Days, Nights and Selfish Behavior.......

More days and nights of moods that swing up and down....

Over all I am feeling a bit better these last few days and I am happy with this, as I am sure that most anyone would or could be!! As I stated in a previous post I asked me Dr. to lower the dosage of my Cymbalta as it was causing a side effect that I wasn't too happy with the overall effects. Well, after about a week and a half of kind of suffering I finally feel quite a bit better. I did have a headache as well as an upset stomach. And I also had a low grade sort of depression, and that was causing most of the issues. One of the things I have learned over the last few years is that most any of your friends or loved ones can deal with just about anything, but for some reason they always have an issue with depression. And depression doesn't just effect you, it affects everyone around you and everyone that you care about and love.

I once heard someone say that Depression is a selfish illness, and to be honest for a long time I didn't understand what was meant by that, or what the person that said that could have meant about saying that. These days I think I have a grasp on that? These days I have watched what my depression and my overall illness has done to those who care about me and how it effects them when they see me.

When you are in your depressed state you are reclusive and you tend to push others out of your life, you don't mean to do this, you just do it because the natural thing for you to do is to hide yourself away from the ones you love or care about. Most times it isn't a real conscious thought, you just do it because it is what you have always done. It is what feels, well if anything feels good then hiding away and pushing others out of your life is what feels better. It really has nothing to do with who ever the person is, nor does it have anything to do with the ways they try to help you? The introversion is the small bit of relief that you get when you are in your Circle, and that is the only thing that can help with the pain. Of course this is not with standing the "Self Medication" or the "Real Medication" that the Dr's. try and give you? Because they do try, but it does take a very long time for this pain to ebb. And that is the goal, to have this pain go away.

When you are in pain, you forget those who are important to you, you forgot the little things they do to try and make your life a little bit better here and there? Most times in their hearts they really want you to feel better, and in all honesty, they really do not understand what the pain is, because it isn't that we try to hide the symptoms away from them, it isn't because we do not want them to know how much we hurt, it is more because we really do not know how to or even begin to explain what this pain feels like? I wish I could explain to some of the people who care about me and love me how it feels when I wake up, or how I feel as I trudge from bed to the breakfast table? I did try to explain to one person I was dating once and it scared her so much that she literally broke up with me that day. AS I said I don't blame her, I was honest with her and I was glad that she was honest with me. But the hard part is that it still makes us all, not just me, but all of us a bit "Gun Shy", when we try to explain things regarding our pain and how we feel over all to others about this illness that we are afflicted with!

And I think that maybe this is where some of this inability to explain to others why and how we feel as bad as we do is why this illness seems and is actually so selfish. In a lot of ways I do not think that we do it on purpose, although there may be times when we are selfish, because I am sure that you are like me and have been called everything else in the book when you are ill.

So with all of this I will try to keep today's post a bit shorter and end this now, but I will obviously come back to this subject over again as I am sure that I don't have all of the aspects of the subject down and like life, there is always something else for me to learn. And when it comes to Bi-Polar, there is always something else to learn!

Ciao!

A long painful truth about people and Bi-Polar.....

Once again here I am after one of my joyful up and down swing! I get used to them, this isn't to say that I enjoy them, it is only saying that they do not surprise me as much as they used to? This most recent one was a bit more painful then some of the last, and as usual this was for a number of reasons.

The first being that I was trying, with my Dr's permission to reduce the amount of a certain medication that I was taking because I didn't like one of the side effects. As with most "Anti-Depressants" there are any number of side effects and I have dealt with more then a handful, some that were really bad and some that were tolerable. This most recent was more annoying then anything, as it dealt with my sex life, and I should say my lack of sex life.....This particular pill is known to reduce your sex drive if not just take it away. Well, being as I had tried dating again and was looking forward to a normal sex life I was a bit happy, or so I thought. As I said we reduced the amount I was taking at of course there were the normal adverse effects, I was feeling like I had the flu, I had an upset stomach, a headache and was feeling a bit depressed! So all of this goes on and I know in my mind that I will get better, but my "Partner" didn't and like a few before decided to bow out of the relationship before I could start to feel better.

Now, in all fairness let me say this, because I was feeling sick and depressed was not the only reason that she bowed out, she had her own reasons, and as short sighted as I thought they were, she is entitled to her choice. One of the things I do, when ever I even think about starting to date anyone is something that I think all people that have BP should do. (Again, this is just my idea!) But, after meeting someone and deciding that there is the possibility that I might date the person for more then one or two dates I ask them what they know about Bi-Polar? I listen to all of the uneducated answers and then I share with them some of what they got correct and maybe even tell them in more detail. (I was once in their uneducated shoes and I too dated a woman who was BP, and she did this to me and I respected it very much, so I choose to do this as well.) After a brief conversation I let them know that I was diagnosed BP, and that there are two types and that I was diagnosed one of the two. I explain a little more and then I let them know that if they want to learn about it I would be happy to share any or all of my books with them, and I would do what ever I could to help them learn more. Or, if they choose they can bow out and I would not be mad and I was grateful for their honesty and we could end on friendship. Which would make me happy as well.

