Fustrated

     Guess I should start with an update before I ramble about the shit that is happening now so things make sense. I finally found a good balance of meds, I did great at my job, I was loving it, life was okay, nothing exciting but I was "Normal", and okay and then I reconnected with someone from my past who lived out of state we started a long distance relationship and I eventually moved to his home state and in with him and eventually his kids moved in with us full time, you can read all about that (it kind of overlaps with this blog) HERE. if you want to know about my adventures into "step-motherhood and my relationship.




      Okay so that is a very brief synopsis, like I said detail on the other page. I like to write, it helps me work things out, it feels good to share even if no one else ever reads my ramblings, it's therapeutic to me and maybe I'm a little narcissistic. Back to the point, I'm fucking frustrated! At this moment because I am using a shitty keyboard that keeps sticking but that is the least of it. Once I moved up to my new home I had the joy of trying to find a new psychiatrist, it was number one on my list, my mental health is always my top priority. I took me a while to find one taking new patients, that was covered by my insurance and that was in a practical location. I found someone and from day one I didn't really like him. He never looked at me, he sat behind his computer and typed I mean even introducing myself he didn't even shake my hand or anything. First thing he did was change my meds. Great. Of course every doctor thinks the know best and doesn't understand why the previous doctor would have you on the meds you were on. 😒 So he put me on klonopin, amitriptyline and kept my carbamazepine removing my trazadone and geodon. Yeah, adjusting to new meds, in a new place in a new life with a new job.(I swear this is going someplace) It didn't go so smooth, especially with the new job, I called in a lot to a brand new job, coming up with every reason you can think of when really it was just my brain freaking out. I eventually confessed to my new job and got covered by ADA since I was on the verge of being fired. As it turns out I hate my fuck job.....HATE IT. Back to the doctor, so I tell the doctor I'm not having such good luck with the meds, still not sleeping well, waking up in the middle of the night, lighting a cigarette and falling asleep and either burning myself (I'm covered in burns on my chest, stomach and even arm of burn in various staged of healing) or burning huge holes in my pillows, and blanket, how it hasn't caught on fire I have no idea. What does he do, ups my dose.


      I'm not manic, I do have days where I have a little more "Pep" than others and I do have days when getting out of bed isn't gonna happen but for those to days are few and far between so I can give him that, but I still can not sleep. No matter what I do my brain will not turn off without LOTS of meds and now I have what I call "work anxiety". I can't explain enough how much I hate my job and I'm not going to go into the many reasons why, but whenever I know I have to work the next day I start having panic attacks around 7pm the night before, I can't sleep or I take more and more meds until they put me in a coma and then when I have to get up like 3 hours later I wake up loaded off my ass. It's just bad all around. So I go to my psychiatrist this past week and I tell him all of this and ask him what can I do? Can maybe I go back to an old med, switch meds, try a different dose or something because the burning myself and everything and not sleeping just isn't working. His response quit smoking and change jobs. My eyes rolled back to last year.


      Seriously if it was that fucking easy don't you think I would have done that shit? I mean I only smoke at night when I am in bed and I think it has to do with my meds and them making me loaded because I don't smoke the rest of the day and if I could just NOT smoke don't you think I would, I mean think of the money I would save. Second don't you think I've been looking for another job M'Fer, when I told him that he was like well just quit this one now and you will eventually find another one. Really? And who is going to pay for YOU! And my rent and utility bills and put food on my table, you know not be homeless. He had no actual help or advice for me beside be homeless. I tried to explain I have full blown panic attacks where I'm crying and can't breathe all over this stupid job and as much as I would like to do the fuck you dance and remove the "stress trigger" I can't without something else in place.


Anyways that is my frustration of the moment. I can get why he would rather have me remove the stressor than use meds as a crutch but it would still be nice to have some support and not be covered in burns and worried that my house isn't going to burn down any night now with everyone in it. Okay end rant.

I'm having a bad weekend

The depression part of bipolar is not sleeping but a few hours a night (or sleeping non stop) and then just laying in bed crying for no reason at all besides the fact that your brain chemistry is off and ruining your whole weekend because you can't seem to pry yourself out of bed even to take a shower and you snap at everyone for any little thing and you feel completely useless because shit needs to be done and you can't seem to motivate yourself to do it no matter how much you want to. I'm having a bad weekend.

