[Love&Toil]

Boy, I'm in a foul mood tonight. I have a lot of shyt to say but I just won't say it. I will spare you the details. I'll just try to ride it out and wait until the day until my meds seem enough again. Cuz right now some ugly truths are shining through, and my meds aren't enough to cover my discontent. Oh there's a lot I'm unhappy about but I have to just shut up and put on a pollyanna smile, be the mother and wife and daughter and employee everyone wants me to be. Once I crack the veneer and let people in on my REAL feelings and REAL frustrations, they can't handle it. They don't like me that way. And THAT'S why I need my meds, because I can't function well with people if I'm not stable. People don't like me when I'm not stable. I have to be The Rock, Strong, The Fixer Of Problems, The Shiner of Positive Light, etc. I have to always be in control and with the solutions or everyone around me freaking falls apart. It's exhausting and very isolating.

For once I wish my husband would freaking take the wheel and fix a problem and don't just wait for me to handle it. I wish my oldest daughter would be kind, caring and compassionate to her siblings instead of an evil witch. I wish my son wouldn't play video games all day long. But I'm always busy doing cooking or cleaning or helping with homework or running a kid to an activity, so when the heck am I supposed to sit down to give him my full attention to do cutting, writing, etc? I delegated that responsibility to dh but he does a shytty job of it and he has a freaking teaching degree.

Sigh. I'd better just stop here. See? Once the floodgates are opened just a crack.....

....So? With my intense feelings I wonder if I'm justified? Is it just intense irritability that most people can't seem to tolerate or deal with? Is it because I'm ill? Or is it a normal female feeling at a certain time of the month that has become pathologized? Yes I have PMDD but that doesn't mean there isn't cause for me to get pissed off and emphasize that enough is enough once in a freaking while.

I have to take meds because most people can't handle me without it. I am a parent and in order to function I have to be medicated. I have this big huge fat belly that is a metaphor to me of suppressing my emotions. The only real pleasure and joy I get anymore is from eating.

I'd better just shut up now because I can really get myself into trouble just running my thoughts off. Thanks for listening.

[BipolaRNurse]

This is a safe place to vent. Have at it.....it's what we're here for. ((((HUGS))))

[Love&Toil]

Deep breaths

[rollymoody]

It's great to have a place to rant!

And I can relate to the whole "keeping the feelings in because no one else can handle it."

Right now my conclusion and answer to that is: me.

There's no one I can really have hear me out when I'm angry. They often think it's over reacting. Or even when I am suicidal. But, I have a therapist that I like who I can share these things with. But mostly I have myself.

For intense anger = exercise.
For intense sadness = writing.
For mania = Focusing on one or two things max at a time.
For SI = I have music.
For anxiety = meditation.

If I can't be the solution to my needs then a PRN can help. But we are all going to have bad days. It's just up to us to live through them and take them on the best we can. There is no perfect solution or conclusion, life is about the journey...not the ending.

Originally Posted by Love&Toil

...People don't like me when I'm not stable. I have to be The Rock, Strong, The Fixer Of Problems, The Shiner of Positive Light, etc. I have to always be in control and with the solutions or everyone around me freaking falls apart. It's exhausting and very isolating...

AMEN! I so hear you on this!

Sorry you're having a rough go of it, L&T!
Feel free to get a good rant out here anytime.

I get it, I understand it, and I know it sucks. I hope you feel better soon.

[Love&Toil]

Thank you. First I was really irritable for a couple of days and now I just feel like crying. It's exhausting and depressing. I just need some help sometimes and I need a break.

Recent Triggers:
1) Dd 1 (10 y.o.) being a bully and an escalating freaker-outer that triggers my childhood trauma. She's so hard to deal with at times and just escalates to a ridiculous degree. I am expecting this child to have MI as she grows up. I can just see it. But I don't like her bully nature, her rage, her mean streak. It's very triggering for me and it's something I have to parent against all the time. It's very triggering. Mostly I stay calm and deescalate and keep others safe, etc. And sometimes I just leave the house when I cannot take it any more. I have fantasies about leaving my family or leaving my husband with her and taking the two other little kids. Escape fantasies. Shrugging

2) Finances. I am always trying to stretch and make do and haul us out of debt. Dh doesn't really contribute to solving the problem, just tells me he knows I can handle it and that's about it. Ok he did find us a cheaper phone plan. But ultimately it all rests on me. The demands of the family. Dd1 is a talented dancer - she is in competitive dance, he wants her to be in it, she wants to be in it, "it's her life, the air she breathes". So somehow I have to squeeze out the $4000-$5000/yr alongside our monthly childcare payments of $1400/mo. and our mortgage and condo fees and insurance and RESPs and groceries and car insurance, etc. Mommy why can't we eat out for dinner? Why can't we get ice cream? Why why why???? Wah wah wah Mommy!!!!

