Someone Like Me

I sort of know this person who is also BP 1. She is actually a person from my past. I haven't seen her since she was a little girl, but we are connected through family so I hear about her frequently. She is going through a lot right now, and she is constantly in my thoughts and prayers.

I am not entirely certain of the circumstances surrounding her current suffering, but I know her road is very painful and exhausting right now. I long to be able to help her somehow, to be able to make a difference for her. From what I have been able to gather, she sounds very tormented, very alone. There are many people who love her and are trying their best to help, but I don't know if she is at the point where she knows how to receive that help. I understand how that is. I don't know what I could possibly do or say for this woman, but her pain is put upon my heart as sure as my own has been at times.

Wandering through the darkness of this disorder is terrifying. You don't understand what's going on around you, what's going on inside your own head. You can't trust yourself, so you certainly can't trust anyone else. There's no way to reach out because you can't articulate what it is that you need. You pick fights with people you love without knowing why, yet you are unable to help yourself. Everything is so intensely personal and once that fire is lit, every word fans that flame and the next thing you know you are a wildfire burning out of control. You want to pull back, you don't want to hurt anyone, but you are so far gone... To be honest, it actually feels good to set everything and everyone around you on fire, even if the real you inside is horrified at what you are doing. The illness just becomes bigger than you are--it takes over and you quickly shrink back and become a tiny observer to the destruction it causes.

That's the hardest part to understand. We are swallowed up by Bipolar. When we have flares, we are consumed by the illness and our real selves become dormant. We become tiny witnesses to our own lives, while the illness controls us. We are not in charge. We're in there, but helpless to do anything to immediately regain that control. If I could try to make a non-Bipolar understand even a modicum of what we experience, it would be to imagine what it's like to be a hostage. The only flare where we feel a sense of self-possession is during a mania (unless it's a delusional or hallucinatory episode). We feel engaged, vibrant, alive! This is, of course, an illusion. We are just as out of control, if not more so.

My friend, for lack of a better term, may or may not be accepting of her diagnosis. She may or may not be compliant with her treatment plan. These are things on which I am not entirely clear or informed. Something is preventing her stability, and for some reason it affects me deeply. I am sure it is because I identify with that--and I remember her as the little girl she once was. I want to hold her hand and play with her hair like I used to do. I want to go back to a time when life was so much easier for the both of us; when neither of us had to feel this shared pain and agony that has been thrust upon us. Having been her babysitter when we were young, I think I want to take care of her again in a way. To lead her and let her know that things can and will be ok. That it's alright to lay down when she needs to rest, that when she can't keep slogging along, it's ok to sit down for as long as she needs. That when she's ready to try to stand up, she doesn't have to pick up all her burdens at once, but just a little at a time. To slowly build a structure that works for her and to let her know there is enough time in the world to do that. There's no hurry, it's not a race. Yes, it's a fight and some days it will take it all out of her, but the only way to win the fight is to be very well rested and prepared.

I doubt that I will ever have the chance to help, but I will continue to pray for her. She will never be far from my thoughts.

Dear Mom

Almost since I started this blog, I've been trying to write an entry about my mom. It's not an easy thing to do. There's so much there, that it becomes this rambling, epic post that hardly makes sense. I can't say that this post will be any different, but today I have a real need to write about it, so here goes.

The other day, my mother's husband's daughter (I guess that makes her my step-sister. I've never even met the girl, and she's probably 15 or so years younger than me, so it feels really awkward for me to call her that.) asked me to be her friend on Facebook. I had no reason not to accept, and she probably won't even write to me so no issue there. In doing so, I found out my Mom has a Facebook account. All this time, and she'd never invited me to be her friend. I know it sounds silly, but it's my MOM. To be fair, she may not have known I had an account, but in all likelihood she did. I am friends with my niece (who practically lives with her) and I am on my niece's page.

A couple days later, my Mom asked me to be her FB friend. I'm sure she realized that I saw her on my step-sister's page, but then maybe I'm on the psychotic tip a little. Of course I accepted, she's my Mom. Here's the thing: I went to her page and she had listed my sister and my niece as her children. No mention of me. I am suddenly daughter-non grata. You can list anyone you want as your child, they don't have to be on Facebook. So even if she didn't know I had a page, she could have put me there. I can't see any way around this. To her, she still only has two daughters. I am just not one of them. Her granddaughter, (my niece) has somehow become her second daughter.

