Dodging Suicide

Up until that moment (of being dumped by colonoscopy guy) today wasn’t all that bad. I actually got a little painting done on a piece I started two months ago. I wrote out a check and caught up on some school and personal paper work. Then I got the text and, even though I didn’t really like the guy that much, it just hit me kinda hard.

When, on our date, he tried kissing me I know he had to feel my indifference. I didn’t give him anything at all in that kiss. Why would he waste any more time on me?

Why would I waste time on him? Because I’ve always gone with guys I feel sparks with and it always ends badly. So I figured if I gave someone I felt no sparks for but seemed like a really nice guy maybe the end would be different.

But I’m on my couch all alone again with no dates in the near future. This was so much more fun six years ago when I first left my ex husband. Now dating feels more like a chore and I remind myself of the women I felt sorry for back then. The ones that gave up; who told me men our age are just too damaged and it’s so hard to find a good one. I want to be the person I was six years ago. I want to be positive my life is better being alone than feeling alone while married. I want to be the person who believed I wouldn’t be alone for long. I want to have fun doing this again. I want to just have fun.

Read the post in its entirety! Visit Dumped by colonoscopy guy | Dodging Suicide.

A Frequent Sadness – But Why Would Anyone Want to be That?

Or at least to make them feel like how I felt I had been treated. So they would lose what I had lost, and see what it felt like to be the weakling. And then maybe they’d stop hurting me. For good. Oh, I ached so badly with wanting to wreck revenge on anyone who even looked like they were going to bully me.

I wanted to be the villain who blended perfectly into the crowd – whom nobody noticed because they were average: lived an average life, had an average house, complete with average spouse, children, dog and car. Heck, sometimes the villain even passed off as a goodie in law enforcement. It wasn’t always so obvious that the villain was someone who had been ugly or stupid or whatever that made them ostracised in the past. And every death, every crime would come out of the blue, and nobody would ever catch them. Ever. . .

I wanted the feeling of triumph through revenge without any consequences. I wanted to be labeled a psychopath. When people were shocked at the revelations of my violent ideas, I was pleased. I wanted to be the villain. But WHY?

Why?

Because of power. I didn’t want to be weak anymore. I didn’t want to go on thinking that I was useless. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was better than they thought I was. Since nobody seemed to think that highly of me anyway, why not go the whole way, but in the way that I preferred?

It’s so easy to blame Tony Stark for Killian’s turn to villainy, or to blame my parents and/or family for my morbid thoughts… thoughts and ideas that I feel still define me in ways today (albeit decreasing, which is good). But. These events are due in part to my feeling that I didn’t have a choice. Whether I was truly trapped by external forces, or trapped by my own thoughts – I felt I had no choice, and no strength or power. And then we use what is within our grasp – what we have learned from others, or what we know might hurt them the most, to try and turn the tables. . .

Read the rest of the story! Visit But Why Would Anyone Want to be That? | A Frequent Sadness.

The Elephant in the Room

I know people mean well, but I have said before that I’m just not good with pity, I just don’t really know how to react to it. But that’s not the sole reason I don’t talk about my depression. One of the biggest things I always worry about is that If I tell someone how I feel they will think I am trying to bring them down, and that is not what I’m trying to do. I realise I’m not the most positive person in the world, I never really have been. But that’s just me. I like to think that I don’t just talk about my depression. I try to make jokes, I try to make everyone else happy. Sometimes I’m so busy making everyone else happy I forget about myself, but that’s another piece for another day. . .

I’m not trying to guilt trip anyone by telling them I’m depressed, and that’s another thing I worry about as I realise that one day I may have to tell my parents about this. Because instead of being sympathetic, they would blame themselves and that is not what I’m trying to make someone do. I know that how I feel is not the fault of anyone in particular, people contribute to my good and bad feelings but overall this is just me. But I’m also not asking to be fixed, personally I don’t think I am fixable. And maybe I don’t want to be “fixed” It’s not that easy to undo 10 years of my brains constant domineering.

Read the post in its entirety! Visit Bring You Down | The Elephant in the Room.

A Frequent Sadness – Can Someone Please Explain this to Me?

For a few months now (or at least since I’ve been through CBT), I’ve been feeling pretty OK.

And in that time I’ve been feeling a bit of a fraud.

I don’t get it. Perhaps someone can explain this to me?

