because living with a disease really hurts…

I never understood, really, what it meant to shut people out. What it meant to be “closed up”. Not until this last break up. I haven’t really ever broken up with anyone unless I was married to them. For the love of this disease, Bipolar Disorder – specifically Bipolar II Disorder, I’ve been married 3 times. None of them were good men to begin with. To end with, they were even worse.

I broke up with this one because I am broken. My brain more specifically. I can’t get things right. On the outside I look pretty normal. I have a job. Been teaching school for 22 years. I have a house, a car, a dog. Normal things, ya know? I mean… when I look at people that I think are normal – those are the things I see. I usually see them with another person and some kids if they are my age. Me? Not so much that stuff. I can’t do it. It seems that God – or whoever – got that part correct. He/She decided that I shouldn’t get to have kids. And so I don’t. Probably the best decision that “being” has ever made for me. Surely I would have fucked that situation up 8 ways to Egypt.

The ex and I have remained friends. I couldn’t manage a relationship and my broken brain at the same time. He has been sticking around and listening to me spit out pieces of an explanation of what my broken brain is like. It’s been interesting. I’d wanted him to listen while we were together, but now is fine. It wouldn’t have mattered.

Last week at some point I told him that I needed him to block me from his Facebook because I couldn’t deal with who he was – um, dealing with basically. Crazy, I know. But, really? This IS a borderline personality post 🙂 Anyway, it took a few days, but he got around to it. And when I saw that he’d done it – it hit me… I was just closing one more person out of my life.

OK, OK. I know that’s a bit dramatic. HOWEVER, it’s just that it hit me funny. He keeps telling me that I’ll find someone. Therapy Man talks to me about getting out and making friends. My friends all go on and on about the next guy. Each of those conversations makes me shiver and break inside just a little bit more. I don’t want any of that. Really, just leave me be please…

I told the ex the other day that it’s easy for him to say “chin up buckaroo. This is the first time he has experienced a breakdown in me. It’s a cycle that he’s not familiar with. He can’t possibly understand how many I’ve been through. I’m not talking about the automatic “do not pass go, do not collect $200”  hospitalization kind. I’m talking about the ones where you fall down and scrape your knee or your elbow. Or, maybe ya hit your head and wake up and realize, “Ahhh fuck! I did it again!”  And then you lose someone or maybe more than one someone… you lose something like a car or, fuck it’s the house you were barely covering rent for this time. Or, it’s something even more simple, yet enough that you… have… to… start… the fuck over again! One of those breakdowns.

I haven’t even talked about the
emotional pain hiding behind the loss

I have the physical scars. Plenty of them. But emotionally? I don’t think I have many. Because each time I got up and went out and did to myself all over again. Not that I didn’t cry… not that I didn’t hurt. But, maybe just not enough? Maybe I pretended? I’m really good at that. Maybe I just put on that mask and walked right out in the middle of traffic and tried again and again and again and again.

I have looked into so many of my students eyes and wondered what was killing them? Why they couldn’t or wouldn’t let anyone in. What had hurt them soooo badly that they had shut out everyone and everything?

I get it now. I will never know their pain, obviously. But, I know mine. I have finally begun to feel it.

And so now what? Shut down, maybe? I know that I have started to… I told my ex that I don’t want to let others in anymore because it just fucking hurts? I can feel what my students are feeling now. I have people in my life right now and I’m good with that. I don’t want anyone else. I thought it was the depression. I didn’t have the energy to try…. But it’s not. I can feel the pain inside when I think about starting something new because starting new means there could be an end and I am not strong enough to feel that anymore. It hurts. Bad.

I’m starting now out of necessity. But, I am not setting myself up for the pain again. Not with someone new. Not again.

I’m not sure what this is really going to look like? I’m not entirely sure of anything other than the fact that giving up and quitting isn’t an option. Dying is not allowed. Suicide has never been of interest to me – thankfully for my family and friends. It’s obviously still not. So, I have to figure it out. But, I know that I am slowly closing in on myself. I’m starting to protect my heart…. because it hurts – because living with a disease hurts.

Protection mode – I suppose??? Again, I’m not sure because I have never felt this pain before. As I come to the end of this post, I wonder if maybe it’s not all a bad thing. Seriously, maybe something really great will come out of it? Who knows?

Irregular Polygons and Nirvana

I’m in this space right now where poor Borderline Betty is just rearing to attack. Every other sentence (in my head, thankfully) either starts or ends with a variation of “Fuck”. Yeah, she’s a special one.

