reassured that it isn’t a Cyclothymic mood swing. It may be tiredness. It may just be part of what makes me me. I think that ADHD also plays a part in this. I have read that ADHD can cause more extreme emotional reactions (good and bad) in some people.

Anyway, I’m not worried about it, just observing. I am noticing that each day I’m having to work harder to motivate myself at work and to concentrate. I’ll be glad when I can have some time off to recharge my batteries before I start studying.

I had an extremely emotional weekend. My Mum got ordained on Saturday – I am very proud of her. She’s been working towards this for a long time. She is now a Reverend – I have nicknamed her The Reverend Mother. Then my step-Dad retired on Sunday, and my teenage sisters said goodbye to all their friends in the church before the whole family moves on Wednesday this week. Even Dad cried.

I was still doing my over-identifying thing with other peoples emotions. If I saw someone crying it made me cry. I’m not sorry that they are moving, I am glad they are moving. They have had a hard time these last few years. I am happy that they are moving to a new place and a new chapter. But I still felt sad to say goodbye to these people. I couldn’t tell if it was my sadness or if I was picking up on sadness from other people.

I also became over-stimulated a few times. Especially on the Saturday. There were over 100 people there. At one point I was talking and my Mum asked me if I needed the loo because I was moving my legs so much. I hadn’t even realised that I was tapping my feet and moving back and forth very fast as I talked. Usually that would be a sign of hypomania – but actually I seem to be developing a sense of if something is a mood episode or not and this time I think the answer was not. I think it was ADHD again, the hyperactive component – I got over-stimulated and got more and more hyperactive as a result.

I realised anew this weekend that I’m still at the beginning of recovery. I still don’t know who I really am, I still feel like I haven’t fully recovered my faith in God, I’m still fragile. I feel like a fragmented person. I react to different situations in different ways, most people see me as being very loud, but others see me as a bit aloof. People don’t often know which Karita they will get. There is no one coherent me. I have been wondering how to reconcile all these different parts of myself. Is it even possible? Have I been unstable for so long that I will remain erratic forever? There’s the intelligent, academic part of me, the scatty part of me, the loud, joker part of me, the sometimes harsh, sarcastic part of me, the loving, sensitive part of me, the hyperactive part of me, the insecure, paranoid part of me…

I want to be one, coherent person, who is at ease with herself.

This last week or so I have been experiencing emotions intensely. I have been thinking of this as yet another thing to get to grips with, learn to tame into submission. But it hit me last night that maybe this is who I am. A person who experiences all emotions very intensely, both my emotions and the emotions that come from other people. Maybe it isn’t something to be tamed into submission, squashed and made to play nicely… Maybe it is something to be accepted and even embraced. Maybe this is the real me.

Them’s my thoughts. Not entirely sure what to do with them. Somebody said something to me recently that I found helpful:

Before you were on meds you were in a boat without a paddle, now you are learning how to use the oars!

Triggers

Hubby and I spent part of this weekend with my parents. We all had good news last week so it was a chance to catch up and celebrate. It was good apart from my brief meltdown:

The first thing my youngest sister said to me was, “You look different, your face, your bum, your tummy”. I should have prepared myself better for that. I’ve gained 2 and a half stone since they last saw me and she always says whatever comes into her head. She kept watching me all night.

When I showered and dressed the next morning I made a stupid mistake – I weighed myself. I’ve gained another stone in the last month. I’ve never been anywhere near this heavy. And then I realised I brought the wrong clothes and nothing fit me. I felt just so disgusting and I had visions of cutting and ripping myself. I broke down in tears on my Mum’s shoulder.

My family are all so thin, I used to be like that. I felt enormous the whole time we were there. And my stomach was hurting because my jeans were too tight round my waist. Doesn’t that make me sound attractive? However, I have now bought my first ever exercise DVD so it’s time to start burning off some of that excess. There is no way I’m going to buy size 16 clothes.

I’m thinking about my triggers. Now that I’m relatively stable (most of the time over the loast week anyway) I’m attempting to look at things more objectively.

