Every year around this time I get in my head and spin out a bit. (Full Disclosure I wrote this 8/22/2021) Not necessarily in a good or bad way, just a thoughtful way. I think 42 years and 364 days has taught me that being thoughtful and thinking about who I am, who I want to be and what I can do better has made me more accepting in embracing birthdays. The difference is I do them much quieter now. I used to celebrate my birthday like it was my favorite holiday. Now I just want to quietly accept that I have grown and learned so much more and will be a year older. Aging really is an interesting process. Aging with mental illness is an even bigger process. I know 43 is young to many, many people. For me though it seems like the past couple of years has started the process of getting older. From watching more of life’s beauty and tragedy to literally feeling the physical side effects of getting older. For my birthday I do like to be with the people I love most. The people that are my ride or die. The people that know me inside and out and the people that at times, know me better than I know myself.
There has been some change recently in my life with ending an 8-year career with a great company to starting a higher-level job at a new company. It has been a challenging few months. Then to top it off in late June I had a weird PTSD moment. I suppose I had blocked out calling my biological father on his birthday June 29, 2006, and for some reason in 2021, I remembered calling him. I left him a message on his landline answering machine. He never called back. It took me a few days to get back up when I remembered calling him and feeling that need to know who he is and what he is like. Obviously on my birthday it is only natural I think of me being born and the people that were there, my mom and biological father. That is so strange that those 2 people made me and yet I only know my mom and dad. No one can really understand what that is like unless you have been in that situation. Deep within me is this abyss and as I have gotten older it has gotten lighter, but it will always be there. My mom and biological father made the perfect blend of a bi-polar, ADHD kid. All the wonder in the world and I will never know that other part of me. I think I am always striving to be better and do more because I am making up for this part of me that I do not know and that is a constant ache within me.
With my birthday 12 hours away as I write this, I think I am doing okay. I mean on the mental illness side I am taking my meds daily and I am being healthy physically and have been better mentally. Every single day is a day that I get through. I mean all the meds in the morning, throughout the day and at night are exhausting and doing that as I get older is part of that bigger mental illness aging process. What happens when maybe I cannot afford meds and therapy. What happens when maybe I forgot to take meds? What happens as I get older and the people around me either pass away or are just so busy with their lives and maybe I fall and struggle? Getting older is a blessing, I do know this. It is remarkable learning more about the world and other humans and yourself. And now I throw in the but, but it is a very scary reality of mine that I am going to be alone and sick, mentally ill.
I must take a beat here because I was walking my dog and listening to Galileo by Indigo Girls and thinking so many positive thoughts about life, my life, and my birthday that I wanted to come home and write. Why do I automatically go to the negative? Why do I automatically pull myself into this sad space? I suppose that is the mental illness and the daily struggle. This is why I wanted to write this blog so that the real day to day of mental illness is looked at and talked about. Every single day is a struggle. Every. Single. Day. Now I believe that therapy has helped me look at my life and the people around me in a more positive light and that it helps me live a life worth living. But there is not a fucking day that I do not have some kind of inner struggle that I have to work through.
Here I am at 42 and 364 days and I am single and very lonely. I have been hurt so badly for having a mental illness by my ex that I have put so many walls up and have a very hard time letting a man in my life again. I crave intimacy so much. On the other hand, I have a mother and father that I see often and that are so supportive and still here and I am so, so grateful for them. I have sisters that have made a remarkable life for themselves, and their family and they have grown in so many ways that I feel so grateful to have watched their process. I have friends that are my insides, my chosen family. I have a safe home and a 11-pound dog that is my protector and my shadow, and I am so grateful for both. Currently, I have a job and benefits and a great doctor and therapist. I suppose at 43 I am doing okay. I suppose okay is real. I suppose okay is better than some. I suppose okay is okay. Here I come 43, watch out, we have a lot more to do.
I will be sure to write before I turn 45. Oh how there have been so many waves since I was 43. Stay tuned!
It is rainy outside. You know what I mean. Where it is on and off annoyingly drizzle rain. There is a promise of the sun to come out midday and then have the perfect afternoon, 67 degrees and sunny. That change in the weather is how my moods change in just one day. My change in motivation. My change in depression. My change in perspective and self-doubt or the extreme, the change where I think I can conquer the world. Now that I am older and wiser and can see my moods like I can see the weather, I wish I had someone that could ride the waves with me. I think if I could openly talk about the change in motivation, perspective, depression, that I would be able to conquer the world. It is the holding it all inside that is where the struggle is. What is wrong with sharing my moods with other people in my life? I will tell you. It is hard to keep up and it is hard to believe that I can go from 0-60 or 60-0 in a day. And yet it happens, daily. This is bi-polar 2. I was diagnosed with BP2 about 5 years ago. I learned that BP1 was more mood swings by the months. Hawaiian type waves. BP2 is more of the quick mood swings like the waves on the southern east coast. From my perspective the BP2 is harder to keep up with. How do you really know which wave you get and are they always waves or is it just the natural eb and flow of the ocean? Therefore, it is so hard for check ins with my doctor. The inevitable question of, how have things been in the last 6 weeks?!!! I mean do you really want to hear how each storm was? Or how each sunny day was? Because let me tell you, I cannot even keep up with what happens and what happens in my head so how in the hell am I supposed to share that? How do you measure this?
Like I said before, I think it would be measured more if I could share more openly. It would help me monitor it more. I know I could write in a journal and that is supposed to help. And it does to a certain extent. The journaling means it is still just in my head and on paper. The verbal action of sharing this out loud seems to help get to an answer or even more, a wise mind answer. So, what is holding me back from this theory? I have a few people I could do this with and try it out. Friends, my mother, my sister, but that is only half of my life. I am at work the other half and truth be told that is where many of the waves take place. To be able to share my moods openly at work may help more than I ever could have thought. Or it could lead to my downfall because do those people even care? Would you?