Yep, that’s my girl… That’s how she’s feelin… and this is how’s she’s lookin these days.

Little potty mouth that she has…
Seriously tho, the kids at school are being so mean these days!
I have confiscated 5 phones this week alone! And on those phones are pics of me!!!
I think it’s sick! Why take a pic of your 48 year old teacher?
That’s what I wanna know?
And the school isn’t doing a damn thing about it!
I would think I could do something about it 😦
That’s why Betty is a little pissy!

Anyway… I’ve sorta been feeling like I’m trapped in this crazy space lately! Probably an irregular polygon. Sorry, I’m geometry teacher And, a bitch apparently. But, I think that is because I keep forgetting to take my thyroid medicine. What can I say. I forgot to fill it. Apparently, that’s not one ya want to mess with. I had no idea.

Irregular Polygon
FYI: this is probably why my students
hate me!

Anyway… I am in this space that scares the shit out of me right now. No drama. Normal life and no drama fucks me up. It shouldn’t. I mean normal life should be good. But, when you have lived on the edge of fear for eternity – normal isn’t normal. So I am walking aimlessly… without a cause. Borderline Betty wants a cause. And, if I’m not careful she will create one. Trust me when I tell you this people… All hell can break loose when she does that shit! Oh….

And so should I run? Maybe I am running.. Should I keep running? I wonder… and I wonder how long I can keep it up? I also wonder what exactly I am running from.

OH!  I love my life… hmmm….

….

Behind the mask…

So this is me on a normal day hiding out in a normal world. Strip me down and I am nothing more than a freaked out ball of anxiety and fear and anger stumbling through the world just making it from day to day. And honestly, I have figured out how to do it most of the time. I’m pretty damn good at it at this point in my life really. It pisses me off when people think they have figured me out. Well, wait… here’s the thing. It pisses me off when people think they have figured out mental health. And thus… figured ME out because of it.

I have been wanting to write about my struggles with the stigmas of mental health and how angry it makes me for a long time. But, I don’t usually do it. I don’t feel like I can get my thoughts wrapped around it well enough to do it. Or, my ideas disappear half through a post… Or, it just doesn’t work. So, I don’t. I’ve read through the Official Blog for Mental Health site many times and wish I could be a part of it because it’s such a great site (AWESOME logos!). But my ADD kicks in and I get so frustrated. I also don’t think I’m necessarily qualified to write for such a great site. But, those are insecurity issues I struggle with. Which, probably in and of itself make me qualified. One day I will be able to sit still long enough to get through it all and maybe contribute. 🙂

To my point… I’m not sure how much back story is necessary so I will do my best. I am 48 years old. I have known that I have been mentally ill since I was 22. Been treated with meds since then. It started with depression and back then (the late 80’s) the meds were some seriously messed up stuff comparatively speaking. I wasn’t excited about it. And, for all practical purposes was a zombie most of the time. But, I took them. I took them because no one else in my family had and look how fucked up they had become. Mother wasn’t going to let that happen this time! And, I was scared shitless of becoming like everyone else. Seemed pretty logical anyway. Sick – take medicine? Finally. Mother was paying attention.

Fast forward… several diagnoses later… depression, depression w/ psychosis, maybe schizo-effective disorder, bipolar (no real mania – whaatt?), Aha! Bipolar II. Maybe if I stick around long enough we can come up with something new! This whole time I was going to college and marrying lost puppies on the side the road. Living in group homes and visiting psych hospitals and teaching school. All masquerading around as a pretty normal looking person. It was very frustrating.

People talk a lot about hiding behind a mask. I was – still am – stuck behind this mask of a very normal looking person who felt/feels very abnormal. I can’t SIT. I can’t THINK. I can’t SEE what others around me see. I lose time. I lose thoughts in mid sentence… ideas. Now, I have learned to compensate – adjust. But, back then it was just hard ALL OF THE TIME and people thought I was normal. I was scared to tell them otherwise. So, I did everything and anything I could to make them think I was ok. It was exhausting. So many hospital stays just for exhaustion.

When I would go into outpatient programs the patients thought I was staff. They hated me. The paranoid ones HATTEEDDD me. They were sure I was “undercover”. It sucked. Unless, I was really sick and couldn’t “pull off normal”. Long hospital stays were different of course… but it would take a few days to really get them to trust me… Then they all thought I was a liar when I’d tell them I was a teacher… so I just never talk anymore.

I think I’m diverging.