This may all seem silly and minor to everyone. Compared to everything else she's done to me, it actually is. To me, I think it's just the final acknowledgment that she really doesn't have any special sort of love or even affection for me. I'm just someone to whom she gave birth. A mentally defective person to whom she gave birth.

My Mom has lied to me, manipulated me, stolen money from me, had inappropriate relations with my ex-husband (while he was my husband), accused me of throwing myself at her boyfriend (ewwww), shamed and humiliated me, and so on and so forth. I could sit here for hours describing in detail the times she has deeply wounded me. To what end? To prove that she's Joan Crawford and that I don't deserve what she does to me? I finally have come to the conclusion that things are what they are. I now realize that not only is my Mom a really bad mother, she's kind of a bad person, too.

I was going to use this post as an open letter to my Mom. I can't write to her because there's no point to it. She would tell me that I was crazy and get mad. Then it would become a whole big family thing with my sister and my aunt involved. While I was writing though, I also realized I don't have any anger left in me to say anything to her. She's reduced herself to nearly nothing in my life by being the kind of mother, the kind of person she is. All my life I have forgiven her--no given her PERMISSION--to be the kind of person she is and treat me the way she has. As I grew older and more aware, I pulled away from her because she is toxic. A part of me remained the loving daughter because I always had a tremendous love for my mom. Over time though, she has managed to reduce that love, dismantle it, destroy it. She can say what she likes or think what she likes about me now. If I am not her child anymore, that is ok. I think I stopped being her child in my own eyes a really long time ago, too.

Someone More Stubborn Than Me

School starts tomorrow. It's hard to believe summer vacation has come to an end. It's even harder to believe that my daughter will start Kindergarten and I will have two in school. Both are very excited for the school year to begin and have been counting the days for the last week or so. I am not sure how my youngest is going to react at being alone all day. I am not sure how I am going to react at being alone with my youngest all day. He is quite the demanding little boy. He is very attached to my older two, even if his primary goal in life is to irritate the hell out of his older sister. He's never been without her, and I've never been without the distraction she provides him. Don't get me wrong, it isn't always constant friction between the two of them (even if it sometimes seems that way). They get along much better when my oldest isn't home and they aren't competing for his attention. Now...

I've never been alone with one child all day before. When I just had one, I worked. If it were my daughter, it might be easier. She is the one who is content to be on her own, or to sit and talk with me. I'm not the imaginative mom who can come up with all sorts of ideas to entertain, teach and interact with my children. I'm the nurturing type, yes. I will sit and talk with them. I hug and cuddle with them. We tell stories to each other sometimes. Other than that, I'm sort of at a loss. I can't see myself taking him to the park, especially right now since there will be other moms there and the possibility of one talking to me puts me in a state. This child gets into things in a way the others did not. He has a temper that was not present in my older children. He wears me out in a way the others did not. He refuses to be toilet trained. He won't to use his manners, whereas it came very naturally to the others. He has screaming tantrums and the older two had only mild ones for a few months before they turned two. There is a lot I need to do with him, and his determination to be contrary bewilders me. I am hoping that having all my attention focused on him will change things, but I am so fearful that it won't. Don't get me wrong. He is the cutest child at times. He is so funny. He says the craziest things that make me burst out in laughter--more so than the older ones. He does really funny things. I always say his only saving grace is that he is so damned cute. If not for that, I'd have put him up on eBay a long time ago.

He's smart, very smart. The other day, we were at the dinner table and my 7 year old asked what the economy was. When my husband began to explain what it was, he piped up, finger pointed in the air and said "Barack Obama". He knew that the two were related, and he had picked it up on his own. During the presidential elections he knew who Barack Obama was, and he had picked that up on his own, too. He also knew who Hillary Clinton was. He wasn't even 3 years old yet. He remembers Joe Biden's name, although he probably can't pick him out on TV. With all this, I think about starting to teaching him the sounds the the letters of the alphabet make so he can read small words, but I don't know if he would sit still that long or take any interest in it. Would he be like he is with toilet training? Would he just dig his heels in and say "NO!" I'd try to send him to pre-school for a couple days a week if it weren't for the toilet training issue. His pediatrician says I can't rush it or force it (but he's going to be 4 in a little over 4 months!!!!!). My oldest was toilet trained at his day care, and my daughter was a dream at it. We trained her on vacation, in fact. She might as well have done it herself.

