Blog to book!

I have resolved to turn my recent blogging effort into a book. I plan on continuing to blog my journey through stabilization until; well until I am stabilized of course. It is my strong feeling that there are young women having similar experiences, and I want to give them something to identify with.

I am passionate about women in general learning how to deal with mood disorders in addition to coping with stereotypes of our gender.  This passion comes from my own experiences in coming to grips with my so called short coming. It was just recently that I began to believing in mood disorders as being a diagnosed illness like cancer or diabetes. I used to think it was all a horrible hoax to get Americans hocked up and drugged out. I thought that it was one huge conspiracy to make money on pharmaceuticals that eventually give you more and more symptoms to treat creating an endless, expensive cycle of treatment with no cure. I thought that the uncontrollable efforts of the mind where a result of a lac of discipline. Telling myself I was  just lazy even when I knew I was trying my hardest. It was better then saying I was a failure.

Finally a very stupid man  asked me a very smart question.It was my second time seeing Dr. Tub-O-Lard and he had prescribed me medication on our first visit that I had not taken because of my strong apprehensions. Then he says to me “You are a very smart girl”. And that resonated within me. I knew every one saw it.  As much as I doubted it I always knew it as well.  He continues ” Why do you think it is that you have not been able to excel at life.” I mentally reviewed all I had been through in my mind. The constant instability, my being pregnant and homeless, my debilitating mood changes, seeing clearly my inabilities. For the life of me I was unable to properly stabilize myself. It was then that I admitted to needing medicinal help. I wasn’t going to just sit back and handle things as I had been. Having a son to consider changes the effects. I rationalized that it was more important to become stable so that I could give my son what he needs rather then be drug free and “healthy” while struggling just to stay a-float especially financially.

Getting back to why I want to turn this blog into a book…I feel that there are girls and women that could learn from this book. Girls that experience bipolar symptoms without knowing, or girls just trying to fit in that don’t. I was that girl ” the weird girl”and I know how it hurts. I want women to read this book and know they are not alone.

If I as some one who lives the same frustrations, can offer any of my experiences as a tool for those who may benefit  then it would be my absolute plesure to do so.

Think…Think…Think…

 

Maybe just maybe our souls are too much for this world, not compatible so to speak. Maybe in order for us to cross on to this plane we would have to adjust…compensate…compromise our intensity. Such a compromise would demand us to simplify to some degree causing a chaotic imbalance in our neurological make up as a repercussion. That may be why some of us have such a dramatic sense that we don’t belong, That the perils of this world are beyond us when they really are beneath us.   It may be why so many of us opt out of this life; knowing your in a strange land refusing to adapt; knowing your right and they are wrong;Knowing your too far above normal to be normal; wishing you could fit the mold to find some peace; still knowing you will never fit in. Well that burden can be to awesome to with stand. Although the medication eases that burden we are still within our selves who we where born. Some of us refuse to be medicated or even labeled because we feel ” why should I have to change for the world…why cant the world just change for me”. I speak for all of us when I say this world needs a serious upgrade.

In an upgraded world we would run things. We would be allowed to use more then 3% of our brains so that the extra energy that is pinging around in our heads causing this so called imbalance would have more room. Even gravity would not apply to us. And “normal”  people would aspire to be like us, and we would be ashamed to be “normal”. Alas we are in here and now so untill this world gets an upgrade we will cope. We will not let them shame us. We will know who we are and wait for our shine. Because if we even at our smallest capability manage to shine through despite this world then there is hope that we can change it.

Jennifer Nichol OK the secrets out, no im not from this planet and yes we are planing a total take over. lol

Jennifer took the What Paranormal creature do you symbolize? quiz and the result is Alien

You are intelligent and everyone around you feels it, but are in denial. They don’t believe you exist because your amazing power is too much for them to take. You are against the government, and have rules of your own. You have too much knowledge and not enough room for it all in your head. You must keep towards your goal because your intelligence will make it happen!

funny how life works

I always knew that I was different. I knew because people told me every chance they got. I didn’t make allot of friends on the play ground. In truth I really only attracted quality characters. The shallows never liked me, my waters ran too deep. I wasn’t diagnosed or treated untill 23 following the birth of my son. I and my family did or best to run from the stigma despite a family history of mental illness. We never wanted to be “one of them”. I had a handful of treated friends. Funny how life works I fit perfecty in my circle all along. I wonder if people still see me as the "wierdgirl", not that I mind. I am what I am and so much more…

Hide and go seek.