I think what I am going to do with this piece is ask you to ride my waves for the next few days.
AND SO, IT IS 28 DAYS LATER…
Consistency has never been my strong spot and yet my body and illness pretty much demand it. So, for 28 days I have been depressed and hopeful and maybe borderline manic. I am still not sure if I will ever be able to know when I am manic. It seems my support system can tell what they have said to me, it is hard for them to jump in and help because I am so uber focused on my goals. And yet I need them to be my support system, I need them to. I mean they have no problems being annoying when I am depressed and self-isolating. Not annoying, helpful, and supportive but when I am not doing well it is almost embarrassing when they help me and over invite me to things. I feel like I am a burden and yet if I was consistent with doing things it would not feel like a special invite, it would feel like day-to-day outings.
Anyway, I have had days that I have not left the couch recently and then have an opposite day the next day. Those days start with quiet time and/or coffee and then a workout and then something that I am required to do that morning/day. It is like right now a full day for me requires the next day to do nothing. Surprise, surprise, all, or nothing. UGH. I mean writing it out feels incredibly frustrating and like I am not trying hard enough. Is that the perfectionist in me? I am not sure, but it is something in me. It. Is. Me.
Seven years ago, I found a man that had shot himself in the head in the driver’s seat of an older model SUV. He committed suicide on the top floor of the parking garage where I worked. I found on the cameras that he entered the garage around 4:30am and was not a resident nor did he have any connections to residents or the property. I thought that he drove to the top floor to watch the sunrise. Yet his car faced the west and to this day I wonder if he was facing east and he did see the sunrise if he may have decided not to kill himself. I had to work with the police and maintenance to clean it up the mess. The mess being his brains and blood on the concrete. I was a robot and just doing what needed to be done. One of my employees was strongly affected by this suicide because his brother had committed suicide not even 5-years past. I am not sure of the specific events in my life that followed this suicide, but this specific incident set me into a bit of a spin. Not a reckless spin necessarily but enough that I went back to seeing a therapist.
A few times to my therapist and she knew I needed a psychiatrist which meant I needed drugs. I had not been on medication for about 2 and a half years. I always wondered if I was going to write that. Not being on medication is such an irresponsible thing when you have bi-polar and in no way am I promoting it. For me I was in the steadiest place I had ever been in my life up to that point. I had an amazing support system of friends and family that knew the real me, all of me, and I had a steady job, and this was the most consistent time in my life since high school. So, I always knew if things would start to go south, I would have eyes and ears all over so being asked to get on meds again seemed like the right thing to do.
This doctor was different though. She did not know what meds to put me on. She had no idea of my history; I mean 10-years back I was at the same facility for therapy and meds but that was so long ago. This doctor knew nothing about me. So out of all the doctors I had in the past 18 or so years, she had me tested to know how to treat me properly, ethically. What. A. Concept.
So that jack ass doctor that did not believe I was mentally ill because I am self-aware and positive mostly, he simply said have a glass of wine at night, you do not need meds. Well, this doctor said let’s see and so I was tested. And boy did I test. Bi-polar II (which now 7 years later may be BP1), depression, social anxiety, general anxiety, PTSD and wait for it- ADHD. So, at 37 and a half I was a newly diagnosed mentally ill patient again. I had some extra layers to sort through and that was cathartic for me.
Being mentally ill is not cut and dry and it is not something you can just mention and move on. It is an active illness and the more you speak of it and the more head on you are to it and the treatment, the more you can work with it and add it to your life. In 2016 that is what I did. I leaned in and rediscovered myself monitoring medications, taking all the pills in the morning and at night and sometimes throughout the day. It is not glamorous to say the least! It is a very, very real illness. I truly do not think people know how much medicine I take daily. I mean it is the same number of pills as a cancer patient, or my grandmother. It is a lot. When I am down or going through a mental challenge, it bums me out to see it all. But then I must think how incredibly lucky I am that I get to take these meds. So many people do not have access to them or have heard bad things or even experienced the wrong mix of meds. Days like that are days that I say I find the joy in the little things. The fact that I have medications that make me better is a blessing.
I am trying to make these posts smaller and more specific to incidents and events that happen to me. I will wrap this up where it started. A man with a gun took his own life in an area he was not from and had no connections at all to the building. I think about that, and it makes me feel sad for him. It makes me feel like he was so alone moments before he ended his life. It makes me understand how hard life is for other people too. It makes me wish that we could all talk more freely when we are experiencing mental challenges. PTSD is an odd illness that snuck up on me with this incident. So, I will close with that, lots of new layers were added to me because of this one incident and now I can say I am grateful for that. Seven years later!!
History repeats itself. That is a true statement. How do we know it is true? Well, look back in history and watch the plagues come and go, watch the wars come and go, watch the protests come and go, watch the fashion trends come and go. Does that statement apply to our everyday life? To our very small worlds that fall into the sea of billions of people. I have been researching my family history from the female side only. I wanted to see how many mother’s mothers I could get to and see what commonalities continued through the generations. I wanted to see where the best and worst parts of me could be found in my history. I mean logic and basic ‘true statements’ would say that I could find some similarities in my history and then look forward and make sure I do not repeat past mistakes. What I have found though is that every woman in my history had to overcome their own challenges in their small circle of their present. Their history was surrounded by the world’s history and each woman had a different world to live with. So then why am I searching so hard for their stories? What does it really matter? How deeply do I want to believe the statement, history repeats itself?