I could barely drag myself out of bed yesterday but I did manage to do the dishes and cook dinner. I got into a spat with my SD over a fucking meatball that she wouldn't split with her brother and I could tell the whole thing pissed off my BF when she went crying and stomped up the stairs. (Seriously, it was the last one, share!) I'm stressed over money, I feel like shit because my bf is about to start working 10 hour shifts 6 days a week, today is his only day off and I can't seem to climb my ass out of bed or stop crying so he is at the laundry mat washing our clothes which makes me feel even worse because I'm a pos who can't function. I haven't even bathed in 3 days because it just seems like an impossible task for some reason. Why does bathing seem so hard? I wish I could get food delivered to my bed because right now it would take a crowbar to get me out, like I will just deal with the hunger pains.

Take this zen shove it.

So I've been having a shit day and my nerves are shot so I decided I'm going to do some yoga and guided meditation and try to breathe and OM this shit down. I go downstairs clear everything out of the way and the sound on my TV won't come on.WTF. I fuck with all of the cords for 5 minutes plugging and unplugging everything and nothing.The cursing begins. Frustrated I unplug everything plug it all back in and tada, it works, Awesome, lets get this OM shit going. I pull up my Fire TV and try to sign into my account and it keeps telling my email is not registered. What.The.Fuck. I begin to curse at my TV yelling "Yes it is you cock sucking piece of shit!". Deep breath. I go back up stairs to my computer and log into my email and verify a bunch of shit and go back downstairs and it lets me log in. Sweet. I find a video that looks promising and hit play. A few breaths while trying to bat Smeegle away and the video suddenly goes back to the home screen. You have to be fucking kidding me. I start the video and try to fast forward to where I was at and fast forwarding isn't an option...Okay try to remain peaceful and calm, I could use the extra breathing anyways. I start from the beginning and get about 2 minutes further and it does it again. I inhale deeply gritting my teeth and start over. 2 minutes past the last point it does it again. At this point I swear to god I'm going to rip somethings head off, all I want to do is some muthafuckin kumbaya breathing and relaxation. Cursing in a way that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush I now go reset my internet connection and choose a different video. Everything is going good, I'm about 5 minutes into the video, Smeegle has stopped trying to headbutt me in downward facing dog and freezes and the cuts off. It took everything in me not to throw my remote through the TV.

Messing with my head.

So tomorrow I start my new job. I'm super excited about it, it's doing something I love and something that I went to college and completed, something I'm good at so why am I sitting here crying and having panic attacks? This is the conversation going on in my head.

Side A: I'm so excited to working in this field again and at this facility, I've wanted to work here FOREVER

Side B: Don't be to happy, you won't be there long. I mean what we're you thinking getting a job 40 minutes away, with severe traffic and with you having to be there at 7 or 8 am. You work nights remember!

Side A crying: I can adjust, it will be rough but I can do it. Plus she told me that she had one spot open and several candidates and she picked ME. They want me there.

Side B: What if you can't hack it? You sprained your shoulder last time and it's still not healed. What if your co-workers hate you? What if you just can't do the job? What if you fuck up big time? This is going to be a disaster, you should just not even humiliate yourself like this.

Side A now curled up in a ball crying: fuck, fuck, fuck, what was I thinking! Fuck. What do I do? What do I do? Fuck I really need this! Breathe.... In for 4, hold for 7, release for 8. Now repeat. Fuck this, where's the drugs. God I hope I don't wake up high because them I'm really fucked. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. Last time I dreaded it and it was great, it will be great this time!

Side B: Lies.

Reality Check

So the last few weeks I have been feeling really great and "normal" for the most part. My mania hasn't been uncontrollable, my depression hasn't been debilitating, I've been really aware of my triggers and avoiding them and I was excited and hopeful. Then today happened.

I have been wanting to work at the spca for as long as I can remember, I've applied a bunch of times and never heard back and this past Saturday I finally got the call and the interview was the next day. Interview went great, and I was told I would hear back by the end of the week if they wanted me to come I'm for a working interview where I basically volunteer for a day to see it we all fit, it's pretty standard for shelters. Yesterday I got the call asking if I could come in tomorrow (which is today) for my working interview. I was stoked!

After the excitement wore off I realized that I was going to have to wake up at like 6am...my usual bedtime. Right now I feel defeated, frustrated, disappointed and angry with myself. I feel like my bipolar was like "Oh, you think you got rid of me? Guess again bitch" and it decided to show me who's really in charge of my mind and my life. It just doesn't make sense, unlike the last interview panic attack, I actually really, really want this job! I wasn't dreading it, I was looking forward to it so why the panic attacks? It makes no sense.