So Friday I had to go to the ER because I had terrible pain – kidney stones will apparently do that to you. I’d never had them. I walked into the ER dressed from school – see pic (now you see my point). I looked sorta “normal”. I hate, hate, hate that word. I was in a lot of pain. There were several people in the waiting room, but they allowed me in before a few of them. Oh, how nice of them. They took my information. I’ve been to the ER before – many times actually. I’m a bit of a wimp actually. I hate it though because I tend to have panic attacks and God forbid the doctors listen to a mental patient when they are having a panic attack!

And here’s my main point! Are ya still with me?

At our ER we have to change into very fashionable hospital gowns when we get into the rooms. So, pretty much, we are all on an even playing field when the nurses and docs see us. Which means they get to look at us and evaluate us without our work clothes or non-work clothes. Professional/non-professional attire. They ask us if we have any medical problems??? I’m always asking myself if I should tell them that I’m bipolar, but I suppose the fact that I have to give them the list of medications I’m on pretty much does that for me. The nurses usually figure out something when they have to put in an IV and see scars are my arm. They don’t exactly look like they are from an accident of some kind. If they get it in the “good” arm golden. Not so lucky this time…

So nurse comes in and asks for symptoms. I give them to her. Obviously I’m in pain. Asks for short history. I give her medical history including bipolar… Doc comes in later. Give him the same. He asks about allergies. I explain I can’t do most pain meds and he says what about morphine? Yes, I can do that. He leaves. Hook her up with some morphine.

Nurse comes back in. She says…

Interesting that he allowed you to have morphine.

Why?

Well, with your problem?

My problem? 

Well. We don’t usually give pain meds to people like you?

(In my mind… bitch, what are you talkin about <— borderline babe talkin) Like me?

Mentally ill patients. Unless we know their full history.

My psychiatrist is affiliated with this hospital. And I’m not sure you understand my problem? 

Well, you are bipolar, right? And, take medication?

(In my mind… did you get your degree mail order or what?) Yeah, I’m bipolar not an addict. Did I say I was an addict? Do you have the correct room? What you giving me exactly?

Calm down Miss no need to get agitated you are going to be ok. We are giving you morphine for your pain. Do you know where you are? 

What? Why wouldn’t I know where I am? Do you think you could find the doctor for me?  

No. No. We are going to give you this medication and you are going to feel better. It is going to be ok. I promise. 

I am ok Now!. Just get the doctor for me. 

There is no need for the doctor. This medicine is going to make you feel much better. It will calm your nerves also. I don’t want you to be agitated. I know it is hard for you with your problem, but you have to calm down.  

I am fine. I’m not anxious at all. I don’t understand why you are talking to me like this? I’m serious. Get the doctor please. 

So this ignorance goes on for what feels like EVER! Finally I just reached over and grabbed the nurse call button and hit it. I figured a nurse would come. Nope. She shut it off and told me to relax. So I hit it again. I explained to her that I would get up and walk out into the hall if I had to, but I would find someone to talk to me with respect if she did not get someone herself. All in that voice that we find… that quietly controlled voice that we find… when we are about to lose our mind over complete mental health ignorance? That and the fear we will be put in restraints…. Do you know the one?

Fortunately a person walked in to draw blood for labs and she realized that if she didn’t get a doctor something terrible was about to happen so.. she got the doctor. We had a chat. I’m not certain if the doctor knows someone close to him with a mental illness or if he’s studied it. But, he made his point very clear that not all mental patients are dual diagnosesed and basically that was enough for me (and my happily morphined brain) at the time. And, honestly, could have been the drugs, but I think he planned to follow up with her at a latter time. He didn’t seem to be a happy man when he left the room. When he returned to release me he apologized for the way she had acted in a very dry, doctor-ly manner and off we both went.

Sometimes I don’t know if I have the fight in me to deal with people like that. This was a nurse for God’s sake. But, hell, I have dealt with it with my own psychiatrist. I don’t work with that person any longer. It just amazes me. I want to get out there and beat the pavement. I just don’t know if I’m smart enough and strong enough to do any good. And, I’m not sure I can control “borderline bitch”. 🙂

Waiting for my prince… or a piano

I haven’t written in a while. I don’t have that pull or ache and that scares me. I know – ridicules. Who wants that? But, that is what usually brings me here to write. I had a face to face with my therapist this week. He is a 5 hour round trip for me and so this winter it was a tricky drive. I didn’t make it much. I’m healthier when I actually see him than talk to him on the phone. It’s been a weird winter.