I think if I could have influence on my own future and what I leave behind for others, then maybe it would. Maybe. I do not have children though. Does it really matter? Are children the most important part of the future? They are the ones that take us into their future and eventually become history. So, then what is my history going to benefit me? What will my history be for my present life and for whose future? It can be very lonely for me with the life I chose to have no children. My life can feel very worthless when I look around and see all of my friend’s doing things for their children as the priority of their life. To see my parents and my friend’s parents living for their grandchildren.
These are the ruminating thoughts that can consume my head for hours and days at a time. That thrust me into a hopeless depression. If I had had a child, would I be thinking differently? Would that child have gotten all the best or worst parts of me? What if I gave my child all the mental illnesses that have plagued my life? How could I feel hopeful for the future if I knew the pain my mental illnesses caused me and then I was subjecting that to my child? Even if my child got the best of me, the me who raised that child would have nurtured that child through mental illnesses and a very unstable day to day life.
I chose to live without children, and I do not think it was a selfish decision. I think just the opposite. My core truly believes that it was the best decision for me and the people all around me. Now that I am getting older, I turn 44 this year, I am looking at my life and wondering what in the fuck am I supposed to do? What am I living for? I am not sure why this question fills my head and heart so often. It just does. I mean down to my core it truly bothers me that I do not know what I am here for. Having a child is something that makes life intentional and a clear way to see the past for the present and the future. People will tell me that I need to live my life for me. That I need to find the small joys in my life to feel better and that will help me have that feeling so that I can live for something.
A hopeful sunrise, a beautiful sunset, a snuggle with my dog, a peaceful rainstorm, a calm blizzard, the eye of a hurricane, the first cannonball of summer, the last bite of dessert, a deep conversation with a friend, contemplating life with my dad, a hug from my mom, a hike in nature, an intimate embrace, an uncontrollable laugh, a song that reaches my soul, a color palette that inspires.
All these things have brought me joy and will continue to bring me joy. Why can’t that be enough? What does that joy do for my life? It clearly gives me something to focus on to keep going. But I am going for myself to just die by myself. To die alone and to not have any of my life in the future. The search stops with me. The search for history in the future will stop at me. How do I become part of history that will be meaningful for the future, a future?
It has occurred to me that I have never shared and openly discussed the day I almost died. I have spoken about the day in parts to various people and parts in detail to some of the ones closest to me that experienced the day with me. The utter horror of the day overwhelms now. I have recently found myself with strong urges to want to die and getting a plan of action ready. I just watched a movie where the main character kills herself at the end of the movie. She commits suicide. The word committed is something that truly describes killing yourself. It seems like once you get the idea in your head and then the plan of how to do it, that the euphoric feeling takes over and you just flow to get the task completed. The day I committed to kill myself was in the morning. Around 9:30am when my then husband was in a work meeting, I had called out to work and called one of my longest friends to wish her a happy birthday. All of that is so day to day life and yet in my head, I had decided to not be apart of the day to day anymore. So, I checked, and I had enough vodka left from a party for 2 drinks. I thought that was perfect because it would be enough for 2 bottles of my medication to take with them.
Some details that I have never shared is that I put my stereo in the hallway outside the primary bedroom. I had my stereo on repeat with the music from the soundtrack, True Romance. You know that beautiful instrumental song by Hans Zimmer, you’re so cool, and the music was from steel drums and mixed synthesizers. And the CD was on repeat. That movie was a favorite movie from my first love and that song was one of my favorites. It took me years and years to be able to play it again but to this day it reminds me of the day I committed to die. Another detail I never shared is that I changed my underwear. I normally do not wear underwear but since I knew EMS workers would be taking me to the hospital, I put clean underwear on. They were this new seamless style and I put the black ones on. I was in the primary bedroom and had my drink on the nightstand and the pills on the perfectly made bed. The Ralph Lauren denim blue comforter. I took so many pills all at once. I always was able to swallow a ton of pills at once. When you must take multiple pills daily it gets so annoying so combining them and swallowing them in one shot helps that annoying chore. After that I had rushed downstairs to get my second vodka drink before I started to pass out. I hurried back upstairs and swallowed more and then the next thing I remember is coming out of blackness and my body thrusting upwards with my feet down and shoulders down so my back made an arc. I was alive. I remember urinating at the same time my body made this arc and the vibe felt chaotic. I remember feeling ashamed of my failed attempt of ending my life and embarrassed I had urinated and then the blackness hit again.
The next thing I remember is being in a comfortable and calming bed and my then husband whispering in my ear they had to cut my shirt off. I remember being angry at him for that being the first thing he thought I would be upset about. It was an aqua ribbed tank I had bought 3 of them at Nordstrom and to this day I still have the royal blue one and each time I wear it for bed, I think of the day I committed to end my life. Some might say to get rid of the things that remind me of that day but for me being reminded is remembering that I would never do that again.
Being completely out of the blackness and in my hospital room, my then husband told me that my mom wanted him to tell me that they were all in a circle on the living room floor holding hands and praying for my life. I think it was my mom, her mom, and her sister and then my 2 sisters. I think that was who was there. It was summer so my sisters would have been home during the day. I have never asked any of them about that time. I remember hearing that and feeling grateful I had family that loved me that much and then ashamed that I made them so worried and then I pushed that feeling down again and moved on to something else. I have this great ability of being able to push feelings down. This is a huge problem with me and is painfully obvious because for the very first time I am sharing all these details just a mere 16-years later. I think it will help though. I think I am still traumatized about that day in so many ways that I do not even know. With the recent suicide that happened at work and then having to take a suicide prevention course, some horrible memories are coming back so maybe writing the whole truth from my suicidal day will help.