I don't sleep all night, not even 5 minutes. I get to the back gate like they tell me to and I can't get it. There is a buzzer no one is answering and I don't have a passcode, I'm just stuck waiting, anxiety building. Finally I get let in by someone and they show me where I should go but the manager isn't there so I awkwardly wait outside of the manager's door. People keep passing and looking at me strange or asking if I'm lost and my anxiety keeps building along with my lack of sleep and I know that this is going to end bad. The one of the other staff members comes and asks me if I'm okay and my anxiety peaks and I pop and start crying. Yep I start crying in front of a total stranger. She asks what's wrong and the first thing I can think of is telling her that I got into a car accident on my way there and I was shook up. (I had been in a accident and my car had damage) She called the manager and told her what happened and they rescheduled me for next week. What a fucking disaster.

There's nothing worse than having no control over your mind and moods, to not have control over the thoughts in your head or your body's reaction to them. It fucking sucks and I feel powerless and it my illnesses mercy. Just when I thought I was back in control and getting my life back together I got hit with a reality check, it was all just a farce.

No meds

Can't sleep, repetitive thoughts of stupid shit and frustration of trying to remember what the repetitive thought that you had last night that kept you awake but you didn't write down because it was so repetitive you figured there was no was to forget it. Yeah. It just sucks because I was kinda feeling balanced and hopeful of getting my life back together and a week off doesn't seem like a big deal but it is. I will have to fight with my brain to take my meds because manic me won't want to and paranoid me will freak about the side effects. Then I will have to adjust to them again because I will feel doped and brain for and zombie like until I "adapt" and it will take a while before I stabilize again. It's a pain in the ass. 24 hours off and I'm slipping but it takes about 2-3 weeks on to be "stable". It's just frustrating, I just want my life back and control over my brain and emotions and moods.

It's the small things

All at want more than anything else at this moment in time is to be able to sleep. That's all, just sleep, is that to much to ask for? I didn't sleep much the days leading up to Halloween due to stress of preparing my house to be put on the market, after the realtor came last Monday I fell asleep for hours as soon as she left.

I slept okay Tuesday, Wednesday night I had the weird hypnagogic sleep (I need to do more research on it) Thursday 3 hours, Friday 2 hours and last night a whole 45 minutes. This is all with meds that are supposed to make me sleep, it's ridiculous. It try with meds all night and around 7 or 8 am I just give up.

Trazodone doesn't work, Geodon isn't working, Hydroxyzine isn't working, Benadryl isn't working, nothing is working. I would happily take a good thump to the head to knock me out.

I had a job interview yesterday so I thought my insomnia was do to the stress of it and that it would go away and I would sleep like after the realtor came, but that didn't happen. The interview sucked. I had a panic attack getting ready, had to seriously sit in the car and calm myself before I went in and then try not to cry from anxiety and nerves the entire time while I'm sure looking amped like a meth head.

I could feel the adrenaline rushing which makes me shake and fidget and my speech is really fast and my voice trembles, it's a fucking mess. I could tell I was making them uncomfortable. It doesn't matter too much, as much as I need a job this was minimum wage (which I haven't been paid since I was in high school) and the house was disgusting and a roach motel. Roaches are my biggest fear so seeing them all over didn't help the anxiety, I didn't want to touch or sit on anything.

I wish I could just get this shit under control already. No point in stressing over it though, all it will do is make it even harder to sleep which I hope I will do tonight. Wish me luck.

Abort!

So I was talking to a really good friend of mine tonight and I told him I'm slightly worried about being home alone the next few days and he asks why. So I tell him I've had a few back outs and I leave and don't remember where I went or what I did so I've been giving people my keys at night so I can't do that and now that I'm alone the next few days it's going to be interesting.
He was a little in shock, actually is exact response was "say whaaa!!"

Hmmm. Do I go further and explain a little or not? So I simply say it will be interesting since I haven't slept in like 3 days.

His response. "drink some tea and go to bed .. thats what im doin"

My brain simply yells "abort! abort! Come back to the closet, shut the door, quick!"

I simply laugh and tell him good night.

I have to remember not everyone wants to really know what I'm going through, they don't want the truth, they prefer the mask and the lie. It just sucks when it's someone you really WANT to be a person who would let you come out of the closet and be open and honest with and you find out you can't even a little bit. I mean if he can't deal with that, fuuuucck, he would really bolt with the rest.