Biggest trigger: My step-daughter. Just being around her has the power to push me into a depressive episode, with anxiety and paranoia. I can’t not be around her but I can limit the time we spend together and not get my hopes up of our relationship transforming anytime soon.

Other triggers: Being around my family (it’s weird, they trigger me, but also make me feel safe. Not entirely sure how the two co-exist!), travelling to work (the London Underground in hot weather brings out murderous desires in me), not being productive at work. That’s a hard one as my work is boring and I tend to procrastinate. But I have noticed that when I just force myself to work consistently without thinking about it my mood is often better. Being in an over-stimulating environment can trigger me, I get overwhelmed by noise and movement.

My counselor reckons that I should plan a weekly schedule. Apparently unexpected happenings can be triggers, routine is supposed to be good for BP. But I have to disagree. For myself anyway. I can’t stand routine. I need variety. I have enough routine in my life anyway, I’m not going to add more. Although, having said that, come September my entire life, down to the last second, will have to be organised as I will be working full time and studying part time. I will have to say goodbye to procrastination forever if I want to succeed!

Oh yes, and spending too much time thinking about my body triggers me. I know that makes me sound weak, but there you have it. My Mum suffered from Bulimia years ago and still has eating disordered thoughts. I know I have inherited a bad body image from her. Learned behaviour. Judging myself for this doesn’t help. So instead, as mentioned above, exercise here I come. I’m going to get fit, even if it kills me!

Streaming

I had a long weekend – so nice. Yesterday was beautiful so hubby and I laid on the grass in a park for a while – I caught the sun, yay! I am now a fractionally warmer shade of pale.

I am trying to make my peace with my new curves. Not an easy task.

…

I saw my step-daughter last night for the first time since this happened. I was sooooo nervous, far more nervous than I realised. As soon as I arrived at her house I had to rush off the the loo with severe stomach cramps. Great timing! But it was OK. I had to see her sometime. She has not apologised to me and hubby thinks she was quite embarrassed when I first arrived, hence a lot of joking ensued. Anything to ease some tension.

I now feel quite torn. This is my stream of thoughts and feelings: I feel nervous about seeing her again and yet want to see her… I have missed her but relished not being around her… I enjoy her company but she makes me so angry… I love her and want to be loved by her, but I am not sure how that can ever happen… I wish she would apologise to me but I don’t think she can and I would just be uncomfortable anyway, I’m no good at making people feel bad… How can I ever trust her again? How can I ever be around her if I don’t trust her? How do I show her Christ’s love without capitulating to bullying? Unanswerable questions, methinks.

…

Church. Man, being part of a Baptist church drives me up the wall sometimes. Church meetings. They suck. All the people who show such compassion and kindness usually, become snarky, bickering children at church meetings. I walked out of one last week. Partially out of anger, partially because I had spoken up for the first time and my hands were shaking as a consequence. Change is coming in my little community of believers, and some don’t want it, and resort to bullying tactics as their last resort. I don’t respond well to that. But I have to learn to communicate without becoming emotional. Something I have to work on before the next meeting in July, one that will most likely be worse than this one was.

Essentially I am an idealist. That is a huge part of my nature, and is often laughed at. People see me as being naive, weak… enthusiastic, but misguided. I detest being seen that way so much that I often hide behind self-deprecating jokes and laughter. But the main thing that I have been working on with my counsellor is that I have been created by God to be exactly the way I am. I am unique. I have to learn to accept that, and learn to be able to speak up when I feel a prompting from God, without the fear of rejection.

…

So these are some of the thoughts that have been bouncing around my head this weekend. Sorry if they don’t make much sense.

Back to work tomorrow.

Gently Does It

Mood goes up. Mood goes down. Yesterday mood went down very rapidly and left me snivelling in quite a pathetic manner.

I was disgusted with myself about the amount of weight I’ve gained since starting Mirtazapine. Every time I went to the loo and saw myself in the mirror I was confronted with visions of my horrid body. My stomach isn’t flat anymore, my face is fuller, my boobs are bigger. In January I bought myself a lovely pair of jeans that I can’t get into anymore. All the clothes that I stopped wearing last summer because they were too loose on me fit again. They’re snug actually. I think I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. Whenever I’ve gained weight before it has been gradual. This has happened in less than six weeks.

