Sunday, August 14, 2011

What happened... and What Now?

Hello Readers (If I have any),

I wish I could write a positive post, and hopefully by the end I'll get around to sounding optimistic. The truth is that I've had a rough several months. I got pretty close to giving up on myself completely, and spent a lot of time mentally berating myself and letting myself sink into depression. I'm not feeling a lot better now; I feel like I've dug myself into quite a hole and it seems close to impossible to dig myself out. A month ago I said it was impossible, so maybe "close to impossible" can be considered progress.

I'm sure it's obvious that my year didn't start out on the most positive note. I was TDO'ed (forcibly put in the hospital) the day after quitting my job on my birthday, and my boyfriend (understandably, I admit) broke up with my while I was there. It was a lot for anyone to have to handle, and I wasn't acting like the girl that he fell in love with. He was hurt that I hadn't been honest with him about my condition, but it's hard to tell someone that thinks you are so perfect that you have a huge crazy elephant in the room that he likely will not understand.

Following my hospitalization I was pretty traumatized and began acting quite self-destructively. I decided that it was a good idea to tell everyone I knew on facebook about my bipolar disorder. For some reason I felt it was my calling to be a spokesperson and make people understand. Instead, in my cloud of denial, I pushed many people away and became a topic of gossip for hundreds of people I hardly knew. I began drinking a lot, and really not caring about the consequences. I had little respect for myself and hooked up with a few guys simply because they showed interest. I guess that I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I was unemployed and had big unrealistic expectations for my freelance art and design efforts, which previously had been nearly nonexistent because of my lack of marketing efforts and business sense. However, to me at the time, it was going to make me rich.

It's hard to explain the feeling of mania to someone who hasn't felt it or had to witness it in someone they are close to. I felt incredibly smart and energetic and charismatic. I certainly drew attention to myself, but in all the wrong ways. I was getting more attention from boys when I went out, but I think it was because I was oozing self confidence (overconfidence), which made me seem together and intriguing. However, my big aspirations lacked substance and actual planning. My mind flew from one big idea to the next. I wrote feverishly, painted quickly and abstractly with lots of paint, and decided to completely redecorate my apartment. I actually thought it was a good idea to PAINT the wood floor. I painted thick green yellow and blue swirls all over the floor. Obviously, there was some delusional thinking involved. How could I believe there would be no consequences to painting the floor in a rental apartment? For me, consequences didn't exist in my mind, limits were nonexistent, and I had to forge ahead and away from everything my life had been, as fast as possible.

I lived in denial of my self destructive actions for about a month until Valentine's day, when I was arrested for Drunk in Public after drinking at a bar and not having the funds to pay for it, then getting in an argument with the bartender and then storming out, hoping to call a friend or family member to come and bring me money. In truth, I wasn't drunk, I was still manic. I wasn't thinking, and my self destructiveness and denial was barrelling toward a potentially disastrous climax. While in jail that night I had panic attacks, I cried, I yelled at the guards, and I pretty much made an ass out of myself. They insisted I was drunk. Hell, it sure appeared that way. The high of mania can be described much like alcohol. It starts out giving you confidence and euphoria, but if left unchecked can transform into irritability, irrationality, and self destruction. I had gone from the happy drunk to the angry drunk, getting angrier and more reckless with each passing day.

After being released in the morning, I went back to my apartment after fighting my parents to get my car back from their house (they had picked it up after I was arrested, and wanted me to come home with them, but I refused). I was still thinking nothing was wrong with me and was angry that they would accuse me of being manic. In hindsight it's blaringly obvious- that's were the delusion of mania comes in. It is obvious to everyone else but you that something is wrong, and you feel attacked and insulted when people become concerned and try to tell you that you're acting strangely. I had lashed out at everyone in my family and my closest friends when they tried to confront me and ask if I was taking my medication.

As you could have probably predicted, I was TDO'ed again. I had been put on lithium during the January hospitalization, and I was against it from the start. I had several side effects, including lactation. I know what you're thinking... what the fuck? Yep, I literally began producing milk, which would squirt out when I squeezed my boob. (Sorry, I'm a weirdo and refuse to say "my breast". Sounds ridiculous to me.) Anyway, how weird is that?! I also was having muscle weakness and severe nausea. However, everyone insisted that Lithium was the way to go. It had worked for my brother and is almost always doctors' first choice for treating bipolar disorder, so they forced me into it. Like many people, especially manic people, I didn't want to be forced to do anything, and wanted to go back to the medication that had worked for me in the past with no side effects. I had found a full bottle of my old medication (Lamictal) and decided that I was going to stop the Lithium and put myself back on Lamictal. Looking back, I'm sure that played a huge role in why my mania lasted as long as it did- the brain doesn't like quick drastic changes in such medications- you could say that my brain and mood pretty much rebelled against me.