I do not remember much after my then husband whispering in my ear, just waiting around for the psychiatrist to come and diagnose me so that I could be committed. I knew in my bones I did not want to be released to home and you could not be until a doctor says so but for me, I knew I couldn’t go back. I didn’t want to. I was not even supposed to be there. While waiting for the doctor my then husband would tell me more about that morning and day. I would stop him when it got to be too much but overall, this is what I had heard.
He came home after his work meeting with Chick-fila and called up to me that he was home but heard the music so went into the living area and ate and turned-on Sports Center. (I assume it was that show as it was always on) After he ate and rested a bit and saw his players he came upstairs and found me on the bed with 2 bottles of pills open and a few pills scattered and white spit coming out of my rigid body. I was completely nonresponsive. I was that close to being dead and getting what I wanted. He called 911 and the paramedics carried me out on a stretcher and to this day I do not know what they did to me, but I visualize them taking me down these steep stairs outside our townhome and my old neighbor watching from her stairs. I had asked him if anyone saw so that is why she is in my memory. It is not even a memory I suppose. It is a picture in my head that my then husband described but I guess out of all the things he was telling me that is what my mind went to, clung to so that the other actions and scenes would not stay. Those were failed actions and I could not deal with that. He said when he was on his way to the hospital, he called his sister and his sister met him at the hospital. He then said when they quickly rolled me in, they gave me charcoal and he had to hold my leg down. When he told me this it connected to me awakening from blackness to chaos and my feet and shoulders down while I struggled, and my back was an arc while I urinated. For a very long time after I thought they had put charcoal over my entire body, but I ingested it, or tried to so the pills would come out. I literally never cared enough to know the details of how they revived me at home enough to rush me to the hospital and what they did to save my life while in the emergency room. I did not care and did not ask. To me, I was only thinking about the fact I was right back where I did not want to be. I also think I stopped asking because picturing my then husband holding my leg down with EMS workers and doctors mortified me. It sickened me. It hurt me. It was the first thing that took me out of my horrific mind and brought another perspective of this morning and day. My then husband held his then wife’s leg down while people were saving her life that she did not want saved.
When the doctor finally came THREE days later, he walked in while my then husband was there, and the TV was on, and I had a face mask on sitting on the bed. He began to evaluate me and concluded that I was okay to be released. I yelled at him. I said how can you say that?! He replied with, you have a face mask on and your husband by your side, you do not seem like you need to be committed. To this day I cannot get over that. I think because it had been 3 days and that is how long a psychiatric hold is he assumed I was okay. For me though, I started crying so hard I could not catch my breathe. I was so angry and so scared and so and so, well I do not know how else to describe me then. I was manic. I was completely unstable and unwell, and wanted to die, and this doctor said I was okay. After me making a scene in front this doctor, he let me check myself in and after they signed me in and showed me my room, I went and asked to leave. I started to see people that seemed way worse than I was, and I thought I was not that bad. Thankfully, I had to stay for 72 hours. So, I signed something saying at 72 hours I could leave. What the doctors discovered is that I was unstable and unwell but had the support and strength to go home and commit to taking an outpatient therapy course. It was M-F 9am-3pm for 8-12 weeks. It was called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and it was new to me. That is what truly saved my life. When my then husband picked me up after the 72-hour hold he did not say one word to me the entire ride. We pulled in the garage, and he grabbed my bag and followed me up the stairs to the bedroom. I turned around to talk to him and he immediately pulled me close to him and started to take my clothes off while kissing me all over. He wanted to have sex. I was laughing and saying I guess you missed me, and he still said nothing. And we didn’t have sex. My then husband communicated with me by making love to me like he never had before and never would after. Every touch and kiss were him showing me how incredibility scared he was, how hurt he was and how he almost lost me forever. Every single touch and movement were showing me how much he loved me and did not know how to verbally express this. It was the most passionate moment that has every happened to me and when we were done, he still did not speak but he cried and walked away just like that. 16-years later that moment was so powerful and because I was unwell, I was never able to communicate to him how sorry I was in the way he communicated how scared he was. Not that I needed a passionate night, but I needed to be well and to properly understand what happened to me so I could communicate this to him. Let’s just say the unwell took a long time to be well and by the time I was, our relationship had run it’s course. You know my Mom was not able to take off work right away when I failed to kill myself so she sent my older, younger sister. I was at the CBT course most of the time and I finally realized my Mom sent my sister for my then husband, not me. It’s amazing how smart Moms are and it is a blessing when a sister jumps in without question to help.
Here I am struggling with these same demons and with many more years of knowledge of what went down that day. What happened to my friends and family during that time? I had 2 close friends from childhood that were like family, and I think my mom called each of them, and I remember them telling me where they were when they found out. One was with her now husband about to watch his medical school graduation ceremony. The other was on a girl’s trip with her college friends. Both were in the middle of life. My 2 younger sisters were watching how scared these adults were while in a circle on the living room floor. I made so many people so scared they were going to lose me. Because of this knowledge I have vowed to never kill myself. For many various ups and downs in the past 16 years and even new diagnosis of ADHD and PTSD, I sometimes get pissed that because of them (family and friends) I cannot take my own life. How weird is that?! I mean literally annoyed. In these 16 years I have been so depressed and since I could not kill myself, I decided to eat myself to death. I though heart disease runs in my family so if I eat a ton of processed food and sugars and gain all this weight that maybe my heart would just give out and I would be done with it all finally. In the past 16 years I have bought so many things I thought would make me feel better. I have made multiple bad decisions, sometimes knowingly and that was the rush I needed and sometimes not and that was the illness running the show. I am not happy on earth. I just do not know how to do life and I am unhappy.