Yeah… bad winter… My ex told me last night that we just have bad winters… Now he says that. After he goes along with the break up. It’s ok. We weren’t meant to be together anyway… blah, blah, blah and all of that good stuff.

So, I’ve been sick for over a month now… I should quaify that.. physcially sick. Like stomach flu and then a cold and then a “just can’t get my ass off the couch because my head says yes but my insides say NONONO” sick for over a month now. And it’s been a bitch. I went to the doctor once and he said “yep, your sick” and sent me home. Gee, thanks! So I just haven’t been back. So, I’m sitting in Therapy Man’s office – actually laying on the couch – I know, could I get anymore cliche, and I tell him I think I’m actually sick. He thinks I’m just physcially worn out from all the drama. Only he used a much more therapy-ishly smart word for it. I hate it when he tries those words on me. But, he did say I should get it checked out.

And so, we went about trying to figure out if his hypothesis could be true….

1) Broke up with Danger Boy in September
2) Broke up with real boyfriend in early February – needed to do it much sooner
3) Lots – o – mush in the middle of all of that with borderline issues because I am a borderline bitch

Isn’t that the damn truth! So Therapy Man and I realized that I have 5 balls in the air right now… well, 10 figuratively speaking haha… I suppose I have to categorize this post under sex/love addiction. I didn’t realize that there is actually a place to go for love addiction? I’m grateful for that. I don’t know much about it, but it fits me much better than sex addition I think – although PLEASE understand that I’m not sure about any of it at the moment. It’s all very new to me.

I just know that I have an addiction for sure! And it sucks… and it’s hurtful to others! And… I need to get a hold on it. Therapy Man talks about it here and there. He never really sticks with it. I think because I am so obsessive about things that if he did, all I would for the next 6 months is fixate on being a sex/love addict and forget completely (I mean completely) about living my actual life. So, anyway, I decided to look it up. I don’t like labels. I don’t fucking like diseases, but when ya have to get real about somethin’ ya just have to.

So um…. this is a tidbit of what I noticed.

For love addicts, love:

• Is all-consuming and obsessive – Check
• Is inhibited – Check
• Avoids risk or change – Check
• Lacks true intimacy – “true intimacy” Check and check
• Is manipulative, strikes deals – definitely a Check Mark!
• Is dependent and parasitic – I’m a bug!
• Demands the loved one’s complete devotion – oh… me demanding??? Fuck yes!

But…. so much pain in the end… ohhhhh

 

in the end…… uhhhh….

in the end I go to Therapy Man and he fixes me as I lay on the couch. 🙂

And I listen to my mind tell me to Run even tho I never do.

Oh, I listen to the song… lots, but I never listen to the lyrics! They are good ones for sure! I should listen! But, I still try. Woe is me. Hopeless romantic bitch! Someday my prince will come. I won’t recognize him because he will be nice – well, obviously, he’ll be a prince! Maybe the white horse will tip me off… I doubt it. I’m pretty blind to good things. I don’t know. In the mean time I will continue to go to visit with Therapy Man. Read up on sex and love addiction. Play with Paisley (see latest and great pic below) and live… hopefully illness free.

maybe I should just buy a piano?

*************************************

“Run”

Here’s some advise for the next one
Don’t let him lead you to the dark
Don’t tell him all your secrets
He’ll leave you with a broken heart
He’ll try and tell you that he wants you,
Just to keep you on the line
And right when you’re about to move on
He pulls you back every time

Here’s advice for the next one
RUN RUN RUN

Darling, I know that you’re just like me
You give your love up way too fast
But what is gone, it’s gone forever
And there’s no coming back from that
He’s got this perfect way about him
He’ll make you think that you come first,
But you’ll get lost in the challenge
You’re trying not to get hurt

Here’s advice for the next one
RUN RUN RUN

Don’t even search for that four-letter word
You’ll never get it out
You try, and try, and try
But he’ll just shut you down
Don’t wanna say I told you so
So please go now

Here’s some advice for the next one
RUN RUN RUN

Sick Cycle Carousel…

I remember standing at the kitchen sink doing the dishes looking out over the back yard thinking – wondering how I had let it all get so bad. He had just drop kicked me in the face. This time it was for simply wanting to take his plate so that I could finish the dishes. He hadn’t even bothered to eat dinner with the family – his two boys from his first marriage and me. I walked into the marriage knowing he was abusive, but I was going to prove to everyone that he wasn’t that man. I was going to show them ALL that he was the man I knew. That he had a good, kind heart. That he loved ME! 

Yeah, that was gonna happen. <— said with as much sarcasm as possible!