I’m not ungrateful for feeling better – but it’s not really what I expected. I can still remember sitting in my doctor’s office (psychiatrist) and telling her that I felt like it wasn’t going to end. That was probably about 9 months ago. In a way, I almost can’t believe that it has happened – despite trusting my psychiatrist and going ahead with all that she suggested, working hard on my sleep schedule, avoiding things that stressed me out.

And yet. . .

As I recover, I am changing – I knew that I was going to come out of this whole experience a different person. I just didn’t know how much. Not so much that my personality was unrecognisable, but enough to change unhelpful habits and distorted thoughts into more mature coping mechanisms.

Right now, I feel pretty strange. I almost feel like I want to go back to being depressed. When I read the blogs written by fellow sufferers, I identify with them, and yet, since I almost do not feel depressed anymore, nor do I exhibit explicit symptoms of depression… I feel like a fraud. I feel like I’ve made up my own experience – because I am no longer experiencing it. I’m trying to tell myself that it such thoughts are invalid. Why would a happy, sane, human being make up miserable memories? I’m weird, but not that weird. (That’s me trying to use CBT by the way!). . .

Furthermore, I have realised this (this is what hit me): That as I recover and learn how to cope, the feelings of being sad and angry will start to fade. BUT it doesn’t mean that these feelings are automatically replaced with happiness. Often, these feelings are replaced with nothing. Why? Because learning how to cope, and learning how to be happy again are not always the same thing. It seems pretty obvious, but not always. Because when you are in a desperate situation, you are probably more likely to believe that everything will be better, if only this desperate situation were to be resolved. Except that is a convenient lie that you believe to keep yourself going forward. Believing that things will get better in itself is no bad thing, and it is not false. What is false is the belief of immediate relief, and the assumption that you will know what to do with yourself with all this is over.

Read the rest of the story! Visit Can Someone Please Explain this to Me? | A Frequent Sadness.

lockedoutoflife

Take from me that
Which is not yours to take
Give me something I did not ask for
Something so very fake

The things ahead are much different now
Different from what they could have been
This life I live is painful and mutilated
When it could have been joyful and beautiful

Here I lay dazed and confused
As I reminisce the possibilities
All that could have been different
At the signature of my days. . .

Read the post in its entirety! Visit Take the Pledge… | lockedoutoflife.

blahpolar diaries

I’m too new at this whole thing to make much sense of and on it myself, but yes sir I can google … so I did. Most of the initial hits spoke of the upside of hypomania (a potentially irresponsible angle) and one offered me a course for $99. . .

If you read Too Loud To Hear Too Bright To See by Juliann Garey, you’ll get a good look at how it all plays out right on the edge. Same thing, I think, if you read as much of Carrie Fisher’s writing as possible.

I’ve only just been diagnosed, but I’m already completely fed up with I hate bipolar it’s awesome memes. . .

Perhaps the thing to remember though, is that regardless of stats and studies, regardless even of reality itself, if you’re cursed with bipolar, you may as well learn to appreciate its blessings too. But probably not by fucking with your meds to attempt to harness hypomania. . .

Anyway, that’s the Google overview and now it’s installed in my brain, I’ll ponder it as I go along. And I’m on the lookout for benefits that don’t arise from hypomania.

Read the post in its entirety! Visit bipolars with benefits | blahpolar diaries.

Eating Disorder Drive Thru

It’s funny, in the eating disorder world they always say that a girl with an eating disorder is a personal trainer’s dream, and, well, they were right. I just didn’t know it yet. I’m a perfectionist, always have been. I’m sure a LOT of you girls are too, perfectionism is pretty common. I won’t undertake any task unless I know I can complete it and complete it well. I’m a tick in the box kinda girl. That’s how my Dad refers to it. So weight loss became another one of those boxes I wanted to tick. I followed my diet plan to a tee, exercised and trained the allocated amount, maybe even a little more. It’s really cool to start seeing changes, especially when I’d NEVER seen such changes before. But I wanted more, I wanted to train harder and diet harder so I could be even skinnier, I didn’t really tell my trainer this.

It worked for a while. . . but it was strange. . . Even though I’d ticked the box I was still so overwhelmingly unsatisfied. I’d say this is where the disorder began to kick in.

Read the post in its entirety! Visit I’d like a small serving of weight loss, a medium anxiety meal, and your largest plate of self-hatred, drizzled in isolation | Eating Disorder Drive Thru.