I know that I’m not fat, and I’m tall so I can get away with it, but yesterday I couldn’t seem to stop the thoughts going round and round my head – you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re ugly. In fact it wasn’t just yesterday, I’ve been doing this for a while now.

Then my thoughts started the beautiful circle of self-recrimination about everything else, and I mean everything. My self-esteem took such a beating in the recent encounter with my husband’s daughter – but all that really did was highlight what’s already there. I’m hypersensitive to the least little thing. I can’t face seeing her because I don’t know how to be around her now.

So I spent the majority of yesterday telling myself that I’m pathetic. I ended up in tears. A lot. I cried on the phone to my dad and then cried on hubby’s shoulder as the same time as ranting a fair bit. Thankfully he’s strong and can take it.

I just felt so fat and horrible, I wanted to scratch my own skin off. And I was being far too hard on myself, as was clearly obvious to all my loved ones. I was disappointed that depression had hit me again and I felt like I’d let myself down. But I really have to stop beating myself up about this. I mean, I’m always surprised when a mood swing hits me, surprised I could ever feel that way again when I felt so different the day before. It’s the nature of the beast. I think the higher dose of Sodium Valproate is taking the edge off the hypomania – so my latest good mood didn’t feel so up, so I thought it was just a normal good mood, I thought I was getting better. Then I felt like an idiot for thinking that. And then all the other crappy thoughts about myself came flooding in, particularly my step-daughter’s parting shot “you’re weak”, banging round and round my head, which just complicated the low mood even further.

I talked about it to my counsellor. He pointed out that I call myself stupid a lot. He asked me if I would talk to a friend like that, or my husband, or a small child. My answer was of course not. So why do I talk to myself like that? He made me cry again.

The upshot to all of this? We’re going to delve into some pretty intensive CBT. See if I can learn to be a little more gentle with myself.

To Trust or not to Trust?

I had a chat with my Dad this week, about recent events. My Dad is very good at giving it to me straight, not beating around the bush, etc. The subject of our conversation meandered around the difficulties of trust. My natural instinct is to trust people. I almost always believe that their intentions are good. Why would they hurt me if I haven’t hurt them? Life has taught me otherwise every now and then, but I am usually nauseatingly optimistic about these things.

Hence me getting into a snotty, sobbing mess when my trust is broken. Then I get angry and say I will never trust again. This stage lasts approximately five minutes. Give or take a sobbing rant or two. But then… ah, well, then I start to trust again. Against my better judgement. They will have learnt this time! All my instincts scream at me to trust.

So. So… About a year ago I put some safety measures into place. To remind myself why I cannot always trust, why sometimes it is better to protect myself. But as time went on, I slipped. I trusted. And then I got hurt again.

So we’re back at the beginning once more. My instincts are screaming out at me to trust, regardless of the way I’ve been hurt. Groan. Some people never learn, you know?

My Dad later sent me a text saying this:

‘Not wanting to trust’ is a survival instinct but ‘wanting to trust’ is not an instinct but instead a learned, socialised behaviour. Instinct is to protect. Trust is a learned, social expectation… which is, in some cases, best overruled by instinct.

Interesting. My response was this:

I would have said that it was the opposite. It is a natural instinct to trust. Look at babies – they trust instantly. Our experiences teach us not to trust so that we can protect ourselves.

So there we have it. Two opposing arguments. Both resulting in the same thing, essentially – we have to protect ourselves by not trusting everyone. But I do not think that that is a natural state of being. Coming from my own particular brand of Christian worldview, I believe that God created us to live in harmony with each other, in the perfect world that he originally created we would have had no need to protect ourselves by withholding trust. But now, in our fallen, broken, often cruel world, we need to protect ourselves. If we trusted absolutely everyone, with no misgivings, we would be hurt time and time again. We must protect ourselves. But I do not think that this is what God intended, I think that this state of affairs leaves God broken-hearted.