I decided to write this out because I thought somehow it would help me move on. I have buried so much, and I thought owning these details that I do not like to think of would help. It did not though. I thought some of my actions and behaviors now are part of a PTSD thing but to tell you the truth, I just live with demons in me. I always have and I always will. Since I was a kid, I knew I was different, and some people can put up with me and others throw me away or think I am a bitch. I do not have much to show in my 16 years of having my life saved. I think some of the PTSD is simply the shame of failing at killing myself. I suppose this was also written to help someone. Maybe. I stopped doing cognitive behavioral therapy when my therapist was listening to me and stated she thinks Dialectical Behavioral therapy would be better. This was about a year and a half ago. When I started Dialectical Behavioral therapy (DBT) I did so in a group setting M-Thursday 2 hours each late afternoon. I have the books and workbooks still and do my best to practice the skills. I do recommend DBT, highly recommend it actually. Just recently I bought a few Bipolar 2 books and gave them to my parents and friends to read. I started hearing them say, “I saw it coming” and I was like, WHAT?! They did not feel safe talking to me about seeing a manic/hypomanic episode in me because of how I would react. I would react aggressively I suppose. Like yelling that this isn’t the time or something like that. I am going to be 44 though, I have figured out some emotion regulation and although for a few minutes I may act like a brat, I would see reason and talk to them. How fucked up is it that I blame them now too? I am strong and I do my best, but it is never enough and the longer I live the smaller my support group gets. I am left with myself and bitterness for not being able to kill myself.
I start therapy in 2-weeks after not having it for insurance reasons for 5-months. I have been medicated this entire time though. Everyone has their beliefs with meds and therapy, and it is my humbled opinion that having a mental illness is so hard at the beginning, but you will only work the mental illness best with meds and therapy. I believe that to my core and it does truly pain me when I read so many people on social media that are struggling with the right dosage or doctors, and I just want to be an advocate for them all! It seems that other people’s lives are more valuable than mine. How’s that for ironic. Well after all of this I am posting on the night before I committed to kill myself 16-years ago. I have not one memory of the night before, not one. So, the morning of August 2, 2006, is when I was inspired to finally do it. If you read, Layer One, My First Diagnosis, you will see a quote that lives with me daily in my bedroom from that incident and I speak of a photo as well. It is a gorgeous photo of the sunrise. I was given that picture by a woman that was in my life saving CBT course that I was in after my failed attempt to die. She was showing some other people these photos and I have always been a sunrise gal so when she had them, I took it and looked closely. It was taken on August 2, 2006 5am-ish. She ended up giving me this photo which is framed along with the quote in my bedroom. That was what the sunrise looked like the day I decided to die. Just as gorgeous as any other day. I keep it in my bedroom to remind me that if the sun rises, I shall rise on this earth. What I am still stuck with is figuring out how to live each day without wanting to die.
It was cold outside. Not bone chilling cold but cold that sneaks up on you and with a snow storm on the horizon hours away the air was filled with anticipation. Anticipation for many reasons though. Spring was around the corner, baseball was just saved and the STL Cardinals were not just keeping 4/7 as the home opener date but it was now MLB’s home opener.
Life was happening all around the city this night. The STL Blues had a game, Girls on the Run had their gala, a man was recovering from surgery, a woman found out she was pregnant, a work project was a success on Facebook LIVE, friends were meeting to have dinner, and on and on and on all around people were living their lives. Like most moments in life we only see what is in front of us. It’s hard to think about so many other people’s lives and what is going on because your life seems like there is so much to do and you so easily can get lost within it.
Until a tragic incident happens.
you receive a call that someone has fallen or jumped off the 8th or 9th floor at the building you manage it snaps you out of your world and you are immediately thrust into another. A world of shock, sadness, fear, hope, and a whole new level of anticipation smacks you in the face.
As we speed though the streets and breezed past lights one was wrapped in his world of answering to so many others. No answers were to be had. At this point there was only the very basic knowledge of what had happened and where. So for a quick 9 minute drive we could only wonder who this person was that was laying on the cold concrete in front of the building. We could only wonder who saw him hit the ground. We could only wonder what his family is about to go through.
We could only know that co-workers and residents heard the mother’s scream and horror and that 2 co-workers sped down the stairs to help. We could only imagine what those 2 people were going though. We could only imagine how scared they were. We could only hope that they were okay. As we turned the corner towards the building the scene was before us just as we had imagined. Flashing lights, lots of men and women in various uniforms and very serious faces. At the time I arrived the yellow tape was being put around the area. The yellow tape that says this is serious and to stay away. Yet I had to walk right through it. Somehow having a VIP moment then didn’t feel special. No one wants to have to go through the yellow tape.
As I entered the building I saw many different scenes. It was almost too many to know which way to look. It was then that I knew this was heavy. That this terrible tragedy had really happened, that family was around and devastated, that residents were wanting to come and go from the lobby just as they would any other night yet they were being told to turn around and go to the back. Such a cold greeting to give and yet no one pushed back. They knew they couldn’t. They knew they didn’t want to. If you saw the scene of the people around the shocked mother and then the police in the doorway, lights blinking outside at the lobby windows and the final straw was the wide eyed group of employees that looked like deer in headlights. They looked empty and scared. They moved differently and yet, with purpose. It was as though they were on auto pilot and you dare not get in their way or give any resistance to what they say to you.
I walked up to a few. I don’t even remember who. I don’t even remember what I said or what was said to me. What I remember is a feeling. I remember feeling relieved that my team was okay. I remember feeling proud that they had jumped in so effortlessly to help. I remember them dropping everything to make sure things were running as they needed to be. I remember feeling grateful that we had each other to go through this horrible incident with.
