Manic Depression. in Phoenix

That’s what they called it when I was a teenager. They said I was manic depressive. Now they say bipolar. They also say PTSD, OCD, and ADHD. Well, and the anxiety, always the anxiety. But I think it’s just a symptom of all the other things. Started taking Buspirone last October and, for awhile, it was like a miracle. I was like a new person. I didn’t recognize an anxiety-free me.

She’s gone now. My dose has nearly quadrupled since then and I really can’t say if the drugs are working anymore or not. Some days are better than others. Those other days, well… they’re ugly. Filled with hours of negative self-talk and crying and self-destructive behavior.

Yesterday was one of those. Fell off the booze wagon into a barrel of booze. Like 16 years of total control gone in an instant. I made a conscious decision to just go and get drunk and be stupid and I was successful. At least I had that tiny little sliver of control left, just enough to prevent me from hitting “send” on several vicious, hateful emails I apparently wrote in my stupor. To the almost-ex-husband, to the new… I don’t know what he is. Not boyfriend, exactly. One to I think my best friend but I didn’t actually put anything in the address line. Ended up talking to a 30-year friend, a guy I met in the 6th grade, because he “liked” my post on Facebook within a minute of my writing it. That meant he was awake and I haven’t needed a meeting or a sponsor or anyone for so long but I needed someone just then and he was there. I asked him if he’d listen and he did.

He doesn’t know he saved my life last night. Or the wee hours of the morning, whatever. I mean, I’m never truly suicidal. Not anymore. I used to hurt myself, push the envelope a little with drugs and alcohol. But I haven’t physically harmed myself in years and years. Oh, I want to. I just… don’t. I wish for death, though. Sometimes I cry when I wake up in the morning because I really just wish that whole thing would stop. Just stop with the waking up already. I’m tired and I just want to sleep.

I have so much strength and so much self-awareness and I know this won’t last forever. Before, I would believe that, in the bad times, they were forever. I was never going to feel happy again and what was the point? I don’t feel like that anymore. I know this is just an episode. I saw it coming and I can set myself just outside it and keep an eye on it and wait for it to be over. Doesn’t stop the wishing to not wake up in the morning, though. If only I could get past that. I made it a little motto, I say it on those bad mornings when someone cheerfully says, “Good morning, how are you?” I say, “I’m upright and breathing so it must be a good day.”

I force myself to be thankful my wish didn’t come true and I force myself to look at all the wonderful things in my life. I have these kids, oh man, they are just brilliant and wonderful and radiant human beings. My big boy just got accepted to his first choice university and into the music composition program that he worked for months and composed his own music for, interviewed and auditioned, and blew them away with his art on the cheapest sax money can buy. My little one is like I would imagine an angel if angels existed and somehow lived within the bodies of 11-year-old boys. He’s brilliant and good and silly and funny and his warm little heart just takes my breath away. I have a job, my dream job, with a dream head chef and dream co-workers and it’s surreal to be there sometimes, so content and happy and successful. I have friends, so many truly beautiful-to-the-core friends, genuinely decent human beings. I live in a tiny community full of genuinely decent human beings, from employees at gas stations to teachers in the school, so many wonderful people here. If I believed in those sorts of things, I’d say I was blessed.

How can I have so many wonderful things and still feel so goddamn miserable all the time? I’m like 90% awesome but this little 10% part of me, this dark, hard little spot somewhere inside that just throbs and writhes with self-hatred. Sometimes it grows, it spreads like poison, and the 10% becomes much more. And I think people just can’t handle that. I think that’s why everyone leaves. Because when I show them more of myself, it’s impossible to keep that part hidden, and when they see it… I shouldn’t have to live with it but I’ve no choice. Why should they have to live with it, too?