Honey, They’re Home.

Well, the Bipolars came back.

Sonofabitch.

And I didn’t even recognize them. They came to the door, swathed in a pastel pink coat, sporting a soft blonde bob of a hairdo and jawing at delicious-at-first-but-prolly-lost-its-taste-after-five-seconds chewing gum.

And so, pleasant as they seemed, I invited them in. And I offered them a cigarette and asked them to sit on the couch. And when they did, I sunk in so closely beside them that they put their arm around me and I started to disappear. And I almost did. Disappear.

Almost.

But then, wait.

Last Tuesday morning I woke up with anxiety so bad my stomach was in knots. And I found myself doing what I had done so many times before…before. I stuck my finger down my throat and made myself throw up. I did this to make myself feel better. To make the stomachache go away. And the thing is, it did. It made the stomachache go away. And I felt better.

And I felt worse all at the same time.

Because that’s a bad sign. A big, bad, looming sign that the Bipolars were back. As soon as I stuck my fingers down my throat, I knew I had reached the point where I couldn’t easily pull myself back. And I hadn’t even eaten in three days.

Sonofabitch.

Not again.

Sonofabitch…

Less than two hours later, I was in a doctor’s office and had already taken my first dose of medication. Lexapro. To help with the depression. In three weeks, I start Lamictal again. To help with the mania.

I didn’t want to be sick again. To tell the truth, I couldn’t afford to be sick again. So, I’m more than happy to go on meds.

From the age of ten, I suffered from severe depression. At age eighteen, the issue escalated and skewed and for the next seven years I was led down a path that was sometimes amazing and exciting – other times severely dark and frightening. It was not until age 24 that I was diagnosed with major depression and not until I turned 26 that I was most correctly diagnosed as bipolar. Upon my original diagnosis, I set to work learning how to cope with every day life in ways that effectively counteracted my often painful ways of thinking. For several years, I took meds as well – Lamactil worked well for me. Then, when I became pregnant, I went off of it and never went back on. Following my recent divorce, when I re-emerged into society, life once again became stressful and overwhelming and without my knowledge, the bipolar symptoms snuck up on me again. I am writing this blog to help people understand more about bipolar and the people who suffer from it. I think it’s important to realize that people who live with bipolar disorder don’t have to be strange or different or feared. It is, much like pneumonia or cancer, a physical disease. And I am writing this blog so that people who do suffer from bipolar understand that it is something that you can get through. It is nothing that has to hold you back or take you prisoner. I honestly believe that not only can sufferers learn to function in everyday life, but they can have an advantage to others who have never had to work through such immense challenges.

I write this blog to salve the immense pain in my heart…the emotional pain…and the physical pain that feels like a vice squeezing the breath right out of me. Right now, the sadness I’ve allowed myself to feel is surrounding me like a blanket.

**This blog will not always focus on bipolar issues. It will focus on whatever is on my mind and what I feel like writing about at the time.

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