I don’t remember ever having these feelings like this before. In the middle of such tragedy and truthfully pure horror, I felt calm and safe with my team. I felt the need to take care of them and do whatever they needed. I also felt them needing me. I felt them needing to take care of me. In this moment my team and me only knew what mattered in life and it was a human life. It was being alive and hugging and holding the ones you love. We all knew the beauty of simple interactions and the strength of being loved by our families and friends. We all knew that we couldn’t wait to call and hug the ones we love. But before that could happen, my team and me had to take care of the grieving mother, had to call her sister and share such unfathomable news, had to ensure residents were being told the same, had to help the son-less mother walk her dogs, had to comfort each other and just had to help in whatever way we could. All in this time allowing the realty and heaviness of this pour through our body as if we were walking through a hard, heavy, fog.
The thoughts running through me now as I lay in bed at home are some heavy ones and then some that are so light I can barely think. As though my mind is shifting back and forth so my heart won’t explode and the tears won’t stop flowing. Tonight a man that struggled with inner demons like so many ended his life. Tonight a mother lost a son. Tonight a woman found out she was pregnant. Tonight a man recovered from surgery. Tonight a gala was happening and a hockey game was played. Tonight life was lived and lost and for me, life was made known that we only have one so tell the people you love that you love them and wake up in the morning and make a difference in someone’s life. Make a difference in your own life.
Tonight was an unforgettable night and yet the morning will bring snow and sun and a whole new day. And then it will be last night where I learned, we learned, to remember there is more than just your small world. All around us life is happening so be kind, be thoughtful, be a friend, be a stranger, be a force and be an impact on others. Just be.
At some point one has to heal, right? When though? At what point? How many years? I mean I’ve worked and worked and worked on bettering myself and learning how to live with my mental illness. But when does the PTSD, the many, many heartaches, all the mistakes I’ve made, when does all of that get better? Because if it never will then what’s the point of all the other stuff? What am I bettering myself for if I’m never going to be healed enough to be in a relationship? I’m bettering myself for my job. I’m bettering myself for all my friends that have kids and a totally different lifestyle than me. I’m bettering myself so I can connect with my parents more to give back for all the shitty things I’ve done to them and they’ve had to go through because of me. So why? None of that gives me love in an intimate way and cures the loneliness. None of it . It’s like small gratification but my soul needs a man, a partner to be with me daily. I want that relationship with someone and all my past traumas and fears are blocking it all. When will it end? Does it end? How? I’m only half way living and I feel like I’m missing a huge part of life. Today ended really awesome, can you tell?
Every year around this time I get in my head and spin out a bit. Not necessarily in a good or bad way, just a thoughtful way. I think 42 years and 364 days has taught me that being thoughtful and thinking about who I am, who I want to be and what I can do better has made me more accepting in embracing birthdays. The difference is I do them much quieter now. I used to celebrate my birthday like it was my favorite holiday. Now I just want to quietly accept that I have grown and learned so much more and will be a year older. Aging really is an interesting process. Aging with mental illness is an even bigger process. I know 43 is young to many, many people. For me though it seems like the past couple of years has started the process of getting older. From watching more of life’s beauty and tragedy to literally feeling the physical side effects of getting older. For my birthday I do like to be with the people I love most. The people that are my ride or die. The people that know me inside and out and the people that at times, know me better than I know myself.
There has been some change recently in my life with ending an 8-year career with a great company to starting a higher-level job at a new company. It has been a challenging few months. Then to top it off in late June I had a weird PTSD moment. I suppose I had blocked out calling my biological father on his birthday June 29, 2006, and for some reason in 2021, I remembered calling him. I left him a message on his landline answering machine. He never called back. It took me a few days to get back up when I remembered calling him and feeling that need to know who he is and what he is like. Obviously on my birthday it is only natural I think of me being born and the people that were there, my mom and biological father. That is so strange that those 2 people made me and yet I only know my mom and dad. No one can really understand what that is like unless you have been in that situation. Deep within me is this abyss and as I have gotten older it has gotten lighter, but it will always be there. My mom and biological father made the perfect blend of a bi-polar, ADHD kid. All the wonder in the world and I will never know that other part of me. I think I am always striving to be better and do more because I am making up for this part of me that I do not know and that is a constant ache within me.
With my birthday 12 hours away as I write this, I think I am doing okay. I mean on the mental illness side I am taking my meds daily and I am being healthy physically and have been better mentally. Every single day is a day that I get through. I mean all the meds in the morning, throughout the day and at night are exhausting and doing that as I get older is part of that bigger mental illness aging process. What happens when maybe I cannot afford meds and therapy. What happens when maybe I forgot to take meds? What happens as I get older and the people around me either pass away or are just so busy with their lives and maybe I fall and struggle? Getting older is a blessing, I do know this. It is remarkable learning more about the world and other humans and yourself. And now I throw in the but, but it is a very scary reality of mine that I am going to be alone and sick, mentally ill.
I must take a beat here because I was walking my dog and listening to Galileo by Indigo Girls and thinking so many positive thoughts about life, my life, and my birthday that I wanted to come home and write. Why do I automatically go to the negative? Why do I automatically pull myself into this sad space? I suppose that is the mental illness and the daily struggle. This is why I wanted to write this blog so that the real day to day of mental illness is looked at and talked about. Every single day is a struggle. Every. Single. Day. Now I believe that therapy has helped me look at my life and the people around me in a more positive light and that it helps me live a life worth living. But there is not a fucking day that I do not have some kind of inner struggle that I have to work through.