Trigger Warning: Eating disorder (numbers and some detail)

A Little Fearless

What makes it even more difficult is that there is a part of me that is capable of so many things when I’m not bound up in this mental straightjacket. Whatever it is that I want to learn or do, I can…when I’m functional.

But that makes it even more confusing to others. How can a person who is so capable be so non-functional?

I try my best to explain – but how exactly do you explain something so peculiar? How can I communicate just how overwhelming these challenges are? The brutal truth of the matter is that there really is no way to do so. . .

And so, at least for the time being, I continue to reside in this mental purgatory, however unjust that may be. I do my best to remind myself that my focus is on healing, not trying and repeatedly failing to explain my behavior to those who cannot comprehend why I act the way I do.

I completely understand why they don’t get it, and am eternally grateful for how much love and compassion that is given to me for an invisible injury. I am so grateful for those who believe the existence of my pain without being able to understand it.

Read the post in its entirety! Visit Blog for Mental Health 2014 – A Little Fearless.

The happy pages

The seven months since I was diagnosed have past in a blur, but I am stronger. I am better. I fight everyday. I refuse to let anything or anyone put me in a state of agitation and anxiety, yet I find that the biggest predator in this battle between life and death, is just myself.

I hold the keys to my jail. I just can’t figure out how to work them into unlocking the door.

I have a partner, who has been supporting me in my recovery and lately, I have found that he too is suffering from feelings of lowness.
I feel at fault.

The one thing I hate the most, more than whatever is going on in my own head and my own life, is watching others live in pain.
My focus now is on changing this throughout the world, for whom ever will accept the efforts I make.

Read the post in its entirety! Visit Blog For Mental Health 2014: The Happy Pages | The happy pages.

What is therapy like?

I started adding the writing and sketches of my therapy process in a blog as a way to document the process for myself.

I also hoped that by sharing my experiences it might help someone else on a similar journey.

“I pledge my commitment to the Blog for Mental Health 2014 Project. I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others. By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health. I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.”

Read the post in its entirety — and have a look at the sketches! Visit Blog for Mental Health 2014 | What is therapy like?.

Normal in Training – Darkness and Light, Part 2

I am deeply saddened by Robin Williams’ death. I love the roles he chose as an actor. He was a comedic genius. And he was full of life–a light that seemed to shine a little brighter than the average star.

As a psychologist, I don’t have any special knowledge about why Robin Williams committed suicide. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know him personally. I wasn’t his therapist. I do know that, no matter how well you think you know someone, it is difficult to fathom the depths of the darkness they live in. Because who wants to share that with other people? Who wants to burden other people with additional darkness? It’s hard enough to deal with our own.

I also know what it’s like to have multiple depressive episodes. My psychiatrist compared relapses to breaking your leg in the same place multiple times: with every break you become more vulnerable to injury; it takes a little longer to recover each time. . .

I don’t think it’s fair to accuse Robin Williams of being weak. Clearly, based on his body of work, he was anything but weak. He was fighting it all the time.

I was also taken aback by the anger that some people felt about his suicide. But I don’t judge them for it. I can understand why, if you have been personally affected by suicide, you would identify more with the people who are left behind and have to make sense of this loss for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, I have never been there, but if my dad had ever given in to his demons, I know I would have been devastated.

I think that people who see mental illness as a weakness, an excuse, or a nonexistent entity fear the darkness in themselves. They try to deny it in themselves and in others as vehemently as possible, lest it find a way to escape. But some of us don’t have that luxury. We can’t lock our depression in a closet and throw away the key; it is too powerful. It does not obey our will.

Read the rest of the story. Visit Normal in Training: Darkness and Light, Part 2.

Toss the Typewriter – Is It Ever Enough?

If you are following the news right now, you know that Robin Williams suffered from addiction and depression and finally succumbed to his illnesses. It is incredibly sad to lose yet another talented person to these dual diseases.

So many of our children and loved ones battle co-occurring disorders. Although they are not publicly recognized, they are talented, intelligent, and amazing people. Often, these brilliant stars have only us on their sides; and I know we all wonder, will that be enough?

Rest in peace, Mr. Williams. Rest in peace.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is

1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Note: For help outside of the United States, please refer to the resources listed here as one way to connect you with compassionate, understanding, and supportive people.

Read the rest of the story. Visit Is It Ever Enough? | Toss the Typewriter.