[Shakti]

The last two days I've been completely out of control. Better now. Today anyway. Declared day before yesterday that I was quitting my meds because they don't work. I didn't quit them, but I did cut the doses all in half and almost immediately I was right back to normal. I don't know why my doc insisted on increasing my Lamictal and Wellbutrin when I was doing really well at the doses I was at. My body responds to all things chemical in strange ways. So, instead of 150 mg Lamictal I'm now taking 75 mg, and instead of 150 mg Wellbutrin morn and evening, I'm just taking 150 mg in the morning. I'm in for psych services FINALLY on Aug 10th and I'm pretty sure all my meds will be changed anyway and I could not be more glad. So yeah, I'm tapering down and yeah, I haven't told my doctor, and yeah, I'm not gonna. Don't try this at home. There. That's my disclaimer.

Anyway, before I cut my doses down and came back to earth I spent the last few days crying, in a rage, driving my car all over the place like a lunatic, staying out until 3 am hiding from my partner just to do it, etc. At one point, when I was home, I got some bad news in the mail. It was one of those government mistakes that really screws you over. They decided I have no son???? Therefore they dropped his health insurance and I have to go to a hearing in SEPT in order to fix it....1600 miles away....um, what? Long story, but anyway--my son will be here with me in just a couple weeks (he's with his dad and finished the school year before moving up here with me) and he'll have state insurance and so it will work out fine as long as nothing bad happens between now and then. That little bit of news made me ballistic. I just lost it. I called the number for the "case worker" and left her irate, screaming, nasty messages, berating them for their inadequacy and ineptness, etc etc. I kept calling back and leaving more messages and each one was more rage-filled than the last. Then my partner comes home. I break down in tears and start throwing everything I can find. My cell phone slammed into the wall across the room (now I have to replace it, I think...it's not right somehow...rickety), threw books (which are SACRED to me), papers, folders, mugs.... and just screamed and cried. All it took to trigger me was that one piece of mail.

To boot, disability had me scheduled for 3 med evals (in one month!) and then they sprung a FOURTH on me with one day's notice. And it happened to be that day. I was so out of sorts I got the time wrong and had to call, in tears, to see if they could still get me in. They did. But I showed up red-faced and puffy-eyed, having obviously been crying. Then I had to sit and answer all those ridiculous questions that I never know how to answer because I'm different from moment to moment. Sometimes like a completely different person. My partner had to drive me and sit in the room with me otherwise I'd have melted down more. But that one piece of mail. That was the trigger. And for the next day or two I was hostile, despondent, angry, trying to sabotage my relationship (the poor man...and he just stands by my side with so much love no matter what...I'm very very lucky), running away, refusing to answer texts at some times and sending hundreds of insane weird texts the next.

One of the nights I was so out of my head, I ran onto a pitch black beach with huge waves roaring and rain coming down and lightning everywhere and it was the middle of the night and empty. I just ran and screamed. I wanted to walk into the ocean with open arms and not ever come out. I kept thinking that despite water filling the lungs being both graceless and terror-filled, that I wanted it, that it wanted me, that the cold and dark was the terror I deserved and the comfort I needed. It was cold and I was exhausted and I went back to my car and sat there, with my feet out the window, cold drops of water falling on them....drop, drop, drop. And it felt so fresh and alive and good. Something good. To feel something good. But that underlying need to cry, to scream, to be held (and yet I shove anyone who comes near me away).

I was depressed, so angry, so full of rage directed at nothing, nobody, and everything and everybody. But I felt beauty and sadness all enmeshed. I wandered in the woods and found wild rosemary growing abundantly and I spun around like I found gold. At one point, I went to sit by a light house where I knew my partner would not think to look for me (and I was right--he never expected me to go there...and he always looks for me) and I saw a sea gull walking across some rocks with a wing hanging in a way that was just so wrong. It was held both close to the body as if it hurt and hanging low as if he could not hold it up. And it killed me inside. I cried for that sea gull. It hurt me so badly, like grief. I cannot stand seeing others in pain. I don't even know if it was hurt or not, but it looked hurt. I watched as he walked until he was out of sight (I just noticed that I have referred to the sea gull as both he and it--how odd). But he never flew. The sea gull never flew.

In my solitude I had moments of clarity, rushes of love, deep and clear understanding. And I had anger too. And desperate sadness. Sadness for myself, for what this does to my partner, for the love he has for me that I don't deserve, for the way I lash out and make him worry on purpose.

I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote--more productively than in so long and for me, words are my world. But I also felt trapped and lost and confused. Colors were both crisply vibrant and all mixed up into a sort of mud.

And then I was back to normal. And so embarrassed. So embarrassed. I'm always so embarrassed afterwards. I mean, what was that? WHO was that? Clearly a mixed state. Or was it? It was an episode of something. I really don't know. And I just don't know what those episodes are. They are my most common. It's depression or that. Mixed state? Or just ultra ultra rapid cycling? I don't think it was that because it went on in this strange way for so long and it's always like that--it's like someone takes hold of me and I run. I run away. I become paranoid, draw conclusions that are absurd but make sense to me at the time, I become convinced no one loves me, that everyone despises me, that I am sick because I should have already died, that my time was already up and so I have to live this nightmare, and that no one could ever truly love me, being broken like I am so often. And the dramatics that come with it. I fear. I fear loss. I fear loss of love. I fear that any more loss in my life will make me crack and I will be a vessel of nothing because I can't hold water, because I leak out and onto everything. I become filled to terror with guilt for what this illness does to the people around me. Self-loathing because I was once capable and now I'm a thing. Just a thing. I breathe, I walk, I move, I feel, but I'm a thing. I contribute nothing. I know these are lies. I know this is not true. But during these episodes I am full of hate for myself and so I run. I run and run and I run more. I hide in my car, in the woods, by the ocean, at the edge of rocky cliffs waiting for a strong wind.

