Depression

Bipolar – Glued by Medication

/ Robin

I’m feeling better now. At this moment. Better. Although I did think about my daughter who is and Airman in the United States Air Force over at MacDill, FL (I’m near Seattle). I was going through photos of her while looking through my pics for a suitable one of her to use . That’s all it took. She has always been my best friend. My rock. She doesn’t have to say anything. She just is there. When she was here we loved doing a lot of the same things or found it pretty easy to tolerate ones didn’t like. Drives to Mount Rainier were frequent and other close by places off in nature’s year round greenery. We are fortunate here in the Evergreen State.

I looked at pictures of her and I cried. I calmed down, and then I cried. My son just got home a bit ago and I told him. I started crying again. I was able to get myself to stop more easily this time, but by now I headache. Because of my meds I’m reduced to just taking Tylenol for headaches.

Yesterday I slept most of the day. Blah. Not as bad as being depressed out of my mind, but when you’re sleeping at awkward moments it can be about as bad. I don’t remember a thing. Today was better. A little adjustment in the timing of medications can work wonders.

Bipolar – Fractured

/ Robin

I don’t like to talk about the spin, the time when I free fall and cannot make myself stop. When anger and grief and pain explode in my life… not just my brain. What I think, this is what and who I am.

For the moment. Sometimes these moments can draw on for the proverbial eternity and we try to think, if we could, that we’re coming near the end, that we cannot stand this anymore.

I didn’t have more than brief moments of these things. Most of the time I have been so manic that I thought my brain would implode from shear spinning. You see my friend, I’m a mixed Bipolar 1. Those of you who aren’t familiar with this condition, congratulations. Today you win the lottery. This last few weeks have been terrible. I have been very depressed and unable to see it or deal with it. When it was suggested that this might be where my massive irritation was coming from I had a difficult time admitting that it probably was. (See how I did that? I still skirted around it.)

I have exploded, with my kids present, too many times. Recently, too many times. Okay, not exactly always at them. Sometimes just when they’re around. When I’ve considered my past I worry for the times they’ve been exposed to my insanity. Being a single mom and going ballistic for what seems now like for no reason at all leaves a mark on kids. They say it’s worse than divorce. I’m both. Bipolar and divorced. I worry for they scars they carry… because of me.

I’m a mixed state depressed and yet manic Bipolar 1. I have two kids still at home. I am alone. I have no friend to speak of accept one and we met on line and don’t speak of these things. I’m glad for that. I can be normal with her. She knows I’m Bipolar and she doesn’t care. I act rationally if a little meanderingly with her. And yet, I fear I’ll say something and she’ll walk away too. So many have that I’ve quit trying to find friends.

My family doesn’t (beyond my kids) understand. Not at all. When they care to try to… they… well they don’t. Recently I learned that when my mother took home stuff to read about Bipolar she never read them. She’s never looked it up on line. She’s now 72. She has no excuse. She knows how to use Google.

Yet we all know that even the great Google cannot explain this that we are. We are ourselves. We are great in mental volume, if not in order. We excel in emotion, if not in control.

I spent a lot of time this last few weeks in grief, anger, fear, irritation and depression. I suppose, don’t understand why I avoid that. I think it seems to my fractured mind that admitting depression means loosing the last bastion of my mind. Confusing, I know. New meds sedate me too the point where I simply cannot not sleep. This frightens me as well. You see, as my med provider put it, “We need to get your nerves calmed down.” Now, when I’m not so calm as to sleep, I’m not calm. There must be a middle ground. I must give my mind time to heal. Be patient.

My kids suffer I think. They are afraid they may have inherited my genes too much. But you know, after all of me, all of living with me, they still believe in themselves. They have ego. EGO. All three believe in themselves.

See you thought I’d never finish the “pride” letter didn’t you? Ha! They have pride in themselves that is good. It isn’t forced. It’s part of who they are. Part of their hardwiring. I asked them how they each manage to be so sure of themselves. This is what they said, each one said this:

“Mom, you taught us to believe in ourselves. You drilled it into us. You, you did this.” I did. I made them who they are. (Give this wording to me for now. I deserve it.)

I have my own ego. Ego born of an accurate estimation of ones abilities is a good thing. I’ve struggled with this thinking I’m really stupid because I never finish anything. But I have. I’ve successfully raised three amazing kids (young adults). I know what I’m good at and they are many things. I finish things when my brain lets me. One thing.

I’ve raised three amazing kids. I’ve been a wreck this week. But, I started on Lyrica for some of my physical pain. I should be scheduled soon for a shot in my spine and that should alleviate a lot of my other physical pain. My additional meds should mitigate some of my mental pain. Even though I’m up in the middle of the night again, I feel restless, but hopeful. For the moment. These moments will grow longer, this much I know from experience. I must stay the course and take all my meds every single bloody day.