Here I am at 43 and I am single and very lonely. I have been hurt so badly for having a mental illness by my ex that I have put so many walls up and have a very hard time letting a man in my life again. I crave intimacy so much. On the other hand, I have a mother and father that I see often and that are so supportive and still here and I am so, so grateful for them. I have a sister that has made a remarkable life for herself, and her new family and she has grown in so many ways that I feel so grateful to have watched her process. I have friends that are my insides, my chosen family. I have a safe home and a 11-pound dog that is my protector and my shadow, and I am so grateful for both. Currently, I have a job and benefits and a great doctor and therapist. I suppose at 43 I am doing okay. I suppose okay is real. I suppose okay is better than some. I suppose okay is okay.
Here I come 43, watch out, we have a lot more to do.
On the eve of Thanksgiving 2020 I am alone and feeling as though I need to share what I have learned about gratitude. For me learning things takes a little longer than most. It is hard to stay focused and then when I am riding bi-polar waves up and down my mind is trying to get balanced, so I am thinking of myself, going inward. For many parts of my past I can remember some people saying how selfish I was. I admit, I can see where it would look like that. It made me sad though. I truly care about many things and care deeply. Having a mental illness and waking up every day having to blend with society is exhausting and requires me to look inward and focus and stay as balanced as possible. Right now, in my life I am finally at a point where I can stay focused. I can fully listen to stories and respond with connecting words and emotions. I can actually sit and read an entire book. Not in one sitting but I am saying that I am able to stay focused on the story I am reading and read the entire book. This is such a simple thing yet for me being diagnosed late in life at 38 with ‘hyperactivity’ and then the psychiatrist calling it ADHD and putting me on the proper meds, a whole new world opened. It gave me time to slow down and focus on exactly how I was feeling and to be able to express the feeling or feelings with the correct words and description. A lot of my past therapy I was never able to specifically say what was going on with me or to find the right words. I could be hot and cold all in one sentence quite often. I could laugh and cry all in one story quite often. Taking ADHD medication has truly allowed me to see and fully experience life around me.
I have become more empathetic. This is something that in my past I knew this word and wanted to show empathy, but it would come out in ways that circled back to me and my experiences and that word selfish could be used. Now when someone shares a story for me to show empathy, I relate it to how that would make me feel if it happened and then pour my emotion to that person. I do not share a story of my past that is similar, I simply listen and share how deeply I want to understand and see what I can do to help. This has been years in the making and I still would not say that I am naturally empathetic, but my 25-year-old self would be proud.
With this newfound life and understanding and feeling other people’s hardships and experiences it has made me be able to look inward in a new way. I have been able to see how fucking lucky I have been. How much of my life as I was going through tremendous inner turmoil, I was doing that with family and friends constantly around me. I have a support system that has watched me break, struggle, live it up, and through all those experiences and waves my true family and friends stayed around me. So many people go through inner/outer so much horrible pain and have no one. So many people have a mental illness, and they cannot share anything with anyone because they have no one. So many people do not have the resources that I have and cannot get the proper medications and therapy to get better. One thing that always stuck out to me, especially in my darkest days, was when the therapy people, the friends and family, the doctors, things I would read, would suggest for me to feel better is to, “think about how so many people have it 10 times worse than me.” This was pressed on me a lot and I was supposed to think of all the horrible things in the world that people are struggling with that is so much worse than what I was going through. I could not wrap my head around this theory during my dark days because selfishly I thought that this is my reality, this is my daily and these are my struggles. Believe me when I say the voices in your head pulling you down or wild behavior with a magnitude of consequences are pretty damn hard to deal with, that is a true struggle. That was my thinking. That is where I could never step back and see the bigger picture. I see now how that can really help someone feel better. To think of so many other people suffering and then to take the act further and not just think of someone worse off but to do something about it and help. WOW. I mean that is something that now I have fully wrapped my head and heart around at 42. It does not make me feel better to think of other people suffering, I now understand what the therapist and doctors and friends were saying. They were not just saying to think of the people that have it worse, they were bringing my attention to them and then focusing on how to help them. Focus your attention on the less fortunate or the people struggling and what you can do to help. Focus on the things that you do have, and others could only hope for. Focus on how you can help them.
The way I learned how to show empathy more and serve the people that are in need, no matter how big or small the service, is by being able to focus and digest the entire lesson. I can now digest and understand so much more clearly. I did not mean for this piece to be about ADHD but being on the medication for ADHD is how I am able to learn so much more. Learning how express feelings of gratitude is something I work on daily now. I had a friend give me this wonderful journal and it is called, I Am Journal. I highly recommend it! The ‘I Am Journal’ has parts that allow you to write what you are grateful for among other things. I remember in the past there were therapist telling me to end my day with what I was grateful for and it was hard for me because I would be so exhausted that I thought, I made it through the day- that’s what I am thankful for! Haha, don’t get me wrong, I still have those days of, ‘thankfully I made it through the day’ but I can also share even more details of the big and small experiences that happened to me that made me be able to see how much I have to be grateful for.
I am grateful for having the means to see a psychiatrist and therapist and take multiple medications daily. I am grateful for the people that have always been with me when I had no way of knowing I was worth anything to be with. I am grateful for the fact that I only have mental illnesses. I am grateful I do not have addictions and that I did not have to fight addiction and self-medicating with my mental illness like so many people do. I am grateful I am physically healthy. I am grateful I have the means to go to my primary physician and make sure I am physically healthy. I am grateful for the roof over my head and clean drinking water and being able to take hot showers. I am grateful my dog loves me so much even though he must ride my waves sometimes too. I am grateful that I have new neighbors that are so loving and watchful of the people in their community. I am grateful for having the ability and means to find charity and organizations that I can donate my time and money to. I am so grateful that I am alive. Knocking on death’s door by my own hand and surviving in 2006 has made me grateful for Life. I know that I am needed to share my mental illness experiences with others to hopefully help. I am grateful for the lesson to live your life, do not just live. I am grateful for all of the 2020 platforms like WordPress and Medium where this can happen. I am grateful for so many other things that I could go on and on.