What do I do? I never thought I'd meet someone more stubborn than me. I have no idea how to outsmart, outlast this child. My daughter is stubborn, and I had thought she would be the death of me. This one...he surprised me. I used to think he'd grow out of his willfulness, at least a little. Now, I'm not so sure. Beyond entertaining him, I think he's going to a) give me a heart attack b) wear me out c) drive me crazy d) all of the above.

Pray for me. Please?

Face to Face with My Anxiety

I've been at a loss in terms of blog topics lately. I feel like I've covered just about every feeling I've had already. At least anything of interest, if you can call what I've written interesting. I could write about my social anxiety, but that's uncomfortable to feel. Writing about it seems even more uncomfortable. Some might say that's what makes it important to discuss. I say: BAH!

I had to confront my anxiety the other night. One of my best friends was in town, and I haven't seen her in about 7 years. It was the night before she was leaving to go home and she was going to be at a restaurant with a few of her other friends for drinks. I was faced with the dilemma of either walking into a restaurant filled with other people and sitting with her friends (GASP) or not seeing her at all. I was angry with her for not making time for me. She was aware of my problem ahead of time, and professed that she was going to spend time with me and catch up on all that was going on with me. I didn't care so much about that part of it, I just wanted to spend time with her. She never carved any time out for me, and I was hurt. I nearly used that as my excuse to avoid confronting my fears of being around people.

In the end, I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to at least see her. Time being what it was, and with all the things she had to do, I only got to see her for about half an hour. I also could not bring myself to go inside the restaurant. She graciously came outside to talk. Unfortunately, she brought her friends with her. She didn't realize that my anxiety extends to all people, not just crowded places. I have met these friends before, so they are not strangers. I can see why she thought it would be OK. Nevertheless, I started shaking and tearing up. Worse yet, they wanted to hug me, and one of the girls kissed me on the cheek. I feel terrible because I probably seemed very rude, or at least very strange. They realized something was wrong in some way, because they excused themselves and went back inside.

I had a nice visit with my friend. It was far too brief, but I'm glad I had at least a few moments with her. It was no different than some of our phone calls except for being able to see her in the flesh. At least it was something. I don't feel any great sense of accomplishment for going--I didn't really confront my anxiety and win. All I did really was get out of my car. I can't even say at least it's a start. It doesn't feel like it was anything.

Insurance and Ignorance in America

I have this sense of foreboding this morning. It actually started last night, really. I'm not sure what started it, but I haven't been able to shake it. It's not that I don't have some cause to worry--there is a possibility that Mr. PolarBabe may be laid off in the very near future. While the financial implications are obvious, the biggest worry is over our health insurance. COBRA for 5 people would be a fortune. Dr. Tween is an out of network doctor, so I pay out of pocket for her services already, and she isn't cheap. I need a good team behind me and she is so good, she is worth the expense. I can't bear the thought of having to see someone else. I finally got my medications through our prescription program with her (Dr. Bombay refused to prescribe them through the service) and I now have no co-pay for those meds, and get them 3 months at a time. To have that go away--when just two of my medications would cost a combined total of $500 a month...what the hell would we do?

That's just me. My kids come first. Fortunately, we are blessed with three very healthy children. They are almost never sick, even with colds. Fevers are very rare. I mean, I really have never even had to clean up vomit. What mom can say that? There will come a day though, when one falls, maybe splits something open and needs stitches, or breaks an arm or leg or any of the myriad injuries children get. Maybe one does get some terrible illness, God forbid. It's a terrible position to be in.

I'm not going to make this a political rant about Obama's current health care bill. I do sit and wonder though about the talking heads who get up there, with their main point being that 80% of all Americans being satisfied with their current insurance plan. I'm one of them, by and large. That really isn't the point of the plan though, is it? It's more toward those without insurance. How does that fall by the wayside in all their arguments? How many people are in the same situation I am afraid that we may find ourselves in?