What do you think? Is the desire to trust a natural instinct or a learned, socialised behaviour?

Declared Innocent

I have mentioned here previously that I sometimes struggle with my step-daughter. But I honestly try not to write about it often because I don’t want to simply descend to the level of bitching. But I’ve had it, people. I have reached my limit.

I had a horrendous encounter with her on Saturday evening. Something similar happened around Easter last year. She makes me feel awful about myself. I hate saying bad things about other people, but this is the truth – she is the most self absorbed person I have EVER met. Her head is firmly stuck up her arse, and she is incredibly judgemental.

I reduced me to tears and left me feeling absolutely devastated. Again. She said awful things about me that just aren’t true. She is no friend to me. She is a bully. She judges me for every move I make. She tells me I have no right to be depressed because my life is so rosy compared to hers. She tells me I’m making up my mental health problems. At the same time, she uses my mental health problems against me, like saying I don’t know myself, so how can she accept me? All because I have been clearly agitated or unwell in her presence on occasions over the last few months. She tells me I am weak because I decide to remove myself from confrontation rather than stay and get more and more upset. She told me all this and more on Saturday night.

But I remember what I went through last year. I spent a long time beating myself up, telling myself I was to blame – in short, believing everything she said about me.

Not this time round. I didn’t do ANYTHING. Nothing. I left as soon as things were getting too much for me. As I went out the door I heard her saying that I was weak, blah blah. But I am not weak. She is weak. She allowes bad things to happen to her, just because bad things have happened to her in the past. I am taking charge of my problems and I will sort myself out. I am not a victim.

Hubby stayed after I left to wrangle things out with her. And she did not restrict the vindictive poison to me alone, she had a go at him as well. Saying horrible things to her own father. I’m very glad I left so that I didn’t have to witness that, because I can’t be sure of how I would have reacted.

I leave this here as a record. When I start beating myself up (as I always do) I will come back here. I did NOT do anything wrong, I did NOT deserve to be treated that way. I deserve to be accepted for who I am.

When I got home (after speaking to my parents on the phone, who reassured me that they are proud of me and the things that were said are unfounded) my Mum sent me a text message directing me to Psalm 4:

Answer me when I call to you,
O God who declares me innocent.
Free me from my troubles.
Have mercy on me and hear my prayer.

How long will you people ruin my reputation?
How long will you make groundless accusations?
How long will you continue your lies?

You can be sure of this:
The Lord set apart the godly for himself.
The Lord will answer when I call to him.

Don’t sin by letting anger control you.
Think about it overnight and remain silent.

Offer sacrifices in the right spirit,
and trust the Lord.

Many people say, “Who will show us better times?”
Let your face smile on us, Lord.
You have given me greater joy
than those who have abundant harvests of grain and new wine.

In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe.

I read that and knew that I had done the right thing in leaving when I did. It’s horrible when people judge you and say untrue things about you, but I trust God. He has declared me innocent. I was feeling all happy and smiley on Saturday and this threatened to push me back into depression, but it hasn’t. It’s playing on my mind, naturally, but I brought my mood back up by focusing on the God who loves me.

Can’t I?

There is a feeling niggling away in my brain. A feeling that maybe I can harness my relentless thoughts and emotions, rather than trying to squash and subdue them into submission. As I ponder meanderingly, I have been trying my hand at painting once again. I used to paint and draw, and my sister recently sent me some photos of my work:

However, it has been ten years since I last picked up a pencil or a paintbrush. I recently came across the concept of finger-painting – thanks to the lovely Raging Genius, and had a wee attempt today. Very enjoyable, tactile, and refreshingly messy. But what I produced was not worth looking at twice.

Now I know, I know! One day painting and you’re going to give up already?

I don’t want to, people, believe me. Apart from anything else, my counselor won’t be very chuffed with me when I see him in a couple of weeks, if I have abandoned a project only hours after starting it, all because I am a hopeless perfectionist with low self-esteem.

