I have never been the sort of person that keeps personal secrets.
I believe it began when I was enduring the first, most traumatic experience of my life, Middle School.
I found that when either walking into a classroom, or restroom/ pulling out my grocery bag of gym clothes or looking for a partner for a project, etc....if I were to just vomit out every hurtful word they all said to me, and about me, before I even had a chance to blink, there would be nothing they could say.
I would go to take a seat and before the asshole that would be sitting next to me could wind up their best shot, I'd nail them with a, "I know, it's me, again. You're so lucky. I'm fat, I smell, I have zits, I wear glasses, I breathe, you can't believe we used to be friends for a whole 6 years until we came here..."
In my Catholic middle school, it was cool to bring your gym clothes in a shopping bag from a popular store. By now, you know my Family struggled during those years as homeowners on a police officer's income. While other assholes brought in Benetton, Merry-Go-Round, Lerner, 5-7-9, and RAVE, I brought in bags from Ezee Grocery Mart. They wore Tretorn tennis shoes and Sebago dock shoes. I wore XJ 900's from Caldor and Saddle Shoes from PayLess. I know this because EVERY. FUCKING. DAY I was told what I had, what I didn't have, what they had and why it made them better than me.
I fought this off by becoming my own worst enemy. How could anyone hate me more than I hate myself? This made such perfect sense. Break myself down, in front of everyone, literally bash myself into a grease spot on the floor to leave zero trace of who I was, to prevent someone else from getting there first.
This became a habit. In a way, it worked. But the habit became second nature. As I grew, as my life changed, this became part of my personality. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," became as much a part of my being as the skin holding it all inside.
As I gained experience with each milestone, and birthday, I began to channel this into journaling as an adult. It helped as a child, but not like it did once I was old enough to understand how therapeutic it truly could be. I then turned the act of writing into performing.
You see, when I was at a party, surrounded by hundreds of bikers, I performed. When I danced and competed, I performed. I was a character. They ate it up. And I felt safe. Safe from judgement. My character took over. I played the part of a brazen, bawdy, adventurous heathen.
This part of my personality continued to flourish.
People thought I was brave in saying what no one else had the balls to say. For being female and aggressive, and making it look natural. For providing the entertainment at not just anyone's expense, but mostly at my own.
I found Myspace and blogging, my world went into hyper-drive.
I actually had fans in people that I had never met in person, that could not get enough of my adventures and the way I wrote of them. At parties, people would bring strangers to meet me and get pictures. All the while, I did nothing more than be completely honest about the fuck ups and insecurities in my life, for just owning it in a stand up comedy way.
"Why do you have to write about everything? Why put your business out there for everyone to see?" My Family would go apeshit when strangers would put hateful comments on my blogs. I loved it. Not the hurt my Family felt for me. I loved the adoration. Someone taking the time to view photos or read an entire blog and finding the time to write me a comment about how sick, stupid, ugly, and awful Hell was going to be for me....bitch, you're a FAN!
This part of my personality learned to take bullying, hate, and other people's insecurities and fuel my drive towards self preservation. Putting it out there, puts it OUT THERE! Out of my head, out of my body, and out of my hands. It is one of my many forms of therapy. Which brings me to the point of this blog.
Even through my second phase of trauma, the severe medical issues and surgeries for my spine, I could feel the light on my face. I was in a place of self awareness and self acceptance. I had come to the end of my tunnel. or so I had thought.
Most of you know that I am an advocate in the Mental Health community. I studied it all in college. It was my calling. I even had my first 'job' at 14 working as a 'Candy Striper' in a nursing home.
Then, 12 years ago, I hit a wall. We assume that the trauma and surgeries helped bring to the surface that I have Bipolar 2 Disorder.
My light went out and I was back to black.
To make a long story longer; I was never hospitalized, I did not have hallucinations, I did not gamble away our money, I did not disappear for weeks, I did not pee in water bottles and hide them all over the house. I just wanted to die.
I became an outsider to my own life. I felt nothing. I was nothing. I was the character that never left the stage. Then my character would lash out. Ready to fist fight a person for butting in line. Actually pulling a man out of his van, at the gas pump, and threatening him for whistling and making a rude comment. I felt nothing, but then I felt rage. Only one extreme or the other.
My daughter was the only reason I could get up and go through the motions. Without her, these words would never have been written. Without my Family, and Sisterfish making that phone call, I would never have found out why I could not bear to leave my couch. Afraid to roll away from staring at the back of the couch, to see the rest of the room. The world? It was too big. There was too much of it for me to manage.
I landed an excellent Therapist and Psychiatrist. I have never missed an appointment. I have never abused medication. I have spent every month in contact with my providers for the last 12 years. EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.