I've mostly got it under control but it's always a struggle struggle struggle.

3) Sex-or lack of. Due to my meds, which I HAVE TO TAKE, I feel like cardboard down there. Sorry TMI. But it's true. I need a freaking jack hammer to feel any sensation and even then, O's (which can only happen with said jack hammer) are.... meh. I used to have screaming O's with dh every single time but since we've had kids 10 years ago and since I've been on meds.... Nada. It does wonderful things to his ego, let me tell you. And we never have time to spend on sex. We have three kids, ages 10, 7 and 4. When do we ever have privacy or a moment to ourselves? Never.

That's all I'm going to complain about for now. When I think of something else to vent I'll be back. LOL

[Love&Toil]

4) I'm fat. And all my friends are skinny dancers. I used to be a dancer. I don't hang out with them anymore, my friends from my childhood into adulthood. I don't dance any more because (a) that group of people is getting involved in cheating and I'm trying to behave in my marriage and (b) I just don't have the time or energy and (c) I just don't fit in any more. I am too fat, they are all skinny after 1-3 kids, I'm 60 lbs overweight. My son told me last night I look like Mr. Greedy (from the Mr. Men series)!!! HAHAHAH!!!!!! It's true though, he's right. It's just sad. I used to be skinny and beautiful and fit. I used to have men chasing me ALL THE TIME. Actually one of the reasons I let myself get fat was to ward off the attentions of someone I wanted and who wanted me and I couldn't have. I was married with kids. So there. But now it's embarrassing to be seen all the time as this big ole fatty and not to feel attractive. I just don't have the time or energy to lose weight. I can't starve myself and that's what I need to do. Weightwatchers worked for me before but I just don't have the leisure and luxury to eat every 2 hours for goodness sakes!!!!!!!!

I'll be back. LOL

[Love&Toil]

5) Teachers today and expectations on parents. I need to monitor my children's homework every night and make sure they are all doing it and work on their scissor skills and writing skills and spelling skills and organization skills and completion skills, etc. It's very exhausting to have to stick my nose in their business all the time and to have the desire and need to see them succeed and do well and accomplish. To push them and encourage them and to do it right not to put on too much pressure but still to help them reach and grow. I'm just tired. I always feel like I'm doing parenting wrong. I know I'm not but it's just too hard sometimes. Too hard.

And I feel all these things and all this way and I'm on meds. What would it be like if I wasn't on meds? I read back over my stuff and think I sound depressed. Yeah but ? Shrugging Pdoc and meds can only do so much. And the goal of therapy is to get you to cope and be happy and forget it and just shrug and carry on with your responsibilities and goals and be okay and coping and functioning. So I know what they would say, "Just deal." They'd say it nicely, but ultimately the message is, "Just deal."

I wonder what kind of message I'm giving my girls. My 7 y.o. daughter has a lot of love for life and wants to grow up, marry and have 3 children. But she's been saying she knows it's going to be very hard for her when she's grown up and a Mommy. Oh great, I have to do all the responsibilities of being and adult and a mother and wife, etc. AND I have to make it look easy and okay and effortless and enjoyable because then what will my children think and what will they learn about life? I have to do this better and handle it better and be more happy and joyful because I'm supposed to show THEM how to do it all. Or if not how to do it all then just how to do it. BUt I don't freaking know. I'm just making it up as I go along, desperately hoping I don't fail. I do good most of the time. But sometimes I just get exhausted and depressed.

So sorry you're struggling so much. You have a lot going on.

I get the feeling you never complain. Just let it out. Let it out and cry if needed.

I think you are showing them a realistic picture. It's when we're set up against perfect/unrealistic portrayals, that's when we feel inadequate. Think of advertisers holiday portrayals. Yeah, right! I think it is better to be realistic with them. I'm sure you are doing a better job than you think.

As far as today's teachers expectations of parental involvement, SO TRUE. It's been a number of years now, but I was boggled by it. I never had help on my homework as a kid. Sure, many things were dysfunctional, but in that regard, I don't think so. So what, you know? I got A's. It was my job. They've turned it into the parent's job, and I think that is wrong. (Yes, there should be parental involvement, but the level of that expected these days is ridiculous.)