Thing is though, my thoughts seem to be locked up inside my head. Words just aren’t enough. I thought that if I started drawing or painting I could express myself that way, and that may help me not to resort to self-destructive means of expression.

But my own mind keeps getting in the way. Limitations I place upon myself.

Here’s another one from my teenage years:

Full of flaws. But also full of expression. It took me weeks if not months to paint. A lot of time was spent simply staring at blank canvas. Clearly I suffered from the same struggles back then. I had completely forgotten about it until recently when my sister brought some memories back for me.

Can’t I develop these skills once again? I don’t want to be brilliant. I just want to express myself in some way. I am a creative person – I can write, I can sing, I am intensely musical. I used to love art.

Now the images are in some locked away drawer in my mind and I don’t know where the key is.

Ah well. For now I shall go back to researching.

Progress

OK, so I’m eating yesterday’s words about my counsellor. I was being incredibly negative. I would delete that post, but I did feel that way yesterday, so it is a legitimate record of my feelings. Here’s how the session went last night, and what I have learned from it:

I was prepared to tell him about the cutting on Friday but as I went in I changed my mind and decided to keep it from him. I very carefully didn’t mention it. But then, after he asked me how I am, how it went with the psychiatrist, etc, he said he wanted to talk about the self destructive fantasies I’ve been having. I stared at the wall and knew that my face was giving me away so I came clean and told him.

He was cool and calm about it, and then we had a fantastic discussion. He helped me to realise that I have been spending so much energy in recent weeks just trying to remain in control and not let my moods spill out into my life, that I have neglected myself. I can’t let myself break down at work or in front of my friends or at church or even at home, because it is inappropriate and would worry and confuse people.

If my behaviour was always in congruence with my moods then my behaviour would be constantly in flux because my moods are constantly in flux. People wouldn’t be able to cope with that, so I have to manage my behaviour very carefully.

A few years ago, when I was depressed, I seriously thought that it was wrong to be depressed, because Christians are supposed to be joyful all the time. I no longer think that way, in fact, I think it is perfectly fine to doubt and ask hard questions, but I don’t think I have fully acknowledged my feelings of depression, I have just tried to bury them and wait for them to go away.

So it would appear that my emotions are fighting to get out of me, and if I don’t let them out then they will come out on their own, in ways I can’t control. Hence the cut on my finger and scratches on my shoulders, and the bitten nails and bloody fingertips. And random outbursts of tears and sobbing in front of people.

My counsellor asked me what the result was when I lost control of my emotions in front of people. The result was comfort, empathy and understanding. So it was good. Each and every time there has been a good outcome. So he asked me, why am I so afraid of losing control?

I’m still not entirely sure of the answer. I know that I have always been afraid of my emotions, good and bad. Or at least, afraid of how others will react to them. I can’t show strong affection too openly because it tends to freak people out. Same goes for anger, despair, guilt…

But I have gone further than just masking my emotions from other people, I have been attempting to mask them from myself. So much so that I often have difficulties articulating how I’m feeling. No wonder I have been so on edge. I hate not being able to communicate with myself, being unable to analyse and think things over in my head. Hubby often tells me that I think too much and I need to sometimes stop thinking – maybe I took his advice too much to heart! That may be good for him, but it doesn’t work for me. I always feel better when I can work things out internally and find some sort of resolution, some way of moving forward. And I haven’t done that for so long.

I also realised that this may be why I like alcohol so much. It lowers my inhibitions, so that I do behave in congruence with my moods, regardless of how I may come across to other people. Some of the most freeing times of my life have been when I was drunk. I’m not willing to give that up just yet.

Anyway, I’m rambling. The point was that if I don’t let my emotions out in a healthy way then they will let themselves out in an unhealthy way, like cutting.

Typically, just as I have been given licence to feel depressed and miserable, I am all smiles!

WTF?

Long-winded, waffling post coming up.

