between the broken places

Archive for June, 2009

Out of Context – Life of a Bipolar Chick

Per Dictionary.com the word Context means the following:

con⋅text (noun)

1. the parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect: You have misinterpreted my remark because you took it out of context.
2. the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc.

Bipolar Disorder is an Out of Context mental illness. It takes normal, everyday events or comments and knocks them out of context, sending them back to my brain jumbled, with a trigger attached no longer allowing me to make sense of the situation, much less react in an appropriate manner. This has the ability to leave me paranoid, irrational, confused and suicidal, among other things.

The worst part about thinking out of context, is when those around you realize that’s how your brain works and they use it to their advantage. My ex-husband once told me during an argument that he could love me more if I were prettier. Yes, his exact words; “I could love you more if you were prettier.” There were no surrounding sentences to place this comment into some wacked out context; it was a random thought thrown towards my head with the speed of a flying dinner plate. He tried to play it off, told me I had misunderstood…again. That I was always picking individual comments and holding people accountable for my “out of context” interpretation.

To this I say: HEY! Speak in context…say what you mean and mean what you say. I’ve got enough trouble trying to sort out all your crap on a daily basis. I don’t want to have to decipher your comments as if they were Di Vinci’s Code. Yes, my brain twists the truth and tells me lies…I don’t need any help from idiots who think it’s funny to watch me react badly to something and then try to wrestle myself out of the cage I’ve locked myself into.

When I am living “Out of Context”, I am forever apologizing for not understanding what someone was trying to say, for taking something to heart that wasn’t meant to go there or for reacting to someone else’s action as if it were meant only to hurt me. This is why I have had to learn about my “triggers”.

Triggers are unhappy, sad or even joyful events that can make depression or mania more likely to occur. The baseline trigger is generally something that happened in the past which caused an extreme reaction and now some new event twists the Bipolar brain into a visceral response because of some familiarity to the initial situation. With the exception of the originating moment, the new reaction is an “out of context” moment caused by Bipolar Disorder. This is why we have to learn our triggers, understand how they played out in the first place and put the whole situation back into context to help avoid new and exacerbated reactions.

About Me

Diagnosed in 1999 with Bipolar 1 Disorder explained a lot about me. The crazy mood swings, the outbursts and the feeling of being locked in a cage from which I couldn’t escape. Stabilization took a while but did happen after much therapy, meds and a great deal of love and patience from my loved ones. I’m am writing a book called “Out of Context – Bipolar Chick 2 the Rescue” telling the story of my journey through this often misunderstood disease.

My hope is that by sharing my experiences others will seek the help they need for themselves or their loved ones. No one is alone in this and help is available.

Here’s the story…of a crazy lady (Brady Bunch theme dancing in my head)

These are the basics: My name is Deb. I currently live in North Carolina with my husband, JC.

We have three lovely and talented daughters (see for yourself-below), who shall from this point forward be known as the Chickletts. I’ll have to check with them before I start posting identifying information…you know, to protect the potentially embarrassed.

We also have three very spoiled Chow Chows: Bella (12 yrs old) and Sam & Lilah (1 yr old on 6/25). You can see their pictures as well as the family at my website.

the insipid circle of my life

Sorry, I haven’t been writing.
I’m feeling a bit out of it and it’s causing me to sleep a lot though not well. This leaves me tired and confused and really pretty useless most of the day. I’m supposed to return to work in a couple of weeks, been on medical leave since April. Going back is both stressful and something I look forward to. Yes, I know, don’t end a sentence in a preposition but it sounds so strange to say something to which I look forward…just not the way I speak.

So, what’s been going on? I started working out a couple of weeks ago, this is really important for both my mental health and my physical health. I tend to start out too fast and hurt myself thus stopping too soon. Part of the reason I get hurt…

I broke my neck in 2005…a compression fracture that came along with a ruptured disc. This caused a great amount of pain and took the military doctors 5 (count them…FIVE) months to figure out what was wrong. The military sent me to physical therapy, luckily the same day I had an appt. with a Neurologist. The Physical Therapist didn’t even look at my MRI and told me that I would be fine in a couple of weeks. The Neurologist told me that it was the largest ruptured disc he had ever seen and that I need to see a Neurosurgeon immediately. I had an appt. with the surgeon the next day and was told that I could not go back to work, had to come off my meds and was having surgery in 4 days. As for PT? The remark that I got was…”Christopher Reeves, that could be you!”. Alrighty then! I now have a cadaver bone and a titanium plate in my neck…No, I don’t set off airport alarms.