Its been a little while since my last post. I am having a ton of issues with my laptop and I hate using other peoples computers to blog because I feel rushed. There is so much that will be left unsaid. All I can say is denials is a bitch and lithium is sobering. I feel so awfully singled out for being the one to come out in the open and say I have a functional mental illness. The term ” its a dirty job but some ones got to do it” does not scratch the surface of the intensity of the pressure I am truly feeling. 

Why do I always do this! I go against the grain at every opportunity for rebellion. If society says hide your flaws then I say fuck it! Let it all hang out! Life is too short not t be who you are when you are that person even when you know you wont always be that person. And yet I always end up being this person. The person that makes things harder on herself. 

I stand for principles of honesty. If I am bipolar then no I am not like every one else. I have limitations and rules and also areas where I excel. The key is in knowing who you are and having people around you give you the understanding you deserve as a individual with medical challenges. Its essentially the same way we treat an other wise perfectly functional blind or def individual. Society as a majority does not disrespect these individuals because they where unfortunate but rather applaudes their efforts to excel despite their handicaps. In work, school and life they are given the consideration that their condition demands as well as the medications when needed. For a mental health patient the same is often untrue.

Our first course of action is denial because of the stigma put on mental health. From the time when a person who was mearly having a nervous break down would be dragged off into a patty wagon and treated with antiphsycotics and electric shock. To the world it seems mental health has no gray area your either madd or your not and that is a simple untruth.  Mental health is full of complexity

The day it all fell apart???

W as there really a day when it fell apart ? I don’t think so because I cant remember really ever having it “together”.

I’m sick of giving all this damn background. I wish there was a way for my readers to just download my life’s story so I can move on to how I have been coping with my diagnosis.”Coping”? Well up until my most recent “crash” I have just been letting bp disorder happen to me. I can remember being the “weird-girl” in every town and school and group i was ever in. I look back with new insight and understand how I would be manic then depressed. Always rapid cycling . I wish I had this insight then. Maybe insight could have saved me from what I did to myself. My wreck less manic decisions, my counter-productive onsets of depression. Maybe insight could have saved me from what is happening now.

So whats happening now? Well Ill have to give you a bit of annoying background first.

I barely graduate high school. I went back 2years after I was supposed to have graduated and took night school to finish my diploma. I did finish at least, I guess. From there I had a series of retail jobs that always went south after an extended manic episode of crazy dressing or after  a spell of depression in which i would call out excessively and stay in bed. I got an apartment almost as immediately as i graduated, one year later ending in utter failure. Months of late rent, bounced checks, missed meals and intense relationships. I guess any one looking in would have said that I was wreck less and irresponsible or that i just didn’t care. But for me not caring was something I had to learn.  In fact i think i have not quite learned to not care as much as i have learned to suppress.

So many jobs, opportunities to stabilize that I just couldn’t seem to take advantage of. So after the death of my grandfather and my fathers stroke I met some one and he made me pregnant. Pregnant!!!! I just knew I wasn’t meant to have a baby. I could have sworn I would miscarry or something. When I first became pregnant I slipped into a deep depression. I didn’t know I was pregnant I just knew I was depressed. Eventually i tested myself. When I told him he ran. My family couldn’t understand my mental condition so they kicked me out. I just refused to bust my ass to pay rent for a place that didn’t even feel like a home.

Every one said I couldn’t do it. They said being a mom would be to hard for me. So there I was pregnant and homeless, from bench to couch to shelter. I stabilized enough to get therapy in my 7th month of pregnancy. I was in a shelter in Valhalla NY.

My son took an antagonizing 27 hours to be delivered but when he came out I lost myself to the word mother. We where moved out from the shelter into Yonkers when he was 3months old. I breast fed him till he was 18months. In this time period his father came back and surprisingly he became an excellent father to our son …when he was ready to and not a moment sooner. Me, I learned that mommies boy would not be mommies boy forever.  He is a daddies boy now and I am taking that very hard.

I started going to school when my son was 8months old and seeing a therapist on campus. When she saw the extent of my emotions she recommended i see a shrink. I just knew something was broken and needed to be fixed. I was broken. So i did, I went to see a head doctor.  He said I was bipolar and he was right.