I have been feeling paralysed by my moods and my anxiety. I can’t write. I can’t form coherent thoughts. When I speak my thoughts I make a verbal mess. But it was recently suggested to me that my writing doesn’t have to be perfect. This gave me a bit of a shock, albeit a pleasant one. I was compared to an artist called Jackson Pollock. Being an ignoramus I had to Google this guy and found out that he was an abstract expressionist, which left me no clearer as to why I had been compared to him. So I had to confess my ignorance and ask for clarification:

Rather than forming your raw emotions into well-crafted pictures, you can just splurge them onto the surface. When we look at them, we’ll connect directly with them without having to go through the distorting process of appreciating a picture or a piece of prose. Raw emotion, passed from one person to another, without the middle guy!

Interesting. I am a perfectionist by nature. I also have a habit of comparing myself to other people and finding myself wanting. For instance, I read some outstandingly well-written blogs, which I love, but which sometimes makes me feel that I have no right to blog because I don’t have their skill with words. So here goes. I will try to write without worrying about what others may think, or how my inner prose nerd flinches.

Emotions, so many emotions. They threaten to overwhelm me. I stand in the sea and wave after wave of emotions bombard me, I fall, I can’t breathe, I struggle back up, spluttering, gasping for air, each time more unsteady. How long before I don’t get up again?

What can I do to stem the flow? I drink a glass of wine and it frees me slightly. Frees me enough to get to the computer and type. Must write. Must communicate somehow. Or I will drown.

Self-destructive urges. Cut. Blood. Scars. Pollution. Hurt myself. Mirror on the outside what goes on inside. But I am sensible enough to not give in to these urges. Most of the time anyway. I have my vices. But most of the time I squash these dirty desires. But I can’t squash the emotions. Not for long. Where do they go?

My counselor encourages me to find a creative means to express these emotions, in a way that is healthy for me. But I can’t draw. I can’t paint. I used to paint. But I was mediocre at best. I stopped. Can I start again? Does it matter that in the eyes of the world my creativity is worthless? Can I sustain enough enthusiasm to pursue this for longer than a week? Or will I research until my brain dries up, buy the materials, sit down to paint, only to find that whatever was driving me has gone?

I have been on the verge of panic for days. Reminding myself to breathe deeply over and over again. I have made mistakes at work and have had to try and sort out the mess. But my thoughts go so rapidly. I can’t focus. Just this evening I have been up and down, up and down. Have to write, can’t write, have to sit, can’t sit, have to think, can’t think… So I drink another glass of wine and take a sleeping pill. Come back to the computer.

This thing in my mind, it stops me functioning, but nobody can see it! I have to fight and fight, but what am I fighting? Myself. I am fighting myself. Nobody can see. Nobody can understand. I can’t even understand, because my thoughts come and go so quickly that I don’t have time to assimilate them. What to do, what to do? I know, I’ll tap my foot! That will help. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

Does it help? No. Oh, I know! I’ll drink another glass of wine.

Round and round and round we go. Merrily merrily merrily merrily, lightly down the stream. Is that how the rhyme goes? I’d like to be by a stream.

Am I going round the bend? Round and round? This is what the inside of my head is like all the time. Constant, no pause. No respite. How can I possibly focus on the mundane tasks of work when my brain is playing these tricks on me? Will painting help? Will writing this finally help me? Getting drunk didn’t help me, all it did was make me realise how close to the edge I am.

Mood goes up, this is good, there are benefits to this disorder. I have insights, that other people don’t have, I see what they don’t see. Quick as a flash, mood goes down, I was so arrogant, me, have insights? You have to be kidding. I can’t even remember where I put my cigarettes. I am worthless, I am nothing, I am ugly, I can’t cope at work, I can’t breathe, nobody knows, I don’t know, where are you God? On and on.

I’m going to stop now. You know, I actually enjoyed writing this, although it did make my heart pound. Writing as the thoughts come, without the hassle of trying to get them to make sense. Hope you had fun reading! Please, if you’re going to report me to the nutty people, send me an email first, so it doesn’t come as too much of a shock?

Escape

[I have posted, and un-posted and re-posted already a few times today, so I have decided to leave it up this time. It seems so miserable and just crappy, but I figure it's best to get these thoughts out in the open, squashing them doesn't help.]