I managed to go about another week at my apartment following the D.I.P. before my parents found out about my personal medication regimen and there were cops at my door. A crisis counselor was called and I assured him that I was fine, but after speaking to my parents he disagreed, and I was cuffed and taken to the hospital again. Thankfully, this time I was slightly more reasonable about the situation and stayed calm and was allowed to ride in the passenger seat of a cop car, with my hands cuffed in front of me. This was a sharp contrast to my january trip, which involved a struggle, yelling, and consequent forceful behind the back cuffing, multiple plastic zipties on my legs, and a toss into a paddywagon. This time in the hospital I was much calmer. I think the reality of the mania was beginning to hit me. After the nightmarish night in jail I realized that the mania wasn't fun anymore. I couldn't sleep, I had nightmares, and I couldn't sit still. I was irritable and impatient, and was beginning to become paranoid once I realized how many people knew after my facebook ramblings.

I knew the mania had to stop, but I didn't want Lithium. However, that's what they put me on again at the hospital. This time I didn't fight it. I clenched my fists, and swallowed the pills along with my pride. I began to turn my anger inward as my mood started to even out. I was let out of the hospital in three days this time. The anger was soon replaced with shame. My mood was coming down and the lithium was helping in some ways, but I still had the side effects. I talked to my regular psychiatrist and convinced him to wean me off of Lithium and gradually build me back up on Lamictal (the way it's supposed to be done, definitely not a situation where one can/should go cold turkey on one and start on a high dose of the other, as I had done before). It took about a month to transition, but things calmed down.

I was returning to reality, but I quickly realized that reality was not good. I wasn't a successful entrepreneur... I was merely unemployed and had paid a fee to have an incorporated business name. I had no clue what I was doing, and I was broke. Really broke. I had pushed my mother and sister away while I was manic, but thankfully my dad was still willing to visit me regularly and fill my fridge so that I wouldn't starve. I went out regularly because I was bored and lonely. I actually drank very little, mostly because I couldn't afford it. I met a good guy who was out of my league, and we quickly hit it off. However, my mood and self esteem was beginning to dip into depression and self loathing, and I didn't feel ready for a relationship. I gradually retreated, not because I didn't like him, but I convinced myself that he couldn't and shouldn't like me... the "real me".

I abruptly halted my facebook activities. I had always been active and shared funny videos and statuses and interacted with friends before the mania and facebook post-vomit, but suddenly I was completely embarrassed and horrified with the reality of my actions. I went back and deleted everything that I had written that seemed remotely crazy, and started to withdraw from social activities and avoid contact with friends. I felt defective, stupid, and un-lovable. My sister seemed to have lost all respect for me (not that I blamed her) and we barely talked. We still don't. I don't know how to get close to her again. I feel disappointed in myself and not worthy of her respect or forgiveness.

I started a job at a printing company in April, but I had begun to dip into depression and was immediately overwhelmed. I realized I wasn't very knowledgeable in InDesign, which was the program they primarily used. The work environment seemed bleak, and I got scared. So rather than sticking it out and figuring it out, I freaked. I bolted. I quit the job after two days and drove home to my parents' house. I literally ran home to my mommy and daddy. I didn't want reality, I wanted to curl up in a ball and erase the past few months. I wanted to go back to my steady job, my cute and comfortable apartment, my boyfriend, and my stability. I just wanted to press rewind, and the fact that I couldn't was absolutely unbearable and overwhelming. I was scared, and I hated myself. I felt weak for my inability to recognize and control my actions.

I started sleeping a lot. It seemed like the only way to escape reality. At first I ran every day to try to fight the depression, but my will to fight it started dying away. I wouldn't quite classify myself as suicidal, but I just wanted to sleep. Every night I wished I could go to sleep and wake up back in December, realizing it had all been a horrible dream, and I could pick right up where I had left off. Every morning I woke up and things were the same, my job and previous life were still gone, and I didn't want to get out of bed. I found any excuse to sleep- I claimed that my medications were making me sleepy- mostly I just wanted to escape reality. I often laid in bed trying to will myself into tiredness. Instead I just ruminated on the downturn of my life and my perceived complete failure. I wasn't hungry at all, and quickly lost 10 pounds. My boobs shrunk, and I convinced myself I had ruined my body. I ran less and less. Once or twice a week; each run getting more difficult because I wasn't running often enough to maintain my fitness level.

