Bye Bye Job

So today I went for my first job interview in over 5 years and more importantly, since I was diagnosed. I know that I can do this job; my resume and selection criteria prove I can do this job and that I can do it well. The interview was going well, not perfect, but I sounded confident in my responses, and the panel seemed receptive to me. Then came the question I hoped they wouldn’t ask: “do you have any illnesses, injuries or medical conditions that could stop you carrying out your duties?” So I had to tell them about my diagnosis, my treatment and how I’ve had this all my life, but it was not diagnosed and therefore not treated until last year. I explained that despite this I have been successful in my jobs and in my life. However, I know that this question was the end of any chance I had of securing the job. Of course, they won’t say that’s the reason, but honestly who would want a person with bipolar working for them? I hate this diagnosis, I hate having to share this information when I’m not ready to share it, I just hate it so much!!!! Why should I bother applying for more jobs if this diagnosis will stop any chance I have of getting one? I hate, hate, hate this. It is so fucked up and this is now my life.

All I want to do is to go to bed, bury myself under my doona and cry a million tears. Instead I must put on my mask and go about my evening with my family like nothing is wrong even though I can already feel myself starting to sink into the black hole.

Anxiety Overload

25th January, 2018

My life has been so crazy horrible this past month. Every event has been marred by immense anxiety and I can honestly say that I can’t remember the last time I was genuinely happy. This medication keeps me at a level where I spend most days in a state of varying degrees of sadness. I tear up at the slightest thing no matter where I am. I walk around with my eyes downcast so I don’t have to make eye contact with anyone and I’ve now taken to wearing headphones in public so no one tries to engage me in conversation. My anxiety is through the roof, with hours of my day spent worrying about crap that probably won’t happen and conversations I’ll never have.

So sad at the moment because my kids (one in particular) was so badly behaved while camping with friends last week, that I’m sure that once they tell our other friends, none of them will want to be around us anymore. These same friends were going to have our children overnight next week so hubby and I could attend a concert. Now it looks like we’ll have to cancel going because we have no one to look after the kids. I was looking forward to two things this year; this concert and another concert, which has now been cancelled and I wont be to attend either. So fucked!!!!

I’m sure there is nothing my psychiatrist can do to life this sadness and lessen my anxiety, so I’m destines to live the rest of my life this way. I don’t want to die right now, but I certainly don’t want to exist like this forever. I’m wasting my days in a hole of sadness that I can’t escape and no one is able to throw me a rope to rescue me.

Ain’t Gonna Die Tonight

I wanted to share one of my favourite songs. I refer to it as my ‘Fuck off Eeyore’ song!

FML

I wrote this blog on the 21st November during the actual event. It was the only way I could possibly survive the event; to get the words that were spinning around my head onto a page as quickly as I could. I am not editing the punctuation or grammar as I feel it should stay in the original format, so please forgive the jumble of words; I hope it still makes sense. I have left it so long to publish as the weeks following the event were crazy busy. Anyway, here goes…..

21st November, 2017

So today I am attending an introduction morning for my son who is starting Prep next year. I know no one here and I certainly don’t feel like introducing myself or chatting to a bunch of parents I don’t know. SO far I’ve had an anxiety attack that I controlled through the grounding exercise I was taught and I’ve been on the brink of tears multiple times. And to top it off, the coffee was instant and warm. Fucking hell I knew I should have brought one with me.

The shittiest thing is that I know whatever happens for the next 12 years of my sons schooling I’ll be remembered as being the unapproachable, miserable looking one at that first parent day. Already labelled!!

This is so shit! The last few weeks have been busy but I’ve been in such a good head-space. I’ve celebrated my oldest son’s 18th birthday, his graduation, his formal and his birthday dinner. I’ve been preparing for an upcoming holiday we leave for this week and except for multiple shitty moments with Master ADHD, life has been pretty good. I even had a major win with my psychiatrist excusing me from attending the stupid DBT course and changing my medication. So why, of all days, is this the day I drop my bundle and fuck everything up? No parent will want to be associated with me and therefore my beautiful son who is completely innocent in my shitty life will also be shunned. Another fucking example of what a shit mum I truly am. My kids deserve so much better than me. One of the kids screamed at me the other day “you’re the worst mum ever!!!”, and I agreed with him. The guilt of leaving this world is massive; the guilt to stay is even greater.

WTF??