My sons father lost his job and I continued to get more ill. I developed a heart and neurological issue. We separated and then decided to work it out, and we did for a while. One morning after a week long sudden de-componsaition from lexapro I got into an argument with my sons father, not knowing all that he was keeping inside to keep us together. Neither of us knew the danger of his shouldering the burden of a child and his ill mother. That morning he so irresponsibly exploded. Throwing things and yelling until he threw me. Pushing me and shaking me in frustration. Until our son woke up  and I tried to call the police. He wouldn’t let me, he broke my phone. I don’t  know who that man was but I could never love him.

I decided to take the low road but I wanted to make sure it never happened again. I talked to the police and they said if I report what happened they would have to arrest him. They told me about an order of restraint I could get instead. I went to DSS and told then what happened so they could help me to get myself together. I realized if my sons father could do that to me he really didn’t care enough about my welfare so I had to care about it …so I could be healthy for my son, he needs me.

CPS got involved and said that because I was not properly medicated at the time It was not best for me to have my son. So my son is staying with his father at his grandparents house . I feel like I am being punished for doing the right thing. I’m just trying to put it all together for me and my son.

“NO MATTER WHAT BABY BOY ITS YOU AND I AGAINST THE WORLD”

Lithium

I just took my first lithium pill. As I put the salt salve  in my mouth I felt the need to repent.  Today, the day I knew might come has finally arrived and I am a bit nervous. It will all be ok I know. I just hope this works. I hope that it will be all better soon. I want my son back in my physical custody. I have not written that much about my son because it hurts allot

Ameretto Sour

Amaretto Sour… my favorite party cocktail. I miss it because Ihave not been doing much of it lately drinking that is. Once you decide to medicate rather than self medicate you give up your right to drink pretty much. You can drink I guess but at your on risk. Its not like you have shrinks following you around with a note pad, although you may feel like that a times. Drinking while being medicated is a very reckless action. And yet im still searching for the perfect cocktail.

Rock bottom

Forgive me if I sound like a complete and utter downer. I want to remember this so when I get to that point when this is all over ; I will appreciate my shine even more.

Every time I think my shovel has finaly struck the cold, moist grity surface of rock bottom; I find that its just another large piece of granite to be pain staking heaved from my path. This rock was different. The sound of metal against this particular stone seemed to awaken a sence of wonder in me. “What the hell am i digging for?”.  I think I started out looking for buried treasure but as the dirt got softer and less steady I found my self desperate just to reach some form of solidity. Oh dear lord, I realized i was burying myself alive. 

What would I do If I had hit rock bottom? Would I have Indeed make my bed there?..it is a long climb back to the top and where the hell was the treasure I was looking for?

I started on an Ant-sycotic medication used to tread mixed episodes in manic depressants called Geodon on Thursday night I woke up the next morning barely able to open my eyes. Well I didn’t actually start it Thursday night more like 4am Friday morning. I was contemplating an ad version to taking the medicine at all. I had read that the drug interacts with certain types of “triptans”. Though my particular trip wasn’t listed by name I was worried about the risk of serotonin syndrome. I hadn’t taken a trip in about two days…I only take them when I feel a cluster headache coming on and the last does i took was only a 10mg  within 24 hours. I decided to go for it when I realized there was no other way I was going to fall asleep. That Friday night i decided I wasn’t going to take it again until the next day. I would skip a does and even out the affect. I know its a tricky business with meds but some times I take measures in my own hands. It seams that doctors are only not available when you really need them to be.  I want to stop it and just do as the doctors say to do but i have a hard time trusting my life to others unless absolutely necessary. On Saturday night i felt like i was going to die. I have gone from not being able to keep my eyes open all Friday to not being able to shut them at all Friday night into Saturday. Alarms went off but I pushed them aside thinking I was just being to analytical. If i could have broken the med apart and took half i would have. It was a capsule. I took it at around 5am. I was already groggy from lac of sleep but around 4pm it became unbearable. I had one or two 30minute knock out naps in the car. I laid down for a real nap around 6pm just as tortuous anxiety spell sat in. To put it simply I felt like passing out and running a lap or two all at once…like my emotions where running in two different directions.

At around 8pm when my mom woke me up from a restless sleep for dinner it happened. I was thrown into the worst anxiety attack i had ever encountered. I threw my self  from the couch to the floor to the bed about 6 times trying to find some rest. My body was shivering, my heart was flip flopping, I couldn’t eat sleep or scream. when my tong started to push uncontrollably against my palet I got up and told my mom as calmly as I could to take me to the ER. Anxiety exasperated with each step closer to the emergency room. When we got to Sound Sure Medical we found it wasn’t a busy night at all. We saw the doctor almost just as soon as we came in. By that time the anxiety had mounted so far that i was unable to keep any control over my pallet, my jaw was pulling itself as left as possible from my face and i could not talk and be understood. They soon gave me a shot of prednisone and benadryl. Ir worked almost instantly. I sat and shuttered in the bed, amazed at what had just happened. Two ours later the sent me home with an oral prescription of the drugs they had given me. It was quite a scarry event.