So far I have 3 people that I can actually be 100% absolutely honest with, one of them being my mom. I still scare the shit out of her but honestly is the only way this (whatever that is) can work, I have to tell her the weird and scary shit. She has to be aware to help keep me "safe", he being in the dark isn't an option if I want to get better.

The other two are people who also have mental illnesses, one being bipolar. I don't scare them and they don't think I'm lying or insane. They may say that's crazy, if I tell them something that happened became they haven't experienced it, but I don't scare them or freak them out. I can take off my mask with them. All have to do is let the littlest bit of true bipolar slip and it's easy to see who can handle it and who can't.

The only other person I've tried sharing with isn't scared but he doesn't get it. He still thinks I can "snap" out of it or if this changes I will be happy or better. He just doesn't get it.

I'm trying to be open with my bipolar, but I don't want to scare every one away either. I don't want people to not want to be in my life because they can't handle it but damn lying and hiding and wearing a mask is exhausting sometimes. Oh well, I guess I will just keep flashing people bits of my bipolar and see what happens.

I hate this.

I've been up for days now with short little 15 minutes of naps but not real sleep. My attempt to knock myself out with meds last night just put me in some weird state between asleep and awake. Really weird thoughts all over the place with an exhausted body and possible hallucinations. I feel like death. Like I want to puke but can't, I want to sleep but can't, I'm super shaky, my whole body hurts but feels numb and tingling, I'm hot but I have the shivers..... this blows. It's like my body wants to do 2 things at once in every possible way and it's fighting with itself. Trying to talk my voice shakes and my lips and tongue feel numb like when you get lidocaine at the dentist. I'm fucking miserable. I'm pretty sure I'm actively dying. The best part is this happens like twice a month but it's becoming more frequent. 

I was having these "episodes" before any medication so I don't think it's that. I think it's just pure physical and mental exhaustion from not sleeping for days besides little light 10 minute cat naps. Even when I "sleep" I'm aware. It's hard to describe, like my body shuts off but my brain keeps going and I still have all of the racing thought and even think to myself thank God my body is asleep for a moment and and I can hear everything around me and still be thinking about other things. Its so hard to explain, it's almost like my mind and body detach, it's not on out of body thing, like I don't see myself or anything but I'm aware my body is "asleep" and if someone was to see me they would think I'm asleep but I'm not, at least my brain is not so when I "wake" I'm still exhausted like I never slept because my mind never shut off.

Drugs are bad McKay.

   So, my mom and I were having brunch on Saturday and as we were eating and laughing she suddenly asked me if I ever take drugs. I’m not sure if this has to do with the video I made that shared the aspect of bipolar where people can be prone to recreational drug use or the fact that the day before I could have easily been mistaken for someone high as a kite on crack or meth. I assure her I’m not but if I was it sure as hell wouldn’t be an upper, I can do that all on my own, and if I was to take a drugs I would smoke some weed to chill my ass out, but unfortunately it makes me paranoid and that’s the last thing I need. (For the record I don’t really consider weed a “drug” but it’s illegal in my state so..)

   As a teen I smoked weed, took LSD and dabbled in pills but I’ve never used cocaine or heroin (despite dating a addict for years) and unlike most people I hate alcohol and have only been drunk maybe 3 times in my life and hated it, the only non-prescription drug I take is high doses Benadryl to force me to sleep and my doctors are aware of that.  So with that said, I find it bizarre that in some manic states, especially if I get in a really self destructive state, I WANT to do drugs and get high. I want to just destroy everything and get completely fucked up and wasted and dance on tables and lose my absolute mind. I crave drugs I’ve never tried and if offered them I’m not sure I would say no because I’m in a “fuck everything” mode. I don’t go out an actually seek them because that would require me to be someone social which I am not and put myself in extremely dangerous situations based in the city that I live in and even though I am in a “fuck everything” mind space, I’m not in a suicidal one and am I at least rational enough to not put my safety at risk. Not yet anyway.

   I’m a bit of a medical geek (I have been since I was little) so I always try to analyze my own behavior and signs and symptoms and I am very self-aware of my thoughts, actions and conditions and that my behavior is not “normal”. This doesn’t mean that I can control or stop my thoughts or behavior it just means usually, if I can, I like to “study” or capture something that is happening in the moment on film or take notes and study it later in a different mind state. Being that I don’t have insurance I rely on government care which means I was evaluated by a few different people, diagnosed and then given meds and I check in every 3 months to see if my meds are working or not. I don’t get actual “care”, I don’t get therapy, just some pills and me to figure out, control, and modify my actions and behaviors to try to improve myself and my current state. I’m lucky that I have a very vast medical background and understanding of mental illness and that for the time being I am self aware, but most don’t and I might not remain self aware.