I feel absolutely shattered today. My eyes are burning with the desire to sleep. My moods are cycling incredibly quickly and I just can’t keep up. I need to start carrying a notebook with me wherever I go because every now and then I have a thought which I mean to turn into a post, but by the time I get around to doing it the thought has gone all fuzzy and I can no longer articulate it. So excuse this rambling post.

I think the thought I had last night was that my hypomanic episodes are not real. The emotions I feel aren’t true reflections of reality. To be so happy, to see the world through rose-tinted glasses just isn’t real. To feel like I’m invincible isn’t real.

Cycling

Blog posts have been a little thin on the ground recently, haven’t they? I’ve been getting somewhat annoyed with myself, because I only appear to be able to post when I’m feeling depressed, probably because that’s when I’m most introspective. But my mood cycles very fast and I have usually experienced a fair few mood states within the space of one week, and it would be nice if I could express more than just the depressive side of my nature. Grrr.

Also, I have a lot on my mind right now, for the times, they are a-changin’. I’m seeing myself differently. I’m seeing a lot of things differently. And yet the same. It doesn’t make any sense, I know. The thoughts go round and round my head, until I bore even myself. I can’t seem to express myself coherently, either verbally or in writing. I tried talking to both my Dad and my gorgeous hubby last night, and I’m not sure if I made myself understood at all. I think I just rambled on and they humoured me.

So far this week, my mood has cycled in it’s usual way. I can see the pattern now. Here is a simplified version:

• Day 1: Hypomanic. Full of energy and smiles. Productive. Ideas buzz around my head. Rapid speech, rapid thoughts.
• Day 2: Mood still “up” but less focused, difficulty concentrating. Anxiety makes an appearance, along with the increased heart-rate and difficulty sitting still.
• Day 3: Paranoia kicks in but mood can remain upbeat for a little while longer yet. Intrusive thoughts such as “everyone hates me”, “my boss is just waiting for me to screw up”.
• Day 4: Mood starts to deflate a little. More intrusive thoughts. “I’m worthless”. “I can’t write”. “This blog is crap”. “I’m such a boring/ugly person”. I usually end that day fighting tears.
• Day 5: Mood goes slightly blank and numb as I try to fight off the intrusive thoughts. I start to want to get drunk.

Day 5 is where I am today. I don’t want to write about the next stage, in case writing it down makes it come true, and I would prefer to skip it please. Maybe I’ll write the rest of the cycle after I go through it again. It amazes me that even though I know my mood will change, and I can make a pretty good guess as to how it will change, it still takes me by surprise when it does change.

Anyway, at least I can count on the fact that none of these moods last very long. That in itself has its good and bad side. The good side is that at least depression doesn’t have very long to get a real hold of me. The bad side is that I never know how I will feel from one day to the next. My thoughts change, my opinions change, my self-esteem changes, my self-perception changes.

I want clear, lucid thoughts.

I cling to the one thing in my life that doesn’t change – my husband. No matter how I feel, I always think he’s wonderful.

I do not need help!

The Director of my department is driving me up the wall. I am inundated with applications which I have to process and then forward to him to make a decision on. He panics easily and starts to worry that I am not processing things fast enough. But does he say this to me? No. Instead, he goes to one of my colleagues and asks him how I am doing. Who then, naturally, passes that information along to me.

And yet, the Director can’t seem to help watching me every time he comes into my office and saying things like,

Oh, you’re hard to see behind all that paper Karita! Anything for me?

And yes, I know this probably sounds all totally innocent to you less cynical types. But he definitely expects me to crack up any day now.

Today, on his way out of the office, he popped in to see me and my boss and said,

Are you coping with all that work? Are they all applications?

Yes they are. And these on my left. And these, by my feet. And these, piling up on my shelf.

Well, do ask for help if you need it, won’t you? We don’t want you to leave it so long that the first sign of trouble we see is the men in white coats coming up the corridor with blue flashing lights, now do we? Ha ha ha [laughing at his own spectacular wit]. Anything we can do to speed up the process, after all, we need to get these applications done ASAP, don’t we Karita?

