How is it that my aloneness can turn a regular day into a cold, murky place where it rains with no wind and I can’t put a coherent thought together?  I’m uncomfortable in my own skin so much so that I had to talk myself into the shower today.  I’m a water person so when I don’t want to shower it’s an issue.  I recognize this, so I jumped in quickly thus assuring myself that it was not really an issue.  Uh huh.

My below the surface, well-hidden stress has my face broken out like a chocoholic fifteen-year old.  I’ve been here before – 30 years ago – breaking out wasn’t pleasant the first time and much less so in my 40’s.  I’ve been eating crap lately – a difficult and painful task after gastric bypass.  Seems all I want to eat is French fries.  That’s some healthy stuff there.  (Think I’ll go turn on the oven)

My dreams have been really vivid lately, an additional sign of lurking issues.  The dreams make no sense but seem very real.  I sleep a lot lately; also not a good sign but a fertile ground for those vivid dreams.  I’ve told my husband that a wave was heading for the shore; not much he can do but pay attention and hope I don’t drown or pull us both under.  Unfortunately, he’s away right now and my daughter’s at school or work so there is no one around to know that I have to shove myself out the front door to get to the life boat.

But where to go once I’m out of the house?  I want to go shopping but that’s a slippery slope.  I’ve been decorating for Christmas and that keeps me busy but isn’t keeping me happy – a strange and unusual experience.  I love this time of year and it rarely brings on depression, if anything I tend to get manic with all of the hustle and bustle.   Not this year, sadness is swirling through my bloodstream, splashing on the shores of my soul and dampening my holiday spirit.  The worst part; I don’t know why.  I don’t always know why but it’s usually not so random.  I don’t do random well.  I’m on a need to know basis with my episodes and right now, I need to know.  But no one’s talking; my brain is providing no clues or maybe I’m just not listening.

The oven just beeped – French fries are ready.  Gotta go.

Quiet and sneaky you crawled out of my heart

At times I can’t tell where I end and you start

When I am strong – you are weak, hard to see

But when you take over I cease to be me

No one’s sure what to call you – disease, illness, disorder

To me you are just a non-rent paying boarder

You bounce through my life from the wild to lazy

They think that it’s me but you bring the crazy

The pills help me keep you contained in a box

But when you leak out it’s my life that rocks

The friends and the loved ones you have not scared away

They no longer demand they just hope day to day

Once surrounded by scorn, fear, shame and blame

I now understand and can call you by name

No longer a victim of your evil steam roller

I shout from the rooftop – That’s Right, I’m Bipolar

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.

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.