I have one thing to say to you and I hope you will listen.

I’ve raised great kids. Awesome kids. I love them beyond words. I… have raised awesome kids despite myself.

My friends write to me and comment on my letter. I wish to read your thoughts. You too are important to me. Till the nest time, be well and be patient with yourself. Give yourself a chance to heal.

(Oh, and there are now 23 pot shops. (Oy veh)

Bipolar – PRIDE

/ Robin

You I’ve found that my depression tends to cut off my ability to experience and to recognize pride in my kids and myself. Never mind actually saying anything about it to them… when I realize what seems like to late that I should have said something encouraging to them… I freeze.  It sucks to have your kid come home and tell you how proud a teacher or counselor is off them. It sucks when you didn’t know you should have been proud of them.

Oh I realize we can’t know everything that’s going on with them,  but come on!  “Pay attention!” I said to myself.

The last two days I’ve been paying attention to my youngist, Sydney.  She’s in Running start and taking classes at the community college (TCC) and SOTA (School of the Arts) and was hired by the business she interned for AND today was made coordinator the the students, businesses and screening… and placing the new interns along with recruiting new interns.

WOW right? I don’t yet know how it will all work out but her brother and I are going to give her as much support as we can.

This morning I was so positive. I believed I could complete all the projects I’ve started over the last 15 years. They’re good projects and worthy of my hard work to complete them.

Then I picked up Sydney after my physical therapy (PT) on my lower back. I picked her up and it seemed to me that she again shot some things I told her I was thinking about in the face.

I crumpled. My amazing up beat attitude and hard work I’d done all day left me and I was filled with anger and resentment.

Stay tuned and I’ll share with you in my next letter what happened. It was a humdinger.

Good night my friends. Talk to you real soon.

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Sydney, squinting, at the lake 2014

I’m so proud!

Weird Parenting – I’m Eclectic and Bipolar

/ Robin

I’m eclectic… I get it from my brain. Honest.

Back to being a pissy parent. We all have our pissy moments right? Ask your kids. If you allow them to be honest I’d guess they’ll say you are (sometimes). I am. Remember? But what next?

I can’t tell you how to be a great parent. I don’t think there is a cookie cutter version of the “perfect parent”. What I will do is share some of myself and my life; our family life. I’ll share some of the interesting (read… weird) things I’ve done in my journey and efforts to be a great parent. That was always my goal. I never wanted or want to be a good parent. I only and always want to be an excellent, amazing, great parent. That’s all.

One of the things I’ve found to be most interesting and thankfully very workable starts with me. I’m super massively curiously. My kids sometimes think I’m too curious. I want to know all about so many things. As a Bipolar parent this can come in handy. When I’m functioning pretty well (not screaming over “spilt milk”) and can stand on my own and all by myself I love to do weird things with the kids.

We live about an hour from Mt. Rainier National Park. It is an amazing park. I could pick the kids up at school and be up at Paradise in under two hours. We ate lunch or a snack out of the back of the truck (car, after the Explorer was repossessed). The very easiest food for me to pack, and one that doesn’t cost much, was to get a brick of cheese (not a giant one), a tube of summer sausage, crackers, 2 pops for each of us, bottled water, and some candy. Oh, and my pocket knife, to slice the cheese and sausage.

We have been poor, very poor, since any of my kids can remember. I have always hated that and resented everyone, including myself, for it. I never thought it was fair. But that was just how I “felt”. As I learned and grew I’ve come to understand that at this point in life it just is what it is. There isn’t any sense beating myself over the head about it or raging at family members who have $.

The thing was I wanted to find things for us to do as a family. I wanted them to see we are family and we will always be here for each other. I started with the fun things like taking off on spur of the moment wild trips to the mountain. None of their friends could say they did that.

What am I saying to you? I’m saying this: my mind wanders hither and thither all the time. Like Alice said, “I think about 6 impossible things before breakfast.” That’s always been me. I was stuck in depression much of the kids’ childhoods… growing years… before high school. I really fought myself to do the things that I knew were right. Providing a fun and fast trip to get us all outdoors in some of the most beautiful places in the world. (I mean that every place we stopped for pictures or to explore or just anything, that individual spot was fun at that time. That moment.

I’m curious, remember? Shaking off depression and plunging into a floating maniac free fall. Okay. Maybe calling it a rocket which takes off likety-split. The internet was just reaching survivable speeds for mania driven for me. My brain spun and smoked constantly as I devoured every bit of information on anything that caught my fancy… day or night.

This obsession turned out to make our trips interesting as well as fun. Information, you know, the stuff that can grow our brains to be smarter? Yeah, I had a lot of that.

I had just one problem. Only one of my three kids could give a hoot. The one that did wasn’t anywhere near as interested in information as I am and we diverge all the time. But we do both like to learn about things we’re interested in. She reads. Not so with the other two. They saw their out of control mom buy 100’s of books and devour many of them. Books lived in our small duplex more than we people did. They don’t actually like to read just for the love of reading.