I started having trouble drawing. Things didn't look the same, and my brain just didn't seem to process what I saw anymore. Whereas I had always felt at ease with sketching things from life, it suddenly became nearly impossible to translate what I saw to the paper. I began to panic; art was something that had always defined me as a person. I felt that if I couldn't draw, I couldn't do anything. I was worried that my drawing ability was simply gone, and if it was gone, who was I? What was I going to do? How would I get a design job?

I went back to facebook, but rather than posting I just browsed my friends' pages and compared myself to them, seeing only the ways that I was inferior, and seeing their success only in terms of the contrast to my failure, their happiness only in terms of the contrast to my sadness, their attractiveness only in contrast to how unattractive I felt. I became obsessed with my appearance in a very negative way. I convinced myself that I was now ugly and would never be pretty again. I stood for long periods of time in front of the mirror, studying my every flaw and picking at any imperfection in my skin until I had red welts everywhere. I hated myself. I started mentally assessing all of the ways that I had failed in life until it was all that I thought about. This worsened my oversleeping problem and made it harder to motivate myself to exercise. "Why bother?" I thought. I suddenly became terrified to see my friends. I was convinced that they would see how much I had changed and how ugly I had become. Isolation and sleep was my way of escaping, my way of clinging to denial and my wish that I could go back to December.

My lease didn't end until the beginning of August, but I stayed at my parents house from April until then, gradually moving my stuff back to their house. I was "searching for jobs in Richmond", but in reality I wasn't searching very hard. I had mentally dug myself into a hole of denial and I wanted to just lay there indefinitely. Because of my difficulty with drawing and my lack of knowledge of web design, I didn't think I'd ever get hired for a design job, and if so, I'd never succeed. Every trip to the apartment was a harsh reminder of the events of the beginning of the year, and everything I had thrown away.

Thankfully, when I went to court for my Drunk in Public, the officer had misplaced my paperwork and I wasn't on the docket. The judge told me I should buy a lottery ticket because she had no choice but to completely dismiss the charges. It was a relief, because my mistake was not going to become a permanent record mistake.

I had regular visits to my psychiatrist, and he recognized that I was not evening out; meaning that the logical dip into depression following the mania was not going away. I was put on an antidepressant in hopes of lifting my mood. Unfortunately, my reality was actually rather bleak, so the pills did little to help besides bringing back my appetite. I began to put back on weight, a matter that I obsessed about. I weighed myself several times a day, and studied myself in the mirror. I saw a bit of cellulite that I didn't have before, and it became another thing that I obsessed about.

I forced myself to start running again, but since I had been slacking the running was difficult. I couldn't go very far and had a lot of trouble breathing, which I told myself was just another way I had failed that could not be fixed. I dragged myself out to run, but more out of fear of weight gain than for actual enjoyment. Following every run I mentally berated myself for how much I had trouble breathing and how little distance I had covered, unwilling to give myself credit for just getting out there and exercising again. I signed up for an indoor soccer team, but was unable to enjoy the games because my fitness level was so bad that I spent much of the time gasping for air. My competitive nature caused me to analyze my play and go home frustrated after every game, thinking only of my past successes in soccer and getting angry at myself for letting myself slip. My knee pain had returned (I've had three knee surgeries, most recently June of 2010) and I felt like my body was not only now ugly and fat, but also falling apart.

I had half-heartedly been sending out applications and responding to job ads on craigslist, not really expecting to hear back about anything. One day I did; I had sent a resume to a sign company about a graphic designer position that sounded almost identical to the one I had held in Richmond. They called me about 10 minutes after I sent it and asked me to come in for an interview. Instead of being excited, I was terrified. I had gotten so good at cutting myself down that I was convinced I would be incapable of being creative and performing the job. I had several anxiety attacks before the interview and almost didn't go. To my surprise, they hired me on the spot, and I started the next week.

It should have been my fresh new start, but it wasn't. I couldn't snap myself out of the mental cycle of self hate, self doubt, and depression. When I thought about work I envisioned nothing but failure. On the first day, I froze up. I stared at the screen, anxiety boiling in my chest, unsure of what to do. I got very little done, because in the back of my head I had already determined that I was going to fail. After one day I convinced myself that I was going to be fired. The second day I made myself sick with worry and actually vomited, unable to go to work. I called in on the SECOND DAY. Can you believe that? I hated myself for it, but I took some twisted relief in being able to bury myself in the covers all day and escape reality.

By the second week of work I was a nervous mess. I second guessed everything, was unable to think creatively, and got very little work done. My fear of failure was beginning to look like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I dreaded going to sleep every night because I knew I'd have to get up and go to work. In the mornings I had to be literally dragged out of bed to go to work. My depression and desire to sleep began to border on thoughts of suicide. I didn't make plans, but I couldn't help thinking that I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.