I'll be honest, I'm not informed enough to know if this is the perfect solution. Having spent the entirety of my career in the insurance industry, in a claims environment no less, I do know about the administration of benefits vs. profit margins and the mentality of a claims adjuster. I will tell you--insurance companies get away with a lot. Whether by design or by error, procedures and benefits are denied. Then, the person who either doesn't know they can appeal or doesn't have the fortitude to go through the process, will just go away. This is only a small example, a simple illustration. It gets far more complex than that.

I have yet to hear someone say they LOVE insurance companies. Even people who say they are 'happy' with their insurance company is usually satisfied because they had a really bad experience with a different insurance company, or they haven't had much need for medical treatment beyond their annual physical. I've worked for a number of insurance companies in my career, and there really isn't much difference between them. They are all looking to improve their bottom line, increase their client/subscriber base and control costs (translation: reduce payout). It's important to understand that controlling costs does not simply mean lowering overhead. They employ staff to review medical procedures. It's typically a medical professional who looks at what your doctor is recommending and then decides whether it's necessary or not. In some cases, a 'medical case manager' (usually an R.N.) makes the decision. Do you really want a nurse to decide whether or not your doctor can perform a test or surgery? There is another process called a "peer review" where a doctor reviews the recommendation and then makes the decision. Either way, we are talking about medical professionals who are not currently in practice, and who are not intimately familiar with your current situation. This is just some of what is involved in the authorization processes to determine what is medically necessary that the general public just doesn't know. That's actually the good part. The less complex stuff is simply reviewed by the claims adjuster who has anywhere from a high school diploma to a bachelor's degree. Health claims adjusters aren't paid much compared to other adjusters (such as general liability), by the way. Don't believe me? Yahoo has a salary tool--look up the salary for health care claims adjuster for your local area, then compare it to a liability or Workers' Compensation adjuster.

Anyway, point is the Insurance Companies don't care if everyone is insured. They just want to make sure their bottom lines aren't affected. If 80% are satisfied, they'll stay where they are like I probably will. Most people don't like change. It should be noted that free care isn't always what everyone wants, so there is still a market for insurance companies in many countries with a NHS (think France. I also have a friend in Canada who has private insurance). Maybe--just maybe--what insurance companies really fear is that a social plan might be better and more honestly administered. That would be real competition. People would really want that.

So, I guess I went on a rant anyway. I'm still not saying this is the perfect solution. I just think everyone should have available medical care. Insurance companies shouldn't stand in the way of it for the sake of their already plush bottom lines. (Those operating in the red...well we know how they got there). They can all still compete with each other. They aren't competing for the uninsured business, as it is. Why would they worry about them now?

The Peak of Mania (or So I Hope)

I've been thinking lately about my last major episode with the paranoid delusions and hallucinations. At the time, it seemed to have crept up on me during the preceding evening. Then, after a frenetic, sleepless night, I was still wide awake the next morning. I remember clearly when the hallucinations began--I literally felt something snap in my head. It was as if a twig had broken; there was an audible crack. I had been sitting up in bed with my head back against the wall, with my eyes closed. My eyes snapped open...and I stepped through the looking glass.

I've looked back a lot and realized that I'd started to get sick long before that day. I'd been under a lot of stress since the previous summer, and my paranoia had slowly surfaced. I'd changed positions at work to try to eliminate stress, but it had only created a different kind of stress. My home life had grown increasingly more difficult, adding further strain. Everything was in disarray. I felt a sense of desperation about everything. Nothing was right and I was thoroughly upset and unhappy. One of the things I recently realized is that I was deeply delusional long before the day my mind completely snapped.

In retrospect, I see that I spent the months from November to April in an increasing state of delusion. High functioning at first, but each day eroding my grip on reality. There was, and still is, a sense of being under water during that time. I lived in a different world, I lived a different life. My ideas, my actions, were bizarre. When I think of it now, I am incredulous. I don't know how I managed to function at all. I realize that it had come to the point in January that I was barely able to do so, that I was limping along, bloody and battered. The fact that I made it all the way to March is amazing.

