Haven't had to deal with a major crash for a long time and I'm struggling to keep my head above water. Trying to remember those cognitive errors and mostly remember that this is happening to me, it is not me.

I don't want to go out of the house because I might run into people and people are too hard. Also there is ice cream out in the world and a diabetic can't self-medicate with Haagen-Daz -- and oh, I would, in a heartbeat.

I feel shrunken in, trying to take up less room in the world.

I am constantly fighting the idea that this is somehow my fault, that I've been found out to be a total loss of a human being.

Or that what I'm dealing with is the mental equivalent of a stubbed toe and I am just way too much of a drama queen to handle real life.

I have two days of work to get through before I see the doc. Xanax may help.

Please, I just need someone to reinforce what I'm feeling: this is not me, this is not who I am; this is bipolar disorder, and underneath its weight I am still a valuable human being.