   So at the time being I am able to refrain from recreational drug use but it’s not for a lack of craving them even if I have never tried them or liked them in the past. I’ve considered if it was the behavior or the actual drugs I have wanted during these times and it’s for sure the drugs, I can act out the behavior without them.  Our brain is such a bizarre and fascinating thing. I plan on writing more on this subject because I have more views but I don't want this post to be like 50 paragraphs long so I will just end it here. 

K 

A Synopsis of my History and Current Battle with Bipolar

   Earlier this month was mental health awareness week, the goal is to fight stigma, provide support, educate the public and advocate for equal care. One of the ways people were participating was opening up and talking about their mental illnesses and not being ashamed of them to help remove the stigma attached to it. Everyone knows someone with a mental illness whether they are aware of it or not. People with diabetes, or fibromyalgia or asthma don’t have to hide, lie about or be ashamed of their illnesses that are out of their control and they are free to advocate and educate without having a stigma attached to them and hopefully one day soon people with mental illness will be able to do the same. To help make that possible people suffering with an illness need to stop hiding and start making it a regular part of the conversation. This is me starting my own conversation and sharing my story. Grab a snack if you plan to actually read all of this.

   I was initially diagnosed with Bipolar (aka Manic Depressive) when I was 23 (I'm now 35). I had been through a lot in the year leading up to my diagnosis, I had lost a lot of loved ones in a short amount of time, ended a serious relationship forcing me to move back home, I entered a very bad relationship, I had left my promising career as a zookeeper on a impulse out of anger (which I now know is very bipolar thing to do), I was homeless for a time and I was a mess. When I was 22 I had starting self harming to deal with the stress and pressures and depression I was going through (That’s a whole different topic I will touch on later) and I kept it hidden for a really long time. When it was finally discovered I was in a really bad place mentally, I was severely depressed and my mind was in a really dark and ugly place so when I was offered help I took it, I needed it.

   When I started therapy I had two people I was seeing a psychiatrist and a psychologist and together they diagnosed me as Manic Depressive/Bipolar. When I was given my diagnosis they handed me 2 pamphlets, one on bipolar and one on depression and a handful of prescriptions. That was it. As crazy it seems my family has never been one to have all of the newest technology first so we didn’t have the internet at my house (we didn’t even have cable until I was like 17) so unless I went to the library I really didn’t have much access to find out more information besides what was given to my on the tri-fold given to me. After reading both I decided I was just suffering from depression, I hadn’t been happy in a year I surely hadn’t been manically happy like described in the pamphlet and they were wrong, also the meds me a zombie so I quit talking them all except anti-depressant (without my doctors knowing)

   Fast-forward to the last year and a half or so. I remained on my anti-depressants all of this time, I had tried quitting them but the detox is a bitch so I just kept taking them. In 2013 I left my last stable job with insurance while my other meds were pretty cheap, my anti-depressant were not and to save myself some money I decided that I was going to wean myself off of them. Another thing that had influenced that decision was also that I had been on them so long, how do I know if I even need them anymore? Maybe I “grew” out my depression or something who knows. Bad Choice.

   While anti-depressants are not used to treat bipolar (in fact they can be harmful to take if you are bipolar) I think mine kept my mood swings slightly in check, not completely but enough that I was getting by, I was functioning. Looking back now I was definitely having mood swings and showing all of the classic signs of bipolar, the irritability, tons of sudden burst of creativity and projects started and never finishing them, thinking of all of these great idea and things I was going to do and become and see, sleep issues, spending $80.00 on burts bees chapstick when you don’t even use chapstick, textbook mania. I recently saw a video of me when I was obviously in a manic episode, the fast talking, racing mind, overly happy, I would have slapped me I was so annoying. It was there, it just wasn’t bad enough for it to really fuck up my life or for other people to see it as something wrong. Instead of seeing bipolar, I was considered a bitch, told I was too sensitive, told I was lazy, selfish, unrealistic in my goals, that I never followed through, I was unreliable, antisocial, to talkative, over reactive, dramatic, short tempered etc….I was all of those things, but there was a reason I was all of those things, I’m bipolar.

