It’s Been Awhile So Get Ready!

After not really writing for awhile, I started to notice I was becoming more irritable, irrational, quick to anger, isolated and depressed.

I’ve always had a problem with confrontation. I avoid it as much as I can. This has usually meant staying silent when someone hurts me or says/does something I disagree with.

Eventually I will reach a point where I can’t swallow anymore B.S. and I reach a breaking point. Whoever is near me at this time suffers the consequences.

I can physically feel it happening. I hear my blood rushing in my ears, I lose my vision except for the color red or red dots and my head gets incredibly hot.

When it’s over, I don’t remember all of it, only bits and pieces. I know I screamed and yelled, said some horrible things, but I don’t remember the specifics.

I don’t make excuses for myself. I have tried to explain why it happens.

One of the most difficult things is when your loved ones think you aren’t trying hard enough.

When I had my last kidney surgery to change my stents, it was embedded and partially blocked with a build up of mineral and calcium deposits.

Your kidneys filter toxins from your blood and help keep your bodies chemistry in balance.

If you have 1 kidney working at 40% that has been compromised because the stent keeping it working at 40% has become embedded and blocked, your blood isn’t being filtered and your body chemistry is thrown off.

Now imagine you have an illness involving a chemical imbalance in your brain. Plus most of the medications you take go through your kidneys.

This would cause a huge problem if this went on for 6 months without you or your doctor knowing.

So when my stents were finally changed it was like starting over. I felt like I was mentally back where I was at 20 years old. My Psychiatrist didn’t adjust my medications even though he received all the reports. I was basically starting fresh but at high doses. All the medications that had been in my system I had detoxed from. One of the reasons I felt the way I did.

Starting over with all the side effects is horrendous. There have been times I just wanted to get in my car and start driving until I ran out of gas.

My Dad isn’t doing well and I’ve had to worry and take care of him. He has multiple disc herniations and bulges in his back. There’s also a compression at L4 and extreme spinal stenosis and arthritis. When I heard them ask if he knew he had several healed fractions I thought I was going to vomit.

He was too busy bragging about how many pounds of grain he can lift and carry to feed his 300 birds! He told me he got rid of almost all of them. He lied. Then continued to dig the hole deeper by boasting of all the other things he isn’t supposed to be doing.

I can’t chain him to his chair. He turned 75 on June 5th. I called and reminded my sister the night before. She NEVER CALLED HIM. On the 7th I called her and asked if she had called our Dad. She said she was going to. I asked why she didn’t do it on his actual birthday. She replied “He didn’t call me on my Birthday” That’s when the blood started rushing. In the last month she has told me 3 different times that she or her and her husband dislike my behavior and how I don’t take responsibility for anything.

I never see my sister and her husband. Since I had that 1 fight with him 4 or 5 years ago I’ve been kept at a distance. But they still bring up my “behavior”. How do you know what my behavior is when you’re never around me?

Sorry if I’m mad because once again I’m the one taking care of one of our parents and I’ll be the one that gets to watch them get worse and worse. I’ll be the one to either find him dead or watch him die at the hospital while you make excuses from 10 minutes away.

She never called for Father’s Day either.

I can’t watch another parent die.

Watching my mother almost killed me. I can still see her face, the nurses laughing, my Dad howling, the blood, like it’s right in front of me.

I remember her last words to me and that kills me.

I don’t want to do it again. But he never left me. I owe him. I know the rest of my family figures it’s okay because I’m alone and they think I’ll stay that way. Maybe they’re right and I should accept it.

LITTLE DEATHS AND SUICIDE SHAMING

The remarks made by an actor on Twitter recently about a friend’s suicide made me more than angry.

He thought his friend was “selfish” for taking his own life. After all that is what his spirit guide told him. I think he’s mistaken about what a spirit guide actually is. A guide doesn’t tell you what to think or do, they guide you along your journey.

If he was such good friends with this person why didn’t he see the signs of his friends struggle? I didn’t know the man but I noticed he was different. Maybe because I’ve been there.

Like in poker, we all have tells. Staring off while the people around us laugh and talk. Not really paying attention or adding to the conversation. Nervous habits like bouncing your leg up and down, tapping your fingers, constantly looking around a room. The smile that never reaches your eyes. Sleeping more or less than usual. Drinking more or using drugs more.

The man was an addict. I’m not sure why he thought it was okay to drink as long he wasn’t doing heroin. It doesn’t really work that way. You’re still self-medicating.

As far as reaching out to a friend or loved one goes when you have a serious mental illness that you are self-medicating with drugs or alcohol it’s almost impossible to do.