The beauty on this eve of Thanksgiving 2020 is that I have learned so much and I am healthy and able to share. Gratefulness does not come easy to a mentally ill human but when you work at finding things to be thankful for, it makes a world of difference. I want nothing more than to be able to help someone in their dark hours to understand that finding things you are grateful for does help. That what ‘they’ say can help! What are you grateful for? Who can you share your gratitude with and spread this simple joy?
Sunday eve is upon me. Things were a little blue this weekend. With Covid ramping up again and I knew it would, it is just feeling pretty isolating like in March and April. I thought I did pretty good through the beginning and now that it is in full force again, I am convinced I did well. I was doing face masks and all kinds of journaling and music and me time. Now though, for whatever reason, oh the holidays I guess, I feel really alone and sad. I am not sure sad is the right feeling. I am just now realizing the importance of learning all the words that express feeling and emotion. It is 100 times easier to deal with something when you can express yourself clearly and really pinpoint what is going on. For years and years, I would use the phrase, ‘in my head’ and I still do sometimes. That was just a quick way for me to say that I have so many bad thoughts, over analyzed thoughts, negative thoughts that I did not even know where to begin so I said that I was, ‘in my head.’ I laugh now at how long it took my family and friends to understand what that meant. Ha-ha, it makes me giggle. God love them all. I cannot imagine how hard I was to deal with when I was still teaching me. I am still learning but using my real words and confronting those real feelings and emotions and breaking down the why I feel that way and what lead me to it. Whew, that sounds like a whole lot of therapy right there. It takes work to work my mental illness. It is like its own task that I must deal with like cleaning my home and doing chores and going to work. I must work on me daily. Back to today and now though. I slept a lot this weekend, but I think it was from allergies and me not feeling 100%. My body needed rest, but it is hard for me to admit that because most of my early adult life when I was depressed, I would call in sick to work. I would have the worst work guilt about it. So, when I actually am feeling a little under the weather it brings back the doubts if I am actually sick or depressed. I believe I have sorted through that. This weekend has layers that start with me feeling a little under the weather and my body knowing it, so I got 10-12 hours of sleep Friday and Saturday night.
My sister also cancelled her trip to drive her son with my dad and come stay with us for a week. I knew it was going to happen with Covid though, but it still blows. Then my other sister has this maybe soon to be stepson and it was his birthday Saturday and she had all that to do. My mom was doing decorations with her husband and my Dad was getting their new rehabbed house finished, my friends have kids and my friends without kids could not really come over because it was raining and we could not sit outside. So then Sunday came, and I had all these plans I wanted to do but did not do. Do you know why I did not do them? Because I did not want to do them alone. What is the purpose? I can do them anytime this week and no one would know the difference. So today I started feeling extremely alone and now that thanksgiving will be weird this year I need to gear up for a blah week and figure out how to overcome it or just roll with it. Whew, again, so much in my head. I am trying not to let the big stuff creep in and take over and really put me in a depression. I am scared to even write it because I do not want it changing me and making things worse. Does that mean I will never get passed it though? Does that mean I can never talk about it? I do not know- honestly. I just know that right now is not the time.
One thing I have been doing for awhile now is washings my sheets and taking long showers on Sundays. If I do not do anything else with the day, I feel so good that I did the bare minimum of self-care. This is a depression trick I learned when I would make all of these big plans for self-care days and then I realized on my really bad depression days I would not even wash my face, brush my teeth or get out of the clothes I wore to bed. Those days still happen, but for sure a LOT less than before. But this Sunday sheet wash and then me washed getting into clean sheets makes me feel like I won the day of depression. I did not let that fucking evil pest win.
It is a weird thing being alone. I have friends and family but being alone has been 12 years now since my divorce. Well since we separated, and I moved back home. I have been okay and grown and learned and been happy for sure, but 12 years is a long time. And part of the shit I must work through is getting in another relationship and explaining that I have a mental illness. How in the hell do you do that? And frankly I do not think I have met anyone of interest- well at least when my heart finally healed. It is something I think of though, how awkward it will be. Or will he just open my kitchen cabinet looking for glasses and see all my meds there. You see I cannot hide my meds somewhere so no one can find them because then I do not take them routinely. Another trick I have learned through the years of growth. My mental illness is why I told my ex-husband I did not want to have any kids. I was not going to pass down what is ‘in my head’ to another soul to have to struggle through. What if I gave the baby something worse than what I have, or the baby/kid just could not deal? It seemed selfish to have a child. Plus, when I was pregnant what the fuck would that look like. I mean I cannot take any of the meds I am on because I would kill the baby or deform it. It was just easier to give up that part of my life to spare so many around me having to help in all kinds of terrible ways and then again, the fear of passing on whatever mental illnesses would be passed.
Well I started to ramble. I guess just writing can work through some depressed thoughts. This is another quick one so I can share my down in the dumps me too. I am okay. I will be okay tomorrow for work. I am a strong woman. I am a strong woman that has learned to ride the waves of mental illness. I will come back and link some good resources tomorrow; I just want to get this posted. I need to feel like I am helping someone by sharing and I need to share more to do that. The lesson learned from this Sunday eve post, wash your sheets and you every Sunday, it works wonders.
Layers 