My mom often told me to stop picking up lost puppies on the side of the road. I would laugh. She wouldn’t. She has been married 56 years. My mother. How would she know? And beside, she’s the reason I wanna fix everyone in the first place.

Back to that night in the window. Not long out of college, a friend of mine was beaten to death by her ex-husband, in her own front yard, while he was let out on a day pass from prison for “good behavior”. No kidding… Ironic, huh? I remember the talk being about how it had even evolved into such a horrible situation? How had she even married him? How could she not have known he was such a monster? Now I was married to a monster. And, I was having that conversation with myself.

In all fairness… Realllly? There is nothing fair here, I’m with ya on that! My ex-husband had been in treatment and was in recovery when I married him. I was all about giving second chances. Why not? I would want the same.

And so here is my point… the window conversation I was having with myself. How had I let it get so bad? And I would imagine there are others who have had the same “self-conversation”.

It’s really a progression I think… or a mind-fuck (probably the second). Each time I put a bigger band-aid on it. Each time he came crawling back to me and I let him. There is never an excuse. Yes, I deserve/d better.

Nah, It’s a mind fuck. Completely. But seriously, how does it keep happening? Are there just those of us who are wired to go out there and find these people and do this to ourselves? Because, friends, it didn’t stop with this guy. And, it seldom does for any of us in these situations. Or, I could be wrong. I am not at all an expert. I am not at all trying to speak for others in my situation! Please understand that! These are simply observations and I have failed miserably! And, continue to do so…

I continue to put myself in “monstrous” situations. Each time I have similar conversations with myself. They just cycle around themselves…

He was horrible man, but there have been many. Yesterday I posted about my therapist. I had amazing support from my WP friends. I have since been able to wrap my thoughts around the situation and feel a lot better about what to do. The problem lies with all of the other shit that it brought up for me. I will get through it. We all do. Thankfully, I got through the most physically violent of them. Thankfully, I am not a threat to myself.

But, I still have a lot of shit that I need sift through… and now I’m tired of writing. huuuuhhh….

Who do you go to when your therapist is the fuck up?

This may ramble. My therapist got in trouble. Plain and simple. Not going into it. Wasn’t anything inappropriate with a patient… he’s still practicing. But, it’s enough that my world is extremely unstable at the moment. I am hugely uncomfortable. Immensely uncomfortable. I have vomited nonstop since I found out yesterday.

I have started this entry many times. It’s not going to have the impact I want it to have because there isn’t anyway I can describe the relationship that I have with him. It doesn’t really matter anyway. I don’t blog for anyone’s pleasure. I just need to talk. I need to get this shit out because I am so fucking freaked out that I can’t stand it.

It’s a big God damn deal to me. I have trusted him when I couldn’t trust anyone. Believed in him when I could not or can’t believe in myself. Gone on in my life because he told me I should and I believed him so I did because it was the best I could do at the time! Tell me that no one else has been there and done that?

God Damn it I’m sorry, but, I have a relationship with a therapist that people search for sometimes and never find. I have worked VERY hard to make it work. We have worked hard on it! I drive 5 hours round trip every week/2 weeks to keep this relationship.

Fucker!

Every God damn man in my life has been a fuck up – except my father. I realize that at some point I have got to separate him from the men in my life because he isn’t one of them. But the trust I have developed with him and the fact that he has not – had not – fucked that trust up was important to me.

There is a separation… right? Am I right? Isn’t there? I know there is… you don’t have to answer that. Who do you go to when your fucking therapist is the fuck up? This man I thought I knew… guess what? I don’t know at all. That’s the separation. Right?

I don’t fucking know. I have been through 3 marriages with this guy. One husband was physically abusive, one was into child pornography and the last one was a drug addict. I’ve had 4 jobs – one of which I was asked to leave and one I was fired from. I have moved 9 times. Lived in a group home. Been in the hospital – no joke- 40+ times, including a very nice stay in a state institution for what, to me, was a long stay – 6 months (I know that is nothing compared to many people, but for me that is a long stay). This man has been there to help me through all of this… helped me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So I’m going to sit here and bitch I guess. I don’t now what else to do. I just don’t know. I’m numb.

… and I can’t abide!

“I have never been
So insulted in all my life
I could swallow the seas
To wash down all this pride
First you run like a fool
Just to be at my side
And now you run like a fool
But you just run to hide
And I can’t abide”

Took a few steps in the right direction and then got run over by a bus… yep, that’s about how it happened.

When I can breathe again I will be back.

Anger is a bitch.