Each time I attempted suicide I was drunk. All I could think of was the pain, the guilt, the hopelessness. Every bad thing said to me played on a loop in my brain. “You’re a waste of space, no one likes you, no one will ever love a fat c*nt like you, you should just kill yourself, we can’t believe you anymore because you’re a drunk, etc”. There was no room in my head for the idea to reach out to someone. I didn’t even know I was Bipolar and had been for quite some time. I automatically thought I was worthless. I had thought this since I was 8 or 9.

The human mind can only take so much abuse. I could take a lot of physical abuse and I did. But it was the constant psychological damage and trauma that I couldn’t handle. I doubt most people could. My own family could only handle knowing a small fraction of what I went through and what I thought. They refused to hear anymore from my doctors. I still have to find a way to live with it all.

After 5 suicide attempts before the age of 27 something inside me stopped trying and just drank more. I finally stopped drinking 10 years ago and was correctly diagnosed as Bipolar with Social Phobia, Anxiety, PTSD and Conversion Disorder. Knowing about the mental illness helped me stay sober. Getting to the cause of my drinking went a long way.

I would like to say that I don’t think about suicide but I still do. It’s in a different way now. It’s more like I just want to run away or disappear. It’s harder without family or friends. It’s even worse when you have a chronic physical illness that is life threatening.

My twin sister has stopped speaking to me. It hurts. But she can be extremely toxic. Everything is black and white in her world. She didn’t call our dad to wish him a Happy Birthday on the 5th because she said “He never called me on my Birthday in January”.

First he’s 75 and your FATHER. Second, you never answer your phone and I know he tried to call and it went directly to voicemail which she never checks either.

Long story short I lost my temper for the first time in a long time. I even dropped the F bomb in front of my Dad. That’s how mad I was.

I’ve been left to take care of him and his other 2 children could care less. My Dad is stubborn and cranky. He’s now taking vicodin like candy because he herniated several discs in his back and refuses to stop lifting heavy objects.

I need a little vacation.

FINDING MYSELF

I’m not a religious person. I believe in what I can see and feel. This makes it hard for me to find any real spirituality that fits in with what I believe.

I’ve researched Buddhism, which is okay but I would have to fake a lot of the positive thinking they have going on. I’m not sure my body can do Yoga right now either. Most of their concepts are hard for me to wrap my brain around.

I’ve researched Hinduism which is similar to Buddhism but not.

Paganism which can get a little dicey. My Celtic/Norse heritage which can also be a tough one. Shamanism sounded good so did Wicca but I have too many questions and I’ve never been someone who could “just believe” in anything.

I tend to lean toward the darker side of things. I know it’s unhealthy.

I do believe in animals and love to watch them and their behaviors. My favorite has always been the Wolf.

I also think there is something to the metaphysical properties in gemstones. I can’t dispute the research that’s been done the last 50 years or what’s been found that’s the same across many cultures and beliefs. Amber is has the same meaning and properties to Native Americans as it does to Buddhists. I enjoy working with real gemstones. I’m not talking diamonds. I’m talking amethyst, black onyx, agates, the less expensive ones.

I’m still lost and have no idea what I’m doing. I need purpose. I’m also tired of modern medicine telling me they can’t help me anymore.

My GFR is at 40 and my recent surgery didn’t go well when they changed they my ureteral stents. One became embedded which caused more scar tissue which I can’t afford to have. This means having my stents changed more frequently under anesthesia and having a breathing tube. Of course they couldn’t wake me for 2 hours after the surgery because my twin drove me to the hospital and decided to tell me exactly what she thought of me before I went under the anesthesia. When you have Conversion Disorder that can’t happen. The anesthesiologist was not happy with my sister. He had seen her talking to me before the surgery and he had seen me crying.

It’s been a difficult couple of months. I’m more tired than usual, my neck and hips are killing me and my social anxiety has been at an all time high. I’m used to physical pain so my neck and hips have to be bad for me to complain. I kept working while I had 2 herniated discs in my back with 2 bulging discs above and below each one. The only thing that finally stopped me was when I got stuck on the pavement getting out of my car. They thought I wasn’t showing up until I finally reached my cell phone and told them I was outside on the ground. lol

My Dad is having sciatic nerve pain right now and is the biggest baby I’ve ever seen. He won’t listen to a thing I say even though I’ve been through it all. I had 3 Epidurals, water therapy, a 2 hour IV drip of some cocktail to release the muscle spasms because I was shaped like the letter L and they refused to do surgery because it would cause a domino effect. But he listens to one of his friends who says he was kidnapped by aliens! It’s frustrating.

Other than all of this everything is okay.