Well, this last one decided that she wanted to learn more so I did what I could and explained what I could. And I was very happy as I thought she was a very special person and someone who could see beyond the illness and we could grow together.....And I still think of her this was, however I was wrong about a few things....She had stated to me one night that it was all in my head and that I could feel better if I really wanted to! Well, rather then get upset I tried to explain that this was not the case and that she had missed something when reading or maybe misunderstood something? I asked her, as I would ask anyone who would say that BP is in your head and it is a choice, I asked could you imagine what it is like to wake up every morning and wonder if you were going to make it thru that day? To wonder how and if you were going to kill yourself that day, or when you were going to do it? To imagine what it was like to sit there after first waking up and feeling like the only way out was to end it all, to actually hope that something would take your life because the pain was becoming too great? To know that those who love you would be hurt, would be devastated if you did this, to know in your head that if you could stop this that you would give anything to do that? To hope and pray it was all a bad dream, to sit down at any moment and just cry, and cry because you couldn't understand why you were the one with it, why you had to deal with it? I tried to explain to her that these were almost everyday issues for me! And if it really was something that I would control, I would give every bit of my soul to stop this horrible pain and I would never wish it on another person, not even my worst enemy. (Besides, when you are like this you cannot have enemies because this pain takes all of your energy to fight, you cannot have any enemies because of this pain.!)

Well, a few hours later I received an e-mail, and she said that she couldn't take it and that it wasn't what she really wanted.

I understand, and I am not mad, I am upset, if I wasn't it just means I never cared, but this is life and I cannot make everyone happy and vice versa, so with all of this I wish her and anyone else I know luck. Life is very difficult and when you have something like this to deal with it is just a little more difficult.


I will end this on something that a very dear friend of mine said to me regarding BP and myself, I am lucky that this person is still in my life, and to this day we are still friends even though we have lived thousands of miles apart since College. She is a person I have known for over 20 years and she knows me just about better then anyone I can think of. What she said to me was: "Your BP is a Challenge but it is such an integral part of who you are. It's where all of the passion that makes you so wonderful stems from!"

And in all of my life, I don't think anyone has ever said such a good and honest thing about me, and this is one of the many reasons I will always love this person, no matter how far apart we are from each other.!

So today's bit has a little bit of everything, love, hurt, joy, trust, pain and if you can find others help yourself. But as far as I see it, let life grow and be happy with the people you have in your life! And more importantly, enjoy the life you have with the people you have in your life!!

Ciao!

My Favrite line......"I'm Broken!" or at least cracked?

Let me just start out by just saying FUCK!!! It has been a hellish month or so, and to be honest I am wiped out!!! There have been too many mornings that I have woken up and tried to think of reasons why I shouldn't off myself, and if I am not thinking of that I am thinking and wondering why it has to be me? Why do I get to deal with this shitty feeling, or feelings!!!

I Started to do ok for a few days as we edged up my meds and I was thinking, ok this may work......Then one of my least favorite side effects starts to kick in and I talk to my Dr. and realize that I have to do something. So we reduce the dosage and wait.........and then it starts, the upset stomach, the headache, the irratability.......and keep in mind this is just reducing the medication by 1/2 of the regular dosage. I can only imagine what it would be like if we just stopped it all together? So, here I sit in all of this pain and what not and then the reason I started to reduce the meds decides that it will just fade away.....Fvck X 100!!! So what do I do now? So last night I was still feeling a bit like shit and I took a little bit of the old dose to see if it would make me feel any better? Well, maybe, it is very difficult to tell? I don't think I will keep taking the higher dosage and just see what happens, because for some damn reason I feel ok today?

So on to new and other joyous and painful happiness related things for someone like myself. I have come to the conclusion that there is no one that wants a broken me around them, they do at first because it offers them an idea that they can fix me, but they cannot and once they figure this out, they want to leave. And to be honest I cannot blame them. I can be a basket case. I couldn't see myself entering into a relationship with someone just because they are broken? Unless, and I have done this, it was the reason that they were broken that interested me? And yes I have dne this, I am that stupid. It wasn't that I wanted to fix them, it was because I found some chick/Woman that was broken and there was something sexier about her being broken. Why do I, or have I done this?? Fuck if I know, but I can list on at least one hand over the last 20 years 405 Women that I have met that were broken and that I have felt a desire to date them?

Well, enough for now, maybe more later, but remember if you have what I have, or even if you do no not, at least try not to look like you are broken, as some people are afraid of that, and the ones that are interested, well........they might be worse then you.