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Hello.. this is not really normal for me to reach out or join a group of people who suffer bipolar, so I'm sorry in advance if I ramble in my introduction post/personal story. My name is Nikki and I live in Western MA, just moved here recently from CT where I lived two years (and moved to CT after living most of my life in Washington state). I've been diagnosed as being bipolar since I was in the 7th grade. I was hospitalized after an attempted suicide and was on a pretty long road to recovery and I was stable for quite a few years. My mother died when I was three of a suicide because of her own inability to cope with her illness, and my father took my own attempt very seriously. However, halfway through highschool him and my step-mom, who I'm very close to, split up. I consider that the first step in a chain reaction that has made my slow, downward spiral that is ending now with me sitting here on this forum, telling you about me, and waiting to feel sleepy so I can rest up before my doctor appointment tomorrow. I took my parent's split very hard.. abandonment scares me and it felt like I was losing my parents a second time. I went off of medication because I began to react badly to it. While I wasn't suicidal, I was getting increasingly emotionally agitated-- even someone telling me I had, say, a bit of lettuce in my teeth was enough to send me running to the bathroom hysterically crying. My psychiatrist retired from working as well, and though he referred me to someone new, I stopped going. I don't really know why I did-- maybe it was a relapse? The fact that I went off the meds and felt normal was, to me, a sign that I could "handle" being bipolar just fine all on my own. Heh, how wrong I was. Two weeks after graduating high school I flew across the country to live with my older boyfriend. Things were rough at first, but we've had a happy relationship and are looking to get married in a couple of years. I was up front with him about my disease, and told him if he couldn't handle it then to not waste my time thinking he was gonna "fix" me. He told me not to be silly and that he was fine with that-- he'd take that bad with all of my good. So far he has held true to his word. His family, and his mother specifically, however... I cannot say the same for. We used to live, up until a couple months ago, literally five minutes away from his parent's home. His mother found out my biological mother hung herself, and found out that I had inherited the disease. From there on out, she has treated me like a leper, or a psychotic woman just waiting to snap and take off her precious son's head in the night before stealing all of his money and using it to fund a cross-country serial killeresque spree of terror and death. I have tried to be patient with the woman-- even after she said my mother killed herself because of me when we got into an argument about her needing to call before coming over (and then knocking rather than using the emergency key to let herself in). Even after she screamed in front of the entire family at Christmas time that Bipolar doesn't exist, that it's actually Satan possessing me because God has forsaken my evil self. The best part is that this woman is a NURSE. I should mention she abused her power as a nurse to find my medical records and snoop on me, medically. She worked in the same office groupings where I saw my physician back in CT and while I have no hard proof of it, she's made comments to my boyfriend about my health that she has no way of otherwise knowing. Because of that, I resisted going to see a mental health specialist in Connecticut. There were times when I knew I really needed to, but my fear that she was going to snoop again and flip out and cause more pain in my life because of her small minded ignorance about my illness, I will admit, locked me up. My boyfriend doesn't tolerate her behavior, a big part of why we moved, but I can't ask him to just cut her out of his life. He is not his mother and sometimes I feel blessed and amazed that someone as understanding as him was raised by a woman like that. I have never in my life met someone so utterly terrified and downright stupid when it comes to mental illness. However, while I have in some form coped with being bipolar all these years off medication, I have noticed a frequency and increased intensity in my mood swings as time has gone by. The familiar feelings of being two people trapped in one body, or of having feelings/desires/reactions that seem oddly detached from the rational part of me have returned with frightening frequency. I went from crazy job hunting and meticulously taking care of house while I was home for the day, to now not being able to get myself out of bed to even fix myself a bowl of cornflakes, let alone dress and shower, or convince myself to walk down the stairs and give my boyfriend a hug when he returns from work. Almost every venture outside of the house leaves me angry and fighting with my boyfriend-- I've also avoided almost all of my friends and family, feeling uncomfortable and unhappy if I have to talk to them or update them on anything. I am pretty positive that I have an alcohol problem as well. I self-medicate with it and like to drink myself to a comfortably heavy buzz at the least each night. It prevents me from having to think about the things that bug me and while that alcohol is in my blood, the demons are at bay until the morning. My alcohol tolerance is now so bad that even two screwdrivers will leave me hungover and throwing up for hours the next day. If I talked to anyone the night before when I drank, I usually feel embarassed and ashamed at having drank. Then, instead of taking that as a cue that I needed to stop, I just stopped drinking with other people. A few months ago I went a couple weeks without drinking and felt better and somehow convinced myself that this was a sign that I'm not an alcoholic. It made sense because I'm also a social smoker who will smoke if everyone else is having one, but I have never bought a pack of cigarettes or felt cravings for them. However, one day after heavy drinking, I realized that just because I was choosing instead of feeling compelled to drink didn't mean I don't have a problem. Recently I drank and got into a fight with my boyfriend-- he was upset that I seemed to have given up and told me I wasn't pulling my share around the house or our relationship. He said I needed to pull it together and I just started to cry. He went to bed. I stayed up, drinking, and crying. I did something that I hadn't done in a very long time.. well, two things. For one, I had extreme thoughts about wanting to die. It felt like such an obvious and comforting answer, and yet this tiny alarm bell was ringing at the back of my mind-- it seemed to reverberate and I was overtaken by panic that my thoughts were steering me to my death. I've always felt overwhelming fear that I'd end up like my mother. The way I handled this before my previous suicide attempt was to cut myself. I've never been a "typical cutter".. it's never about trying to kill myself, or a desire to see blood/gore, but about the pain providing a focus as well as a punishment that makes me somehow feel better. I cut on parts of my body where I run the least risk of hitting an artery or something vital and bleeding to death. Parts of my legs and arms, specifically. I cut myself that night, various parts of my body, and then passed out after cleaning the wounds when all was said and done. My boyfriend woke up for work the next day, saw the cuts, and was extremely worried. I was still passed out and not very responsive, so he took it upon himself to unload all of the knives in our house as well as all medications into his car as he left for work. I didn't notice because I stayed in bed all day, feeling too wretched to even get out of bed. He came home and we talked. I was up front about what I did and why I did it. He didn't yell at me or get upset with me, but he told me he was no longer just going to trust me when I said I didn't need the help to deal with my illness. We found a doctor, booked an appointment, and we're set to go tomorrow. I stopped drinking since the incident-- the feeling of wanting to die was so terrifying that if I ever experience it again, I want to experience it without my mind uncontrollably altered by alcohol. I feel scared and lonely still. My cycles always have rapid, agitated-type mania followed by long periods of depression that have bad physical side effects. I stop eating when I'm depressed because food tastes horrible to me, as well as just not caring about physical hygiene or treating problems as they come up. I feel like crying all the time, and I do cry all the time for almost no reason at all. I know I'm doing the right thing by going to see someone but I'm also still worried about my boyfriend's mother somehow getting a hold of the records. I think I'm going to tell the doctor my suspicions and ask a block or something be put in place on anything he puts in my file, at least concerning her. Anyway. I've never really been one to fully reach out to others with bipolar. It's not so much that I'm ashamed of it but that I was in denial about needing help. At this time though, I irrationally feel quite alone and figured a forum where I can talk to tons of people going through something similar would be invaluable. Sorry for the long-winded post, and congratulations on making it to the end! |
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