Widely Vascillating Mood Changes

Over the past few weeks,  I have had many successes.  Progress has been made, indeed.  The mixed episode is still going strong, unfortunately, and sleep and social interactions have been quite bothered.

Yesterday, I was very up and I was very down.  I was angry and pissy and entitled.  I rode roughshod over people’s feelings, and I do feel badly about that.  I didn’t realize just how much my moods were swinging until it all came to a crash today.

Today, I went to visit my mother and, although I had already apologized in an email, I apologized face to face for being so hateful.  I explained that it felt like people don’t want to deal with me when I am at my worst, especially her, and that sometimes all I need is a 30-second phone call or text to put my fears to the side.  She tried to explain to me how this wasn’t possible.

I really lost it, swung completely into a depression where I actually pondered checking myself into the local psych hospital.  I mean, REALLY pondered it.  I felt, in that moment, like I had no hope and that no one around me cared.  Like I had no one I could reach out to.  Of course this is not the case, but this is how I was FEELING.

I felt like being totally self-destructive but I couldn’t get out of the crying jag I was in.  A little bit of talk down the road, and I’m back to fine and don’t recognize the me crying my eyes out and talking about being through with life.

I hate these mood swings.  Up and down and all around.  Sinking me into a pit of despair before being lifted up into a mixed mess of hypomania and agitation.  Surely bipolar disorder isn’t meant to be like this.  Surely I am alone in my symptoms and my mood swings.  I mean, I AM special, after all.

It seems like I don’t talk about these mood swings with Goddess of Mindfulness because we are so busy talking about other things.  Well, these mood swings might just be the MOST IMPORTANT things to talk about.  If I swing really low and I am by myself, I cry and cry and cry.  If I am with other people, I cry and swear and am very angry.  When I’m up, its as if nothing is wrong except some extra energy and a bit of agitation.

I told my mom earlier that I can’t keep going on like this.  I don’t mean that as a suicidal statement, just as a fact — I can’t keep doing this.  It’s killing me and it’s hurting the people around me.  I don’t know how to stop doing it and I can’t get in to see my psychiatrist until the first part of August.  Almost two months away.  I don’t know that I should wait that long.

So, depending on what time of day it is, you may or may not get a Rose that  you are otherwise unaccustomed to.  There is the happy Rose and the free spirit Rose and the crying and devastated Rose and the hopeless Rose and the goal-centered Rose.  They are all the same person, but each one of them comes and goes of their own volition.

I try and  use my DBT skills when I start feeling an episode coming on, but it’s hard.  It’s fucking hard!  Like I said before, maybe I should go back to diary cards.  I really hate doing them, but I know they will help.  What I do know is that I’ve got to get this ship on an even keel because the lows can be a killer, as can the highs.  I need somewhere in between.

Don’t Live There: Get Up

 

 

 

 

As anybody who knows me or has talked to me in the last week or has done even a minimally good job at following this blog, ya’ll know the past week or two has been beyond the bounds of stress.  I may have snapped at a few people, been less than my cheerful self, become irritated by small things you asked me to do, seemed overwhelmed at a task that wasn’t that big, not returned your calls, or avoided you all together.

Right here, right now:  I intend to fix that.  Like the picture above says, “cry it out and then refocus on where you are headed.”  Well, I think, after tonight, I’ll be done crying it out, at least for a little while.  I could say for a week or a day or a month, but we all know what Father Time can do and how Mother Earth likes to smack us upside the head sometimes, maybe when we’re getting a little too proud or confident.

 

It’s easy to generalize a bad day into a bad year, for sure.  Especially at the start of the year, when not much time has passed.  It has not been a great year for DSB’s health.  There was the abcess from the kidney removal, the subsequent surgery to remove the abcess, and then, to add insult to injury, a wound vac that must be changed three times a week by a registered nurse.  And now a (going on 5-day) stint in the hospital with pneumonia.  DSB’s 2014 has been unpleasant, medically speaking.

While it’s safe to say that DSB has not had a stellar start to 2014, I can’t take that on as my own.  To generalize that to myself, to say that dearest Rosa has not had a stellar start to 2014, would be a lie that only I would tell myself.  That I have sometimes told myself time and time again, when things between DSB and I were not going well.  Because when someone is sick and someone is tending, tensions grow.  When someone is sick, the other person worries and stress rises.  But Rosa has not  had a bad start to 2014.  Some amazing things have  happened, and I think I have chronicled some of them in my TToT posts.

via

To, me, I can feel like the woman in that picture above.  I can sense the wonder at the rising or setting sun, the yellowed grasses around me, the sky, the very being of myself.  Some truly wondrous things have happened to me so far this year.  I have:

1) Formed and continued solid friendships with my bloggie friends.

2) Solidified my love for DSB, by choosing right over wrong, trust over lies, consideration for the other over self-indulgence.

3) Forged deeper connections with my inner voice.  I can let that voice out now, and have it be heard, and not worry (too much), about what effect that voice is going to  have on a person that chooses willingly to read what I have written.

4) Given up trying to hide myself from the one who has always hunted me.

5) Learned to forgive, not to forget.  Learned to trade in anxiety and lonesomeness and uncertainty in a fatherly relationship for compassion for what that person must be going through at this time.  We are all human, even dads.

6) Learned to separate myself from that which is negative in my life.  I choose not to have negativity in my life, and won’t tolerate it.  Even if this means giving up people that I thought I cared about.

7) Started to open myself up to the possibility of rejection.  Making jokes, telling fish stories, and selling bait isn’t as easy as you might think.  There is a world of nuance within those walls.