I have endured conversations with people commenting on a subject with statements like, "Oh my gawd, she's so Bipolar! Get a grip!" or "This weather is so Bipolar!" or "Don't be so Bipolar, it was just one time!"
I have heard, "We all have ups and downs, just stay positive." or "Everyone gets sad, you just have to push through it." or "You need to just calm down." Right! Why the fuck didn't I think of that? There's so much air, how could I have Asthma?
How can you explain to people that your ups and downs are medically different from theirs? Like when an older person laughs at me for saying my back hurts. I hear, "Wait till you're my age, then you'll know what back pain really is!" Really, Myrtle? Do tell!
How many spinal surgeries, nerve blocks, accidental surgical mistakes, and permanent handicaps have you acquired before your 30th birthday? When you can read an MRI without 6 years of college, and know how to cleverly hide all 63 MRI, CAT Scan, and X ray film under your medically necessary $10,000 Temperpedic Adjustable bed, call me.
So, here we are, 12 years later. With my own hard work, and the help of my medical professionals, I have been lucky enough to finally be free from all the medication and some crazy side effects. Some side effects are permanent. I have a light case of Tardive Dyskinesia, that gives me palsy-like tremors and jerks. I have memory fog and recall issues. I stutter at random times and sometimes can not name common objects (light, spoon, phone, etc.) when I speak about them.
I have great days and I have exhausting days. Unfortunately, not everyone is as lucky as I am. I use this to fuel my drive forward. Some would give anything to have my bad days. I try to not let those people down and never take for granted my blessing.
And now that I write this, I should mention that my last Lithium dose was taken just before the Covid-19 Quarantine. So, it is definitely going to be a bit before I officially celebrate because I do not want to jinx myself. But, I digress....
I have worked so hard to get to this point. To have feelings, to feel, again. And this is just as hard as learning that I have, not had, HAVE Bipolar Disorder.
In a sense, I am in 'remission'. Or, like a Diabetic learning to manage their glucose with a healthy diet and exercise.
I am writing, and sharing, with the world so that I can throw it out of my hands and lighten my soul. Using my old coping technique to hide nothing. And maybe even help someone else along the way.
The point of this is that in all of my personal experience, having Bipolar Disorder was the one topic I had been unable to tear down to make myself feel better. I could not argue why I was any different than everyone else having a 'bad day' and why anti-psychotic medication worked on me but not 'normal' people.
That was the case until I finished a book, last night, that I had long ago put aside for a rainy day. In fact, after 12 years, I only had 1 chapter and an epilogue left.
Last night, I finished "An Unquiet Mind, A Memoir of Moods and Madness" by Kay Redfield Jamison.
If you have read this blog to this very point, please just read a little more. Because I cried myself to sleep after reading this woman's epilogue. Her words were almost mine. But it was her explanation, her view, her meaning and feelings that were everything I wish I had been aware of enough to write, speak, and understand all along.
I found peace and can see my light, again. How ironic to find this book, at this new chapter in my life.
She wrote:
"I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no - and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I suppose I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated. Depression is awful beyond words or sounds or images; I would not go through an extended one again. It bleeds relationships through suspicion, lack of confidence and self-respect, the inability to enjoy life, to walk or talk or think normally, the exhaustion, the night terrors, the day terrors. There is nothing good to be said for it except that it gives you the experience of how it must be to be old, to be old and sick, to to be dying; to be slow of mind; to be lacking in grace, polish, and coordination; to be ugly; to have no belief in the possibilities of life, the pleasures of sex, the exquisiteness of music, or the ability to make yourself and others laugh.
Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them FEELINGS. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you're irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You're frightened, and you're frightening, and you're "not at all like yourself but will be soon," but you know you won't.
So why would I want anything to do with this illness? Because I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters; worn death "as close as dungarees," appreciated it - and life- more; seen the first and the most terrible in people, and slowly learned the values of caring, loyalty, and seeing things through. I have seen the breadth and depth and width of my mind and heart and seen how frail they both are, and how ultimately unknowable they both are. Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But, normal or manic, I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know. And I think much of this is related to my illness - the intensity it gives to things and the perspective it forces on me. I think it has made me test the limits of my mind ( which, while wanting, is holding) and the limits of my upbringing, family, educations, and friends.
The countless hypomanias, and mania itself, all have brought into my life a different level of sensing and feeling and thinking. Even when I have been most psychotic - delusional, hallucinating, frenzied - I have been aware of finding new corners in my mind and heart. Some of those corners were incredible and beautiful and took my breath away and made me feel as though I could die right then and the images would sustain me. Some of them were grotesque and ugly and I never wanted to know they were there or to see them again. But, always, there were those new corners and - when feeling my normal self, beholden for that self to medicine and love - I cannot imagine becoming jaded to life, because I know of those limitless corners, with their limitless views."
Thank you for reading, xoxox
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