And all the while the ME who is ME, the real me, the rational, level-headed ME watches in sadness and horror at the way I abuse myself with these thoughts and is aghast at the way I ruin everything I touch (even though I know that is a lie, too...some of the sickness seeps into the rational me, too), and is contrite and remorseful for ruining days on end with my partner who is never anything but loving and caring and who treats me like I'm the Empress of every world and has done so for a decade. It's so terrible. And yet, once it starts, I crave it, I need it, I hate it, all of it, all so contradictory, and I can't let it go and it can't let go of me. It's a waiting game. Today I woke up and I was fine.

I know my meds have either petered out or just plain aren't working. I'm in for a med eval/psych eval on Aug 10, so I'm remaining hopeful. Hope, hope, hope.

I just needed to get that out. (And if you read all of this, you are amazing.)

Read it all? Couldn't stop! Tearing up with the familiarity... Boy, this illness sure can toss us around, can't it? So so so very frustrating. I don't know what else to say really, but am so glad you posted this. It's good sometimes to just let those fingers fly across the keyboard, releasing something that needs to get out, you know? And you write so insightfully, that it positively resonates with the realities of struggling with this rollercoater of BP. So glad you posted, and so glad you woke up feeling well today.
August 10, August 10... we'll just keep focusing on that together, ok?

[Shakti]

Yep--August 10th is our day. I'm practically counting down.

Thank you for your comment. Means a lot.

[perpetuallysad]

Wow, Shakti, you really describe things so wonderfully. I have felt every single thing you described. I am in shock really. Wow. And the embarrassment, god it's awful isn't it? I cannot even say I'm sorry anymore because it's so shameful. Thankfully no one sees my melt downs but my husband.

[StarryNight]

Wow. You really should write a book about your experience with bipolar. You bring feelings to life with words in a way that others reading them can feel your pain and loss of control. I don't really know what to say to help you, but you touched on so many of the same feelings that I have, about wanting the dark and cold to fill me up because it's at least something real to fill my emptiness, and about feeling that one more hurt will not just cause me to go insane, but cause me to simply stop being, because I'm cracked, and the last of me will run out. You just said it all so eloquently.

I do envy you that you live at the ocean. I remember visiting the ocean and feeling euphorically manic, feeling that I was in the embrace of the Goddess. I live in a small city, and I rarely ever see nature anymore, which is much of the reason why I feel so empty. I just want to step out of this so-called life, a life of work, bills, and tv, and become one with the primal force of Earth. I yearn for the beauty of it so much that it hurts. Sometimes the beauty is so powerful that it's sad, because we can't capture it and hold it, and it just keeps slipping away from our day-to-day. And, sometimes the sad is beautiful, because at least it's real, not covered in layers of meaningless activity.

The intensity of feeling is one thing I don't think anyone can understand, unless they're bipolar. My doctor keeps wanting to put me on Abilify, which I complained made me feel flat, emotionless, and "too normal." I want to be happy, but I still want that depth of feeling I've always had, and sometimes I think even depression is better than what others call normal, but what I call a zombie. It's hard to find a med that will take away the pain but leave the intensity.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that you write beautifully. Thanks for your post, and I hope you stay feeling better, and can find the right meds.

[sanityseeker]

I am glad you woke this morning feeling better. What a ride hey! I hope your med evaluation goes well. I appreciate your sharing your episode. As much as I hate that bi polar causes these horrors in our lives we need to remember it is not 'us' but the condition going off. We have to remember not to be embarrass for what happens outside of our control.

You are a good person who has a bad episode. Thank goodness for sleep that sometimes puts it to an end. Wishing you well. Take it slow and easy for a few days. Tender recovery time.

[sugahorse1]

(((((SHAKTI)))))
Thanks for sharing that with us. I can imagine the depression, pain and dispair you were going through.
I wish there was a way I could just make you feel better. I wish there really was such a thing as a "happy pill" - to take away the pain and confusion.

You are lucky to have a partner that loves you the way he does; but don't bash yourself up about responses you may have that are actually your illness.
We all do our best to be the best person we can be, the best mom, father, partner, sister, daughter, son.... We are not entirely to blame for any shortfalls. We have been dealt a difficult stumbling block in life, but we need to overcome it - climb above it.

Shakti - you are in inspiration to me, as I can see the emotions you are going through - despair, depression, anger, frustration... Yet you do your utmost to rise above it.

[kadesgirl09]

I dont even know what to say after that except thank you. I agree that you need to write a book about bipolar. hugs and encouragements to you ((((shatki)))

[sugahorse1]

Hey Shakti - are things going any better? Thinking of you

[Shakti]

Yep, I'm great now. Doc added risperidal and it helped on day 1. Maybe just an upswing or maybe the new med, but last two days I've felt great.

[sanityseeker]

Awesome news Shakti. So glad you are feeling great.

[sugahorse1]

Yay-I think there's nothing worse than rapid cycling. Most people will never understand and just tell you to pull yourself out of it.
I hope your meds are the answer this time
(((HUGS)))