Of course we do. You big fat wanker.

No, I didn’t really say that. I smiled nicely. Which no doubt confirmed his suspicions that I am indeed having a meltdown. Tosser.

My boss said to him that I am being well supported and if I need any further help I just have to ask. Apparently, lots of people are offering to help me! Pffffff. I don’t need help!

Although, if you must insist on being completely rational about this, I am starting to worry that maybe I do have too much work to do, and maybe I can’t cope, and maybe I will have a meltdown at work. In fact, I started today by crying on hubby’s shoulder, before I even got out of bed!

But we’re not being completely rational about this. I do not need help! I am doing perfectly fine on my own thank you very much. Yes, my desk is covered in paper, but I just think it adds to the ambience of the room. Yes, I have started dreaming at night about applications going on paper-cutting rampages around the university, but who doesn’t dream about their job, right? And yes, I am ranting in a high-pitched, top-speed voice to my boss on a regular basis about nothing in particular, but I’m fairly sure that she finds this charming and not disturbing.

Now, sod off and stop asking me if I’m alright!

A Brief Glimpse

It’s the first of December and I was thinking to myself that I could relish the freedom of not having to write on here every day. What was I thinking? I remember writing at the beginning of the month that maybe posting every day would bring some life back to this sad little blog. However, those of you who have stuck around have actually witnessed my spiralling descent into spirallyness (Is that a word? I think not. But do I care? I’ll leave that for you to decide).

So why am I posting today? I decided that I would post what I was intending to post yesterday, that post which got swallowed up in my pathetic snivelling. Because, you see, when I was struck down with the delights of IBS cramps yesterday morning, I had a tiny moment of clarity. Naturally, it was wrapped up once more in mist a few seconds later, but it was clarity nonetheless. I called my mum when the cramps came as she is good at calming me down. I whined to her about how I don’t feel close to God, and how my emotions are all over the place, blah blah blah. She said that I appear to be experiencing an identity crisis. Wow, how profound is that? Not at all, I hear you whisper fearfully, trying to whisper quietly so that I don’t lose it and go on a rampage. Well, something clicked in my head when she said that. At the moment I feel like I am losing myself. I don’t know what I want these days. I can’t make the simplest of decisions, like do I go outside today, or do I stay here and watch endless episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, until my skin is so white from lack of daylight that I glow in the dark? I don’t know how I will feel from one day to the next, I don’t know how the normal situations of everyday life will affect me. And so on.

And than I remembered the little message I was given in the summer. I am free to be me, whatever that means. Over the summer months my self-esteem hit a new low. My anxiety reached new highs. I remember asking myself, what is me? How do I answer that question? I was getting slightly confused. And here I am, a few months later, asking that same question. Over the last few weeks I have been so focused on just making it through the day. That’s all I have been able to see. One tiny step at a time. I lost sight of the bigger picture. I lost sight of God. I feel lost and alone and empty.

I don’t know how I’m going to get over this. Having my little moment of clarity did not solve all my problems. Indeed, later that same day I became a drizzly mess. I went to church and didn’t feel anything. Or at least, not anything spiritual. It’s not that I now doubt God’s existence, or doubt that He cares for me, but I just can’t see Him. All I felt was fear. But I do believe that there is a spiritual element to the mess that I’m in. God will teach me something about Himself, and myself, through this. I just hope I start learning quickly.

Tears

Well, it’s the last day of November. I was going to write a proper post today, I had it all sorted in my head and everything! However, I have just been singing at church and spent the entire service attempting not to cry. Now I’m at home with tears pouring down my face. I took two days off work to try and stabilise myself. Doesn’t look like it worked, does it? Now I’m scared about going back. I keep reminding myself I only have three weeks left and then I have two weeks off at Christmas. Two whole weeks. But I’m scared that I won’t get through these next few days, never mind the next few weeks, without having a meltdown. I’m going to have to be honest with my boss about how I’m feeling and ask that she is gentle with me.