   I was (and hope to resume studying to be a midwife), about a year ago the midwife I was studying under decided to retire which had kinda left me screwed for lack of a better word. The stress of not knowing how I am going to finish school, along with the thought of having to move across the country to do so and financial worries started me into a tailspin. I was hiding my bipolar pretty well for a while and then in July I had an extremely bad panic attack at the wrong place at the wrong time and I couldn’t hide how bad it had gotten any longer. I had been having small panic attacks for a few months but this one was at a level I didn’t realize was possible. I had no choice but to tell my mom what had been going on and ask for help, I was no longer able to hide it or really function normally. Since I don’t have insurance I had to start looking into public health clinics and such and the soonest available appointment was in 13 weeks, which I was finally able to go to last week.

   It’s been a very trying 13 weeks for everyone, I got a few meds from my regular doctor who decided to take the opportunity of having a crying mess of a woman alone as the last patient to inappropriately touch me, because who will people believe the doctor or the woman on the handful of meds? The medications he gave me made me a zombie and were not very help full.

   My manic episodes have increased and have become much more intense, if you have ever seen the tv show Homeland and the chick goes "crazy"…that’s been me. My brain runs a thousand miles a minute, my thoughts race and jump all over, I can’t focus on one thing, and my speech is really fast at times to match it. I’m very anxious about my things and people touching my things and being in my space, it can really send me almost into a panic attack at times. I don’t do well with change at the moment, painting my room was horrible, I know it’s simply a new paint color but my brain just doesn’t handle things like that well at the moment. Also packing my room so we can sell the house has been a huge ordeal but thankfully my mother is a saint and has been very understanding and tolerant of my madness, she see’s my struggle. I can also be very short tempered and get frustrated easily and have moment of rage, something as simple as not being able to find my comb can set me off big time, again, my mother would be a saint if she was catholic.

  I'm not going to lie, the mania is not always bad, I can become super creative (jewelry making) and super productive, I become goal oriented and get shit done, I have ambition, I’m super happy and want to dance around and be social and everything is rainbows and whales, the world is brighter and music sounds better and it’s amazing and it’s great. That stage of mania can be addictive, that phase of mania is why a lot of people either go off of their meds or refuse to take them, it’s a high without the drugs. When I am in certain stages of mania I won’t sleep for days because my brain won’t turn off or it gets stuck on one idea and won’t let go. When we went to Oregon earlier this month we wanted to get a wind chime as a souvenir and we didn’t so I looked up how to make them (creative spike) and since I did that I can’t sleep at night because all my brain can do is focus on this fucking wind chime, I even went to Lowe's and looked priced supplies and that has helped some but my brain gets stuck on things and won’t let go of them.

   Not all mania is fun and rainbows and whales either, it can extremely dangerous and scary not only for me but for those around me. It’s what I imagine what it would be like being on coke, but it’s just my brain chemistry being off. I will be up for days and even my meds won't help, my brain races really fast and jumps around and I will lost my train of thought, my speech will be so fast it is hard to keep up with and I can't stop moving, I will pace around my house and keep picking things up and setting them down. I've worked in the medical field for a long time now, if I saw me, I wouldn't believe that I wasn't on drugs. 

My depression has also gotten worse. It’s not as frequent and so far it hasn’t lasted as long as my manic phases have but it’s much worse than it was before. I will lock myself in my room for days at a time and won’t do anything but sleep, I barley even eat. The world comes crashing down around me and everything is black and dark and everything hurts, physically hurts. Nothing in the world can pull me out of my bed or room at these times and I will lock my door and not let anyone in. Someday I can even start as one and transition to the other phase or have both at the same time, those are the worse, your mind had rapid and repeated depressing thoughts and it’s bad.

So that is my story as of now, it’s not over and hopefully it improves. This is not to say I don’t have normal days, I do, but right now they are fewer and farther in between but I do have them. I finally got to see a doctor at the free clinic and let me tell you our mental health care system sucks. Really sucks. Thankfully I have family to help me but I now understand how so many people end up on the street. I was evaluated by two people over several hours given a bunch of medications and told to come back in 3 months. I go there once a month for my refills and have a check in every 3 months to see if they need to be adjusted, that’s it. That’s scary.

So that is my back story, I'm not sure what my plans are with this blog as of yet. For me writing is very therapeutic, so a of this might just be like a journal open to the world to see what it's like in my mind and how this all effects me and hopefully to journal my progress back to being more functional and onto being a midwife. Some of it will be informative and to help educate people on bipolar disorder and help other's learn as I learn. I don't know how often I will write, at times it might be several times a day other times it might be once a month we shall see. So welcome to My Jagged Mind.

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