Mom has all these books. Many are about how to help myself be successful in life and finances. They saw neither of those oh so important things happen when I brought a new book home or printed reams of information from cool websites. Obviously, books aren’t great. Words aren’t great. They don’t even work. (I’m not really sure what that means, but I think you get my drift.)

My attention wanders constantly. I have ADHD and am Bipolar type 1. My brain hears this instruction incessantly: go… go… go… go… go… GO!!!!

Keeping kids happy… my books did and do help me do that. They give me a place to take my mind to where I can be quite and stop talking for a time. They revel in the silence. Books give me ideas. A LOT of ideas. Running the kids to the mountain is one of my greatest ideas for my young, single mom, Bipolar, ADHD, poor family. We sang. We laughed. We ate fun food. We played in the snow without snow cloths (never enough money to get warm cloths for playing in snow).

I forgot what I was saying again. I started what I want to tell you about in my next letter. Nope, that’s gone too. Hold on… think… relax… switch the TV to mute… I want to tell you more about these sudden trips next time. I’ll tell you about Tarzan yells, deer, mountainside museums, rocks, singing country music, lakes, mud slides and fell trees across the road. And I must not forget the movie in the woods after dark. Cheap, fun, fast trips.

You know what our little trips did for me? I got excited thinking about going, about treating the kids to something terrific. That boosted my morale and pleased me. I even smiled. I miss those trips. Remind me to tell you why we don’t go anymore.

Point? getting my hiney up and doing things just so I could surprise the kids always pulled me up from the darkness. I didn’t have a choice.

Thought followed by action… this is a secret weapon I use as often as I remember to… help me be more like me.

And now I must say good night my friends. I think I’ll play some nature sounds with soft music on YouTube from the playlist I made just for that purpose. Lest you think I need to fill the quite void of no talking I must share with you one more little interesting thing.

Someone in the near area is having a party. The sounds of vehicles on the highway (half a mile away) periodically are drowned by crazy laughing.  Sounds like something from haunted woods. Wish I could make out what they say. Wait… it’s the ass. You know, the ass down the road. The one that resembles a pony. He makes his ass sound. Then the creepy laughing. Then back to the highway. Yeah, TV is getting unmuted.

Till next time… Wait, I thought of something else. Thank you to those of you who have taken time to write notes to me. I love hearing from you. Please write me notes, post comments and even share my letters to you as often as you like. If you’re a parent and Bipolar you and I have a lot in common. So share, comment and tell people you know who might find Redux (this blog) amusing or helpful.

Signing off till next time.

Robin

P.S. I didn’t even apologize for jumping around today. I’m not even going to go back and make it more organized. You get the words today the way they prompted me to put them down. Uh… in. In my Chrome. Never mind that. Pass it on my friends. And keep writing.

 

I Am a Bipolar Parent – Pissy

/ Robin

Hi everyone.

I chose the title “I am a Bipolar Parent – Pissy” because while BP is what I am, who I am, what I have, whatever, I am a parent first.

I am a divorced and still single BP woman. I am Type 1 (the messy type) and I exist in the mixed state perpetually. When not being a good and balanced mom, I’m super pissy. When I’m depressed and throwing things or want to get off the world and I’m manic and talk forever and shout a lot.

I’ve raised my children (I’ve counted them… there are three) alone and unemployed. I’ve stay unemployed because I simply couldn’t handle working. I’ve never lasted more than a year in any job. I did have my own company for a while. It was wonderful and I loved it. I was more manic than depressed at that time so I was able to crush all adversity into dust.

People around me kept telling mi I was a great parent. Now, years later, I look back and am broken hearted. I see that I wasn’t an amazing parent. I see what damage I’ve done to my babies who are now 22, 19 and 17. My youngest especially has explained to me through who she believes she is and remembers from her childhood, that I pulled them into my emotional and mental poverty with her especially being damaged.

Damaged. I suppose I wasn’t such a great parent. I was relatively stable (I’m lying) during the first two kids’ early years. When it came to my youngest I see that I was consumed by my business. It made me feel alive for the first time in years. Unfortunately, I left her in the dust of my being consumed. She’s had a hard time.

My baby says she’s been raised in a shit hole and feels like others have “families” while she did not. Their father has been out of the picture for most of her life. That, has been his choice. It gave her a primary target for her anger, her hatred.

Now I am learning so many things about her and what she remembers. She doesn’t remember any good times.

I remember the good times. So do the older too. She feels . . . cheated I think.

I’ll tell you more about this soon. Instead of lamenting all my woes of being a crappy mom, I’m going to tell you how I became a good mom. Maybe even a great mom. I became a “weird parent”. Check back soon to see what I mean.