So I haven't blogged since January, despite my good intentions back then. A lot has happened...a lot of water under the bridge since then. Some good, most of it bad. Its hard to believe we're almost into September now...hard to believe the entire spring and summer has flown by and here we are, a month into the new school year already.
So I'm in a real funk right now. I went to see my shrink last week...it was a scheduled appointment, but so timely. I've been having more and more "nervous breakdowns" of late...things that are so small they're laughable are sending me over the edge...things I'd just shrug off in the past are now causing me so much stress that I'm breaking down into hyperventilating tears over them. This is not the "me" I know...and I'm certainly not loving this "me"...at all.
The pain is...well, its pain. Its a daily constant...on the one hand, you get used to it. You expect it when you open your eyes in the morning...you know that when you move your right leg, your lower back is going to explode into agony, all the way up into your shoulder blades and lower skull. You know that when you move your left leg to join the right leg, a whole 'nother layer of agony is going to join that first layer and make the top of your skull blow right off, but these are the things you have to do to get yourself going in the mornings. Sometimes, its all you can do to shuffle (or crawl, as the case may be) to the bathroom, then manage to make it back into the bed...other mornings you're more fortunate and can get up, get dressed, and somewhat function throughout the day. Those days are called "good days" and I live for those.
On the other hand, the pain is unbearable at times. It makes you cry, it makes you scream, it makes you curl into a fetal position and beg for obliteration. It makes a Christian contemplate suicide and whether a life of eternal damnation would be worth it, if the pain would only stop for a moment. Its made me wonder if I go swimming against a strong current in a river, and drown, would it be suicide? I'm not a strong swimmer at all, so I suppose it WOULD be suicide and I'd still go to hell, since my intent would be suicide.
Take your pain pills, the doctors say...that's why I've prescribed them. Oh, so easy to say, so easy to do! I don't want to end up like my grandmother though! Or my brother's wife...oh no, not me! My grandmother was addicted to every pain pill she could get her hands on, and many the times I remember flying up to Purvis with my mother because we'd gotten a call from Mamaw that "there's blood all over the floor" only to get there and find Mamaw passed out on the floor with the phone in her hands from taking too many pain pills. Thankfully, there'd be no blood anywhere in sight, just vomit and urine usually. The messes I can remember helping to clean up while waiting for the ambulance to come, to preserve Mamaw's "dignity." I can remember these scenes as far back as my memory goes...so no, I do not want to take my pain pills unless I absolutely need to...I have just about every pain pill under the sun in my medicine cabinet...I horde them almost obsessively...whether to prove something to myself or to Mamaw, who died in 1991, is beyond me...all I know is that its almost like a disease in and of itself, this hording of pills...I won't take them, but I can't throw them away...they're like trophies...a badge of honor of sorts...
I wonder sometimes if there's more going on with me than just being bipolar. Is there something worse wrong with me? Mamaw was bipolar...Daddy suffers from clinical depression but also from...either schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. Growing up, we recognized three distinct personalities with him, which is what makes me think its multiple personality disorder, but I'm not sure if that's what he was diagnosed when he spent time in Whitfield or not. I doubt his own family even knows he went to Whitfield a few times...he was so anxious to put forth the "I'm perfect" face and make US look like the losers of the family, especially Mom. All I have to say to that is...who's the one who's in prison? Hmmm? Exactly. NOT me. But I do worry that I have something deeper going on with me than just being bipolar.
The 24th was my tenth wedding anniversary. All year I've made a big deal about it...wanting to do something really special...well, actually, since we got married, I've always talked up "Number Ten," because being bipolar, I've always had trouble with relationships...both friendships and romantic relationships...most especially romances though. I've NEVER made it past a year, year and a half, without really screwing up the relationship somehow, and I just knew that if I could make it to ten years, then I could "make it"...that the marriage would work, that we could go all the way. I put so much emphasis on the big 10...I wanted so many things for this year...
Anyway...I planned way ahead for Justin's present, to make it special...and he was genuinely surprised...and thrilled with it. It was something he never would have expected in a million years, yet loved instantly. Twelve huge chocolate covered strawberries and three mini deluxe chocolate cheesecakes. I also got him a one cup coffee maker that brews into a travel mug for his office at work, but that was more of an afterthought. The real present was the chocolate.