I'd started playing a role play game online that November. I had come to live in this game without realizing it. I developed bonds with certain people. I thought of them as my real friends. I spent inordinate amounts of time online--to the exclusion of pretty much everything and everyone. I'd stay up far later than I should, sleeping only 4 hours a night. I put so much of my emotional self into the game. How things were going in the game dictated my every emotion. I laughed, I cried, I was furious, I was over the moon, I was revered, I was reviled...all in one night, every night it seemed. I could not pull myself away. I was consumed by thoughts of it; waking in the middle of what little sleep I found, obsessing over it. Then I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. I couldn't focus or concentrate on anything. I was aware on some level that my "real" life was slipping away from my hands, but there was little I could or wanted to do about it. I lived somewhere else now.

My judgment deserted me. I made up my mind to have a costly cosmetic procedure I'd wanted for a very long time. I pulled a substantial amount of money out of my 401(k) plan to pay for it. I also paid for an out of state vacation months ahead of time, to boot. I told myself I was just going to live my life before I was too old. I was erratic and out of control.

I managed to tear myself from the game because it was causing me too much pain, but I just jumped to another game with one of the players from the first game. My paranoia was full blown by then and my grip on reality was all but gone. I became convinced that the other players from the first game had followed me to the next and were there just to fuck with my head. For the next two months, I was almost entirely in this underwater state of being. I was functioning at maybe 10% by that time, unable to work at this point. My laptop was always in my lap. I stayed up until 2am or earlier every day, only to wake at 6:30a. I was back in the game after I took my son to school in the morning. That is where I stayed every moment I had when I was not doing something for my kids.

It is taking me a long time to come back from this. Medication is really the only thing that has helped. Even though I was finally able to break my attachment to living in alternate realities after my psychotic break, I was still consumed by thoughts of the game and what happened. I was haunted by thoughts of the people I played with and what I thought they had been trying to do to me. It has only been lately that I was able to put aside the thought that there was a plan to "get me" or to do me some mental damage. And I mean in the VERY recent past. At the height of my delusions, in fact when my mind actually broke, I believed my husband was spearheading the campaign against me with the game people.

Before all this, mania had been the best high in the world. It had been nothing but a pleasurable experience for me. I'd never had a mixed state. I'd crashed before for sure, but nothing like this. Truth be told, this experience is what keeps me on my meds. It doesn't matter how tiresome or cumbersome it can be. It doesn't matter whether I worry about it possibly reducing my life expectancy or affecting my physical health in some way. It doesn't matter about the current side affects. It doesn't matter that I miss the pleasure of a "normal" mania. I never, ever, ever want to go through that again. I won't take that risk. My fear is that the normal mania has passed and that it will forever be psychotic now.

I read a comment from a woman on a blog one time. She said that she'd never had ill effects from a manic episode and was PRAYING for one. You never have ill effects until you do. Even the pleasurable ones have ill effects you just don't see, but you never know what demons lurk around the corner. I now live in fear of mania and PRAY that I never see it again.

Unpacking My Life

The major portion of the move is finished, thankfully. We still have odds and ends to move into storage and major unpacking and organizing to do, but I am grateful to be done with the big stuff. Everyone seems to be adjusting nicely to our new situation as well.

To top it all off, I seem to have achieved a level of stability. I haven't had any deep paranoid delusions for a couple of weeks. I had one fleeting one when Mr. PolarBabe and I had the big fight a couple weeks ago, but it didn't take hold like they normally do. I had those three down days following it, but then I came back up from it and have been at the level I am at since. I'm not 100%, but I'm a helluva lot better than I have been. The idea of being around people or going anywhere still puts me in a certain state. I'm still grateful for the progress I've made.

I have to fill out LTD forms now. I've completed most of them, but they require so much information that it is taking a long time to get it done. A lot of it is confusing. I have to turn it in as soon as possible, though. I'd better get that finished today. Next thing is to apply for SSDI next month and start that process, even though benefits aren't payable until 1 year of disability. All this makes my head spin. It's hard to get my mind around the idea that I can't do what I once did so easily and so well. The next question invariably becomes "What will I do now?" That's not a question I can answer now, nor should I try yet, according to my therapist. I will just have to let my mind run over it every now and then. The question is then "What will I do eventually?" I guess.

Now I'm gearing up for school to start in a couple weeks. It's hard to believe I will have two in school this year. How in the world am I going to keep the little one entertained? Hahahaha. They are all growing up so fast on me.

So, life continues on. I'm grateful to have one that does.