Thursday 5th November 2017

I had the most amazing day on Tuesday hanging out with Master 4. We built and played with a fire station (complete with a pole for the firemen to slide down); we made a car wash and washed all the construction vehicles that live in the sandpit; we collected spiders (including two red backs) while washing said trucks; we went into K-town to run a few errands and played police rescue when we returned home. So many great adventures with a little boy who has a massive imagination!

Master 10 arrived home alone as Master 17 was working after school and Master 13 had Academy training. Master 10 spent the afternoon playing nicely with his brother and generally behaving himself, which is not a common occurrence.

All was going well until hubby came home with Master 13, then the problems began. However even those brief instances of children throwing tantrums were able to be extinguished quickly and I was able to settle both the boys and get them to bed.  I then spent an hour hanging out with Mater 13 watching TV and laughing at contestants on a game show. When he took himself to bed, hubby and I sat together on the lounge, him on his phone, and me watching TV. It truly had a been a wonderful day. Then I went to bed. For some reason, still unknown to me I started crying and couldn’t stop. Hubby held me and told me everything was okay, but it wasn’t. What the hell is wrong with me? Why would I bawl my eyes out after having such a glorious day? Truly, WTF is wrong with me? Normal people don’t do this!

So Wednesday was quite a ‘bleh’ day for me. I wasn’t sad, or depressed; just ‘bleh’. I went for a walk around the river in the beautiful morning sunshine and grabbed a cuppa before running some errands, so I managed to be a little bit productive, but truth be told, all I really wanted to do was go to bed to sleep. However I couldn’t acquaint myself with my bed for many hours so I just sucked it up and hoped tomorrow would be a better day.

I’ve made it through today but had another  cry in the car when returning from the group therapy I have to attend. I can feel myself spiralling downwards and luckily I’m seeing both my psychologist and psychiatrist tomorrow. I just need to get through tonight and tomorrow morning without allowing myself to sink any lower. Safe to say that Eeyore is definitely hanging out with me at the moment and life is going to suck for myself and my family and friends for a while yet.

Ramblings Revisited

Friday 27th October 2017

Years ago I started writing a blog because I had so many words going crazy in my head. I read back through some of those during the week and I can now easily identify which ones were written while I had Tigger by my side and others where Eeyore was my companion. I wanted to share the following blog post because even today I vividly remember how I was feeling so; and worse still,  some of these thoughts still haunt me, which make me feel guilty and really do confirm that I truly am the worst mum in the world. Anyway here it is. I am not going to say “I hope you enjoy it” but I will ask that you do not judge me too harshly and remember who I was hanging out with at the time.

Ramblings of a Depressed Mum and Wife

13TuesdayMay 2014

I regret sleeping with my husband on 13th December, 2006, which resulted in my 6 year old son being born 9 months later.

I feel guilty because I have these thoughts, and if something were to ever happen to him I’d never forgive myself.

I feel guilty because my three other boys have to live in a house with so much yelling and hatred towards one another.

I hate how my feeling towards my 6 year old are picked up and mirrored towards him by my older children.

I hate how I then get cranky at them for treating their brother so badly.

I feel guilty because I’m mean to him sometimes.

I love him so much, but I can’t show him, because most of the time I’m angry with him.

I hate being angry all the time.

I regret that I’ll never look at my baby’s baptism photos and remember the day as a lovely day, but instead of an all out shit-fight with my husbands family, which ruined Mother’s Day (the one and only day of the year I love to celebrate) and my wedding anniversary the following day.

I feel guilty because all of my children had to witness the argument.

I regret bringing another beautiful baby into this shitty situation.

I worry something bad is going to happen to my baby because I have these negative feelings towards my 6 year old.

I hate that my husband won’t leave me, so I can do it on my own. I wish he’d just beat me up so I’d have a reason to get him out of my life.

I regret telling my husband to go and screw someone else, because now I think he really is.

I regret the past weekend but know that I have screwed it up so badly with my in-laws that I’ll never be able to face them again.

I hate the fact that I’m too weak to even take my own life.

I hate that I’m such a control freak because I don’t trust that anyone would take care of my kids properly if I were to end it all.

I hate the fact that I am a terrible mum, wife and daughter-in-law.

Tags

affair,children,control freak, depression, guilt, hate, husband, regret, suicide

 

My Bipolar As I Perceive It

Wednesday 18th October, 2017

Hey there to whoever reads my ramblings!

