Periodically I go to the bookstore and see what the popular press is selling in the local Barns & Noble bookstore on Bipolar Disorder and other related issues. This last time I got a few books that I wouldn’t normally get. I don’t usually use workbooks when I buy them, so I bought a workbook calling itself a handbook this time. It’s a handbook for happiness and surprisingly, I’m actually going through it and doing the exercises. My stack also included a memoir on the life of a woman who suffers from Bipolar Disorder (BPD).

The memoir on BPD has definitely captured my attention. I got all the way to page 101 before I had to stop and breathe. The woman’s story was crushing. It is a vivid exposé exactly spelling out the symptoms of sever BPD. If you’ve never been able to express how you feel at your worst, this book could do it for you.

Although I’m actually taking the time to read this book, I’m not going to tell you the name of the book or the author. Usually I can’t pay attention to a book long enough to get through it all the way much less half of it. The first memoir I ever read changed my life. It forced me to admit I was sick and that there was help for me. That was The Unquiet Mind by Kay Jamison.

I’ve stopped reading this unnamed memoir because I’m questioning its truthfulness. If I went through all the massive amounts of prescribed medications, alcohol use and bizarre behavior. She suffers through alcohol poisoning, doses of prescribed medications that defy explanation, no sleep and sleeping with different men almost as fast as she can meet them. She’s petite woman and has suffered from eating disorders before being diagnosed with BPD. This is her second memoir. Her first was on her eating disorders and she was publicizing it when she was only 23. (If you know who I’m talking about please don’t say who it is in the comments.)

I want to understand why this woman isn’t dead. How can you never sleep, over medicate and drink more than four bottles of alcohol a day for years and still survive? Was this a New York Times bestseller because of the truth of it? Or the sensationalism?

I will finish this book. I owe it to the author before I decide what’s really going on. I have started researching her online but so far have only found her website, her on Wikipedia, and a couple of interviews about her first book on her eating disorder struggles. I would like to be able to contact the author and ask her directly about how she’s survived.

She paints a picture in the 101 pages I’ve read so far that shows the worst of how BPD is. If I’m certain that this book is authentic, I’ll be happy to recommend it to you. It might be a good book to show that no matter how sick you are there is still hope. But then, it may make you feel like you should just give up because you’re not as strong as the author is.

Until then, I’ll try to suspend my disbelief so that I can read it fairly and be open to its veracity.

Have you ever come across anything like this? What did you do?

I was supposed to see my counselor yesterday. I was glad. The timing couldn’t have been better considering how I’ve been feeling. And then reality hit. I’d convinced myself that my appointment was an hour after it really was. I was convinced that I was there at the right time. Nope.

I do this to myself every once in a while. I convince myself that something is one way and it’s really another. It usually has to do with interactions with other people, but sometimes it’s more like this. I was really upset about it. Now I will be seeing her January tenth. January tenth. This sucks. We have more people who need mental health care in this state than we have mental healthcare workers. So, we are forever not getting the counseling we need. I average an appointment with my counselor about once in about every six weeks. Okay, it’s somewhere around eight times a year if I’m lucky.

My youngest daughter was over here last week and we did her FAFSA for college next autumn at UWT. She’s had trouble getting it done again this year. I was irritated and I guess I must have let that show. I remember feeling like she was being rude to me. In fact, my eldest daughter remembers me telling her how rude I thought her sister had been. I’ve asked my family to keep an eye on my behavior and tell me if I start to slide back into hell’s mouth. The youngest apparently though I was mean to her.

I was what?

I don’t remember it that way. Was my daughter was being hyper-vigilant and looking for me to act in the least not perfect? Seeing something small and making it really big in her efforts to help me? Was her mind running away with her? Or was mine?

I don’t know.

I do know is that my memory is impaired, I admit that, it has been for years. But, I don’t think I’ve become mean. I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to treat my family badly.

One of the things I suffer most from when I’m afflicted with my illness is extreme irritability. I blow my stack over the slightest of things. Sometimes I go nuts over imaginary things, thinking things are different than they really are. This is one of the things I’m most afraid of becoming again.

I was reading today that extreme irritability is evident in both the depths of despair and the fury of mania. I agree with this. I think it shows how although the illness is called “Bipolar Disorder”, there are symptoms that cross the boundaries between the two poles. I know that this can sometimes be confusing and even misleading. Some may ask, “How can you be irritable and angry and say you’re depressed?” For me, it’s easy. It’s part of the way things have always been for me. I’ve always been severely irritable no matter what my mood.

Lesson learned: When I ask my family members to watch me I need to be more specific. I can also use these times to teach them more about the illness so they understand me better and I’m not just their “sick” mom.

I hope that I can show each of my children how much I love them every day, regardless of what state I’m in. But, I know that isn’t always as easy as it may seem.