(Heheh. Parent-teacher conferences, oh, GOD how I hated them! Nonetheless, a memory… In his 8th or 9th grade, so you go to various subject teachers. One criticized the hell out of our son and said that his performance was a disaster, laying it at our feet with a major tsk-tsking on our "inadequacies". Now, mind you, this was the first we had heard there was any problem. I'm thinking, WHO'S lazy?! She sees this problem and can't be bothered to even alert us until so far into the semester??!!! She topped it off by handing us a sheet on laziness!!! I wanted so badly to fly over that table and throttle her! )

[Turtlesoup]

Wish those were real-I'm so sorry you have so much shite on your plate right now-it sucks. I can relate to many of things you are going through as I had many of those same issues in my first marriage-it's so hard being the responsible one-it's like you're never allowed to have your own problems much less a bad day. Please vent away-we're always here to listen & support. I think you deserve a freakin medal & maybe should look into some couples & family therapy-has helped me immensely & it sure can't hurt-please take care

I have 2 teen boys and I am a single mom. I do it all. I am so surprised I am not in a mental hospital.

I understand you completely. It is incredibly hard.

[Love&Toil]

THANK YOU ALL for listening and letting me vent. I feel a lot better now. I ended up taking a day off work to finish laundry and get a nap. I went out to a movie with my sister tonight as dh could see I NEEDED A NIGHT OFF. So that's good. I'm just taking a deep breath and moving on, moving through. Gotta just trudge on, one foot infront of the other, keep on keeping on.

Innerzone - I think you're so right, it IS a realistic picture. It sucks that in this day and age we are so isolated in our little family silos with so much responsibility placed on our shoulders and are not sharing the load (like childcare and housework) with other extended family. Not to idealize extended family involvement 'cuz mine are all batty (some in a good way and some in a bad way - lol). But it's so difficult to do it all. I need more help. I need help. And on occasion I can afford to hire cleaning help for short stints of time. And sometimes I can't. I need the kids to pitch in more, specifically the oldest one, but she's so freaking difficult. Her being difficult is not an excuse to get out of doing work though!!!! My middle child helps a lot, bless her little soul.

Turtlesoup: I have thought some therapy might be beneficial but I don't even know what angle to begin at! I have thought depending on how things go with the oldest, at times I have thought we need some guidance on dealing with her.

To all the parents in the house: I salute you! We've got to all hang in there together!!! ValentinaVV :hug My hats off to single parents. I don't know how you do it.

All this up and down. It's bedtime now, off I go. Thanks for listening again PC-ers. What a relief to be able to vent here.

[Love&Toil]

Well I went to work yesterday but had to get my husband to pick me up at noon because I was too dizzy, weak and lightheaded from my period that I couldn't focus or concentrate on work. I am still dizzy and weak today so I spent the day in bed watching Netflix. Interesting how the body will just FORCE you to lie down sometimes. This period came on real strange, kind of the way my periods used to happen BEFORE I went on meds: with a sudden bang, a sudden swing! I wonder if it's the Latuda up at 40 mg that has made this change or - ? Something else. I'm not sure I like Latuda. I don't know. I feel like it makes my emotions more intense and at the surface. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I don't necessarily feel like it's putting a lid on hypomania.

It's a shame to have to miss work and I feel self-conscious and embarrassed about it. I'm sure my boss and coworkers were confused as I appeared to be okay in the morning and it all just came on very suddenly in the afternoon. The extreme dizziness, weakness, etc. was preceeded by menstrual cramps that felt like early labour pains. And were accompanied by weepiness. I once went to the ER years ago with this same sort of thing (fainty-ness during my period with weepiness, feeling like I couldn't be upright, coming and going in waves). The ER doctor thought it sounded like an anxiety or panic attack but I didn't have the fear feelings (maybe because of the good meds on board and my body was just having the other symptoms)? Either way it's telling me to slow down.

Except I don't know how to slow down. I work FT with 3 kids. My house is always a disaster and I'm struggling like anything trying to keep up with the bare minimum such as making sure five of us have clean clothes to wear and plates/cutlery/glasses and meals. Sometimes I can handle the hectic pace just fine. Other times I just plod through the exhaustion and hectic pace and I cannot anticipate WHEN my body is going to decide to crash. It's like it just suddenly decides out of nowhere that NOW is crash time.

Dh seems to think my extreme mood-swings/irritability that are part of the PMDD are part of my bipolar 2. I thought they were supposed to be separate things. I don't think my bipolar is typical and I don't have clusters of hypo symptoms all at the same time, it's more like symptoms follow each other over the course of several days. Sometimes I don't even want to believe I'm bipolar. But it does explain a lot of things.