I am in a relatively ‘normal’ (God I hate that word) today so I thought I’d sit down and try to explain how I visualise bipolar and my moods. So here goes. I see my bipolar as a scale with an extreme high and an extreme low with varying degrees of both in between. Being in the extreme high range is called hypomania and brings with it an excessive amount of energy, a willingness to help wherever you can (committees, canteen duty, volunteer organisations etc), an air of such positivity and the feeling that everything is achievable. It can also bring on extreme spending of items I can not afford or just buying presents for family and friends that are unnecessary. One of the other indications of a hypomanic state is hypersexualisation which by it very name suggests lots of sex and it was for me when I was younger but the antidepressants that I’ve taken for the past 13 years has all but taken away my libido. So unfortunately for him, my husband must cope with my manic states but doesn’t really gain any great benefits from it :D. One of the main differences between bipolar type 1 and type 2 is that I never reach severe mania. Severe mania can be severely dangerous to the person and those around them and I consider myself lucky to ‘only’ have type 2.

Right at the bottom of the hypomania is severe depression. I have quite a few of these episodes since I was a teenager though it was only 13 years ago that I was diagnosed with depression and put on medication. I have only been hospitalised once which was in July this year, and it was during this time that I was finally diagnosed with BP2. Looking back, I can recall many incidents that all pointed to be having this illness since I was about 12 hence my anger and not being diagnosed earlier by the medical profession. A lot of the things I did were because of the manic mood I was in much of the time. Don’t get me wrong I achieved heaps because of it, but I also did stuff that caused me to lose friends, said things which I deeply regret and had way too much sex with too many people which I am very ashamed of. Anyway, my depressive episodes are horrible and in that stage, I truly want to die. Then I feel guilty that I have a life that I am wasting by being depressed but at that time I can’t see a way out of the extreme darkness that envelopes me. I experience the most intense pressure on my head; not a headache, but like I have a vice compressing my brain that I am unable to stop. During these periods I don’t eat, I don’t speak; I cry and I sleep. Sleeping is the best way to escape the psychological pain that I am in. However, as we all know you can’t sleep forever so when I do awaken I am plunged straight back into that darkness. At my worst, a depressive episode can last 3-4 days however I have read of people who are in that state for months or even years. So, compared to them I am so very lucky.

Most days my moods fluctuate between mild hypomania and mild depression and these days with the help of medications I tend to hover either side of the normal mood on the scale. It’s this normal mood that I am finding hard to deal with. I am so used to being ‘up’ and bouncing off the walls that I am very aware that I am no longer like that anymore. I feel like I have lost the essence of you I am and that my past has just been a lie. My husband, kids and close friends have certainly noticed a difference though and they all agree it’s for the better. My husband describes me as a new version of who I am; sort of like Vegemite 2.0 but with better taste and less likely to fail.

So that’s how I see my illness. I am sure others can describe it much more eloquently than I can and probably even see it differently to how I do. I am still learning so much about the illness and the medications available to me, but I am surrounded by an amazing family and circle of friends who will support me as I learn to deal with the new me.

 

 

Crashing Down

Monday 16th October, 2017

Well after a few good days with only one small anxiety attack and a brief low-hypomanic period which kept me from a good nights sleep, it all came crashing down. One disagreement with my husband and I can feel the spiral downwards starting and the self-harm thoughts returning. Even during my meditation class I was wondering just how nice slicing my arm would feel; not to die, just to feel something other than the sadness I can feel slowly overtaking me and my thoughts.

I am heading to bed; sleep makes the sadness and pain go away and gives my brain a chance to rest and recharge itself. I am hoping that when I wake, I’ll be in a much better headspace.

10 Things I Hate About You

Thursday 12th October, 2017

I just had a massive panic attack driving into futsal. I was thinking of our upcoming cruise, and how I would have to let Michelle and Cathy know about my diagnosis and what they may notice about me throughout the week. I don’t think it’s fair that they are stuck at sea with me for a week without giving them the heads up before we hit the high seas. As I picturing the conversation, tears came to my eyes, my throat tightened and my breathing increased. I am so angry that I have this and angry that I need to inform people. This is so fucked! I hate it! I hate that I wasn’t diagnosed earlier; I hate that I have to take medication twice a day; I hate that I now have to attend weekly group therapy; I hate that I have to see a psychiatrist; I hate that I have to see a psychologist! I wish I had never told my husband that I need to go to the hospital; I wish I had never gone to the hospital; I wish I had the guts to follow through with my plan to end my existence, instead of backing out!! So fucked!!