About two weeks in, on a Wednesday, I hit rock bottom. I simply would not get out of bed. I was terrified to go to work for fear of being fired, and I felt like a complete and utter failure at everything. I refused to get up, and even took an ambien at 8 am so that I could sleep through the day. When I woke up, my mom was sitting next to my bed. There was somewhat of an unspoken understanding. I had to do something, something had to give. I knew I didn't want to kill myself, but I felt completely out of options. I decided to check myself into the hospital voluntarily that afternoon.

I was only there for three days... they increased my antidepressants slightly, hoping to chemically pull me out of my hole. I quickly realized that doing crossword puzzles, watching tv, attending a few group therapy sessions a day, eating horrible hospital food, and sleeping on a hard hospital mattress was not going to solve anything, and checked myself out of the hospital. I found out that my boss was worried and wanted me to come back to work, so I went, but my heart and head were still not in it. I still agonized about waking up every day, still thought constantly about failing, and still got very little work done. Every day, I just wanted to go home and sleep. Most days I did, then tried to squeeze in some form of exercise before reluctantly taking a sleeping pill every night so that I wouldn't stay awake thinking.

I simply couldn't pull myself out of my hole of self-doubt. After a week and a half back, I eventually landed right where I had before, utterly unable to drag myself out of bed. This time, I knew the hospital thing wouldn't work. I made some calls and found out that the hospital offered a two week intensive outpatient counseling program; sort of a therapy bootcamp, every day from 8:30 to 3:00. I signed up to go, fully expecting to get fired and not really caring. I was still laying at rock bottom and fighting for the will to live, and working didn't seem like the highest priority. My dad talked to my boss and surprisingly, he said for me to take my time and that I could go back to work after the two week program. Rather than being relieved, I was nervous. I still couldn't see myself succeeding at that job.

Every day at the therapy sessions I talked about feeling worthless, helpless, ugly, and a failure. If it sounds like a broken record, it's because it was. It was like a tape playing in my mind on repeat. They talked about coping skills- exercise, read, draw, etc. I mentally shot them down. Exercising was a chore. I couldn't draw. Or at least I convinced myself that was the case. Every day just felt one day closer to going back to work. I felt confident enough after one week to go down to my apartment and go out for a friend's birthday, but I drank too much and got sad about everything I had left behind. I began the next week of therapy feeling worse than when I had started.

I dragged through that week, and suddenly it was time to go back to work. I felt no different. I was overwhelmed with anxiety over work from the minute I woke up to the minute I went to sleep. I worried about failing on projects; so I started actually failing on projects. I froze up, felt anxious about freezing up, and consequently froze more. I was taking way too long on projects, and my boss was starting to comment. I got more and more anxious and started making silly mistakes. The boss's patience with me seemed to have reached its breaking point, and he started telling me. He annoyedly sighed or rolled his eyes when he had to explain things to me a second time, and when I would ask questions he would often snatch jobs from me and just say that he would do them himself. Work became torture; each day was worse than the last. Finally, as I had done before, I panicked, and I bolted. I quit.

That was a week ago. I haven't really told anyone. My Mom, Dad, and sister know, but I can't bring myself to tell anyone else. Not even my brother. I feel like a total failure and disappointment to my family. My sister barely talks to me now, and she either just thinks I'm stupid or has given up on me. When I or my parents try to explain the depression, she seems to think I've just become lazy and stopped trying. I often fear that she's right; that saying I'm depressed is just an excuse. I used to be so driven, so successful in everything that I tried. Now I have trouble getting out of bed, and can't complete anything. What happened? What happened to the overflowing confidence that I had at the beginning of the year?

Well, I guess that bipolar disorder happened. I don't want to use it as a crutch or an excuse anymore, but it's always there, always affecting me and everything in my life. Now I find myself mostly withdrawn from my social life, living with my parents, unemployed, and resorting to applying to retail jobs. How did I let my life come to this? Why did I have to get this illness? I had so much potential coming out of high school, and then this all hit me, and I can't seem to keep my head above water. I hate to say it isn't fair, because a lot of people are worse off than me, but I want to say it. I want to be proud of myself. I want my parents to be proud of me. I want to have close friendships again... maybe even find love again. But how? How can I move forward and make peace with the elephant in the room? How can I build a career now that I have so many jobs in my past and so few solid skills or clear plans for the future?

I want to pull myself up by my bootstraps, but the boots feel like cinderblocks now. I am better than this. I want to fight this. I want to be happy. Where do I start?

What now?

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