I hate the insipid cycle of feeling like crap causes not working out, which can cause eating badly which makes me feel like crap…the friggin circle of my life.

Why A Blog?

Because it’s never too late to be who you were meant to be.

At the age of 44 (45 is next month, thank you) I have found myself wondering the age old question, “Is this all there is?” I know that there can always be more to life, that it’s just a matter of going out and getting it. But it seems I typically have just enough energy for what I’ve got and nothing more. Well, I want more.

My mother used to tell me that I never finished anything I started. That’s true most of the time – so maybe I’m just trying to prove something. On the other hand, if it’s the journey that is important am I supposed to finish? Ok, yes, I know I am but in my own defense most of my hair-brained schemes have begun to the wild beating of my manic drums. However, this scheme, idea, true calling has not been forged in the fires of mania. This dream has been stirred, added to and simmered in my life’s cauldron for many years; each experience bringing new spice to the elixir that makes up the delicious concoction of me.
Bipolar Disorder is but one ingredient in the mixture. I have survived emotional and physical abuse, childhood molestation and rape at the age of 20. My physical ailments include obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high triglycerides. I have taken up to 26 pills a day to treat these maladies; spent endless hours and countless dollars in the effort to make myself “normal”. Thank God, “normal” continues to elude me.

My family influences include not knowing the truth of my birth until I was 28 (I’m the product of a one-night stand) thus growing up with an emotionally repressed mother and a step-father who took to causing me pain to hurt her. I married young and subsequently divorced eight years later. I then explored new territory by becoming a non-custodial mother to my two young daughters. I am the mother, sister, daughter and granddaughter of those who have survived and succumbed to cancer. And still I go on.

So why a Blog? Can’t you tell? I’ve got lots to say and the story is boiling over to be told.

June 8, 2009 Jackie’s Birthday

My daughter’s 22nd birthday! When I was her age I was pregnant with her. This fact freaks her out as she proclaims that she has broken the family curse of early parenthood. At 44, I am happy to not yet be a grandparent. (Mom had me when she was 21 and my Grandmother had Mom when she was 18…I see the pattern)

She has just left my house to return home to NJ where she has lived with her father, without me, since she was eight years old. We have a wonderfully, loving relationship considering that we grew up at the same time in different states. My journey into non-custodial motherhood was directly tied to my undiagnosed descent into Bipolar Disorder.

The depression arrived first just after she was born. It was not my first episode but it was the most significant. After 17 hours of labor, my beautiful, blonde haired, blue eyed baby girl was in my arms. Breast feeding was the order of the day and I wanted to do all that I could to be a “good” mother. After three weeks of breast feeding I was such a basket case that I would have an anxiety attack every time she needed to eat. One night when she woke up for her late night feeding, my lack of sleep exploded into a wild anger that I didn’t even understand.

When I went to her crib I looked down on at her and firmly wrapped my hands around each of her little arms and begged her to be quiet. I don’t remember how we got back to my bed but I do remember my fingers slowly wrapping into fists. That’s when I began to shake her, more like pound her into the bed. Thank God that it was a waterbed which allowed my tiny child to simply bounce up and down only a few times before I snapped out of where ever it was that I had slipped to. Quickly releasing my grip, I stumbled back into the wall, fell to the floor and began to sob.

I called the doctor the next day. He told me to stop breast feeding…NOW! I was not to wean her off, I was to stop immediately. I did as I was told and she and I started a more relaxed bonding process. When my second daughter was born I didn’t even attempt to breast feed, I was too afraid of what I could do. I was certain that deep down I was not a good mother.

There were many times over the next eight years that I would lose my temper with little provocation. I worked two jobs while my husband stayed home with the girls; I did this to avoid hurting them. Jackie, my eldest daughter, recently told me that she doesn’t remember her life with me in the house. She was concerned that would hurt my feelings; I think I’m glad her memories are not clear. While I don’t recommend the non-custodial tour of motherhood it seems to have worked out ok for me.