8) Decided to stop counting my breaths as I am trying to fall asleep, and instead to just.breathe.  In, out.  Don’t say it, don’t think it, just do it.  Appreciate the feel of the air through your nose, through your mouth, the rise and fall of your chest, the tickle in your throat.  Don’t put a word on it, just be, just do.

To celebrate, let’s take a listen to my second most favorite meditation practice, singing bowls.  And let’s be honest, Goddess of Mindfulness, my first pick is always the metal, but nowhere else can I get those bowls.  They are addictive and the stories you told me on Wednesday left happy traces of puppies and friends and love on my heart.  Bless you.

Please note that these are quartz singing bowls and they have a very special place in my heart.  If you can (after you get through the commercial-ish first section), do take a listen.  Take off your shoes, set your feet on the floor, sit upright, and breathe.  You can do this.  You really can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Relief in Words

I think it’s time to name the new therapist.  I went from hating her, feeling like she was uncaring and unhelpful, to feeling like I might be able to trust her with the most secret of secrets, to feeling like she was really listening and understanding, to feeling like she was empathetic and even kind.

I hereby christen the new therapist as “Cognitive Distortion Whisperer.”  Okay, that’s a mouthful, so I think I’ll just call her CG Whisperer.  I like it, I think.  Within the first four sessions, CG Whisperer pointed out things to me that I had not given serious consideration to before.

She let me know that previous relationships sometimes dictate current ones.  That my fears of abandonment and tendency to enmesh with others around me began early in life and were compounded by negative reinforcing experiences over the course of my 32 years.  She told me this was okay, and even to be expected, and that I should not be ashamed.  She made me feel validated, even “normal,”  in a way that I have not felt in a very long time.

We talked about my traumatic experiences with using the shower, and how more negative experiences and reinforcing events brought it to the tipping point it is at now.  To be frank, I shower once, maybe twice per week.  Yes, I know that is gross.  No, it is not as simple as just getting up and doing it.  I am learning more and more about this problem, and I believe that within months, maybe even several weeks, that I will have the problem at least somewhat conquered.

CG Whisperer and I talked about my relationship and how it is positive in many ways.  Overall, we are very happy together.  We have been together for coming on a year and a half and, in a lot of ways, it’s like it was when we first got together and we could lose track of hours worth of times, just talking.  In other ways, it’s like we’ve been together for much longer in that we have been through more trials and tribulations than many young relationships and have persevered.  Yes, we still fight sometimes, but it’s rare and short-lived.

We talked about the “enmeshment” issue and there were parts of that discussion that really hurt.  I was made to think about early life experiences that were disheartening and even mildly traumatic, leading through to later life experiences that were more soul-crushing and extremely traumatic.  The more I make sense of why I struggle with boundaries, enmeshment, and fear of abandonment, the more I feel like I might someday be able to rise above it.

 

 

 

Hey Rose…You’re Not Actually Dying Right Now

This is how my anxiety starts.  First, my legs feel a little wobbly in the hip joint.  It quickly moves on to leave me with a feeling of dead weight in my stomach and then a tightness in my chest.  And then my throat closes up and I can’t breathe.  These are all just bodily sensations related to anxiety, and I constantly have to remind myself:  Rose, you’re not dying!

Sure feels like I am though.  I think most anyone with anxiety problems can relate.  And also to the fact that, sometimes, that shit comes out of nowhere.  I mean NOWHERE.  Sometimes I can talk myself through it, sometimes I can seek comfort with DSB or my mom, but a lot of times, I just have to take a PRN Klonopin.

I used to be better at working through my anxiety or panic attacks or whatever you want to label it.  Seems like now, though, the only thing that works is the Klonopin.  Now, mind you, I’m not doing this every day, several times a day.  It probably happens two or three, sometimes four times a week.  But that still seems like a lot.  It hasn’t always been so bad.

The flashbacks, the nightmares, the negative tape in my head, the images that flash through my mind.  They are more severe now than they have ever been and I can’t exactly pinpoint why, although I think it may be that I have stopped working on those things, stopped working on suffering through them, stopped working on the in therapy.

Therapy is a joke with my current therapist.  I leave from a session, not even knowing what we talked about, because it is mostly her talking and me half-listening, and not trusting her enough to actually talk about and work on the things that are bothering me the most.

It is crazy for me to stay in therapy with her, but I have talked with my support system and they say (and  I agree) that I still need therapy, at least to some degree, for now.  Maybe I need something other than DBT therapy, maybe I just need a different DBT therapist.  I know I will not go to group, and I am firm on that.  It doesn’t help me and I don’t like it.  If that means I can’t have a DBT therapist, I am fine with that.

I have been somewhat proactive today, in that I called and left a message for Goddess of Mindfulness to contact me so that I can talk with her about the issue, maybe she can make a recommendation.  I also called a few agencies here in town and found no one that is accepting new Medicaid clients.  I will hold off on making any more calls until I speak with Goddess of Mindfulness, and am hopeful she will have a suggestion or strategy.

I am trying to do something about this before my next therapy appointment on the 9th (next Friday, one week from today).  I really don’t want to go see her and have to fake my way through another session.  I suppose I could be brutally honest and just tell her like it is, but I don’t want to be kicked out of the center and I could really use some advice first.  It is clear to me (and my support system) that I need therapy, and it is clear, to me at the very least, that my current therapist is not cutting it.  I am hopeful that something will change soon.

I’m not a religious person, so I won’t ask you to pray, but light a candle or send good thoughts my way.  I could really use them right now.