  I still don’t know weather or not i will hit rock bottom or if this is it. I do know that no matter what the out come; be it with a treasure chest full of experience or unkown riches I will asend.

Addmition

I’m not embarrassed! I’m not ashamed! Every one is ashamed of asking for help and i don’t know why!

 … Well I guess I  have been that person before. The person who keeps it all bottled up. The person who is smiling on the outside and crying on the inside. That person is the one people like to be around. Lets just call that person the clown…. cause clowns ware allot of make up and exist to make people happy. The clown is never who he looks like on the outside. The clown is not to be confused with the person who is genuinely happy with life, though they both attract a crowd. People just flock to people who smile i guess.

There is also a person who doesn’t have it all together and is not afraid to admit it. If you want to know who you are it helps to know who your not. If you want to get it together you have to know that you don’t have it together. And while some people have all the pieces there our others of us still picking them up from “god knows where”.

It takes guts to let go of who the reflection in the mirror … the person you put on as cautiously as a bathing suit; checking in the mirror for hints of the real you to cover up.

I’m just saying it takes guts to do what i did; to admit that you need help is  so much different then asking for an extra lunch or being dragged kicking and screaming into the dentist office. Its a fact of life some people have more than they can ever want and some people come up short on what they need. Life is just that way .

I’m looking back over what i have written feeling like i am writing an apology for checking my self into a mental hospital. OK well then I am sorry. I am sorry you don’t understand. I am sorry that every one isn’t born with the “healthiest”  of mental capability.   I am sorry that ever one doesn’t have an air tight personal support group. Most of all I am almost sorry i couldn’t be one of the ones that have more.

Thank You MR. West

Talk about strumming my pain with his fingers! I dont know how Kanye put so vividly into words what i am feeling. But I guess he has been there himself so i need not be ashamed.I was having an awkward conversation with an old friend S.P. and while thinking that we might have grown apart ; because i had noticed he had done allot of growing…we touched on a tender subject. S.P. said to me ” wow if some one wold have told you then you would be where you are now…”. What made it so tender was that I was in the emergency room. Not for a physical ailment either.

“All these street lights, street lights, happen to be just like moments passing in front of me. So I hopped in the cab and I paid my fare ; See I know my destination but Im just not there.” 

Kanye West if you aint never lied my man! But When I get there because of moments like these i will appreciate it so much more then those living there at the moment. Sure I look at you with a green eye from time to time. Still I refuse to believe you stole my shine. You cant take it cause its intangible and its mine! I cry cause when I loose my mind I feel I may never get there. 

Opportunities pass like street lights and even though I know I have paid my dues. I am still in this smelly ass cab looking out the window waiting anxiously to step out of this cab and hear it peel off into the distance to pick up its next vict.  Untill then im held captive to the smell of pine cardboard , pleather seats, and a human being that actually smells like a burger king whopper. AKA IT SUCKS IN HERE! … and im car sick

Bame it on the rain

This may just be the incessant over analytical rambling of a crazylady hours late on her meds”

And yet this may just be a wise soul realizing the brink of change. Your call.

Idumia ?…New York  just so happens to be the eye of the universe. Where it begins and ends in todays times. Its true if you can make it here you can make it anywhere but whar really is making it in New York.  I think staying off a park bench covered in the times, with a hat that you have never even worn before begging change at your feet should count for something.  I digress

In the last couple of weeks almost a month New Yorkers have been experiencing quite an out poor of the skies. Day by day taken with a grain of salt most of us saw it as an opportunity to break out our new burr-berry boots and rain cap and trudge the streets onto work or just to walk the dog who by the way had a matching pair of boots.  On the way we missed the universal sighn telling us we where on the brink.

Some say tragedy comes in three’s. Well what do you call this non-sense ? I want answers damn it. I am not even going to name a the souls we saw pass before our eyes on the news, just pick up any obit section and you will see that tangible people are being lost as well. Perhaps being saved from some impending doom. Perhaps being spared of the kayos to come.  I dont mean to sound like a coo coo but coincidence can only explain but so much. All i am sayin is keep your head about you. Be on your guard. If this is truly Babylons daughter its crumble cant be far.