So...he got me...nothing. Not even a card. I tried to be understanding. I knew he'd wanted to get me a Kindle DX, since I'd been wanting one...and I'd been trying to win one off one of my penny auction sites I frequent...and he'd said if I did, he'd pay for it as my anniversary gift. So I figured that's why he hadn't gotten me a present yet. I mean come on...men, especially farm boys...aren't usually very romantic. But...he could have gotten me a card at least! He knows I love cards!
Instead...nothing. Sure, he said he felt awful, especially after loving his gift...but that awfulness apparently lasted only for the night. Nothing more was said the rest of the week until tonight, when *I* brought it up. I finally broke down at almost midnight tonight, and told him how I felt...that it really really hurt me that he didn't get me a card...and that whenever I'd thrown hints out, he'd get agressive about it, and I'd back off and go cry in my room where he couldn't see me. I told him that now its too late for a card, or even a gift, because I've said something about it. I explained how important "Number Ten" was to me, that I'd been talking about it for the past ten years, saying how important it was for all that time, explaining how being bipolar meant I'd never had a lasting relationship, yada yada yada...and it was like I was talking to a brick wall. Here I am, pouring my heart out to him, sobbing and tears falling like rain, and he had that set expression on his face, jaw clenched tight and face hardened against me. It just made me cry all the harder, and I ended up just shutting up and leaving the room and coming in here to the kitchen and the computer.
I'm sure his reaction is because he feels bad...maybe he didn't have the money to do what he really wanted to do or something...I don't know. But he should KNOW me by now...its the little things that matter the most to me. Buying me an almost $400 Kindle DX wouldn't have been the thing to do for my special anniversary...I spent less than $80 on him. I've never been about the money. He could have brought me flowers and a card, and I would have been fine. Just the sentiment...that's all that would have mattered to me. But...even the sentiment was missing, and that's what hurt me so much. Its as if, being married to me for ten years was so much of a trial, he didn't want a reminder of it. He said he rushed around to the two gift shops at work that day trying to find something for me...umm...hello...everyone knows that if you wait til the last minute you never find anything...that's worse than if he'd told me he just forgot. I'd been telling him about his "special present" for at least 3 weeks before our anniversary, and he waited until the DAY OF to actually go looking for something for me? Just twist the knife a little bit more why don't you?
I don't know...I'm in a funk, and the anniversary thing has just made it worse...especially when he asks me not to keep secrets...not to keep what's bothering me buried inside, but to let it out, to tell him, so he can help me, especially if its something about him, so he can change it or work on it with me...and then I do exactly that, and he acts like I'm attacking him unfairly and shuts down on me or gets defensive. Is it any wonder I've kept secrets and not told him in the past?
I feel like I don't deserve him...I feel like I've made his life miserable the past ten years...I've felt so undeserving the past ten years, and so insecure, and things like this just reaffirm that in my malfunctioning brain...its not what I need, and its not doing me any favors. I need some serious help, and if its not going to come from the homefront, maybe I need to leave the homefront and get the help I need. Maybe the homefront will never be beneficial to me...and its just taking something like this to make me see it. I mean, hell...this was really important to me...and if he couldn't come through for me on something so important...why are we still doing this?
I don't know. I just know that I'm not happy...I'm miserable. I've been unhappy for a great long while. This situation has just been the icing on the cake...I'd looked at it to be my one shining moment in a year of blackness...and it let me down too. All I do is EXIST...I endure one moment to the next...and I'm tired of that. Something has to give...and its probably going to be me.
I'm tired of not being normal. I'm tired of feeling inferior. I'm tired of feeling bad because I'm not "the normal one." I'm tired tired TIRED. I'm tired of feeling tired all the time. My kids are being ruined by me...my youngest daughter is having nightmares because she can't "fix" me!!! OMG what have I DONE to this child? Yeah, they're better off without me.
Time to do something about it. Dr. Mack wanted to hospitalize me last week. I may go prepared this week to let him do just that.
