It is so much easier to be positive, to weather the storms of everyday life and those days that turn to shit… when the fine balancing line of I who dance with (Bipolar) is made so so much harder when meds are being adjusted. That in between time when the last drug tried and worked, well, all accept the backlash… The time in between when I leave one drug and begin the search for another and another… The time when I am the most vulnerable… The time when stress becomes STRESS… The time I’m not ready to hear that my baby who serves proudly in the United States Air Force might not be coming back when we planned.

Sure there are special events I’ve spent a good amount of money on and her brother and sister will both be on vacation then, but none of that matters really.

I’m in the in between time when I am scared that if something comes up I won’t be ready/able to deal with it.

It has… and I’m not. I just spent the last little while seeing how long I could hold my breath while I tried to stop crying. There is still a reasonable chance she’ll be home then… but I’m not real reasonable right now. Not even close.

It is in this place that I find myself being reasonably medicated in regards to my overall Bipolar but not to my constant mania, not to the surprising and instant fury, not to the despair that doesn’t eat away at my soul… because I’m so manic that there isn’t time… this is where I find myself.

I imagine my other two kids (19 and 16) have a hard time understanding the relationship their older sister and I have. She and I love so many of the same things… we’re happy to sit and read books in the living room or going on a long drive. I try and then try not so hard to find things the younger two and I can do together, be together. I fail so often I can’t remember the last time we found something fun to do together or something we understood why the other liked something and felt joy at the other’s happiness. I don’t know what happened. Have I been lying to myself about what kind of mom I am? Lying about the mom I’ve been in their shadowed lives?

Shadowed lives? I just thought of this now… shadowed lives. I mean that they have grown up poor material possessions and even poorer still when I consider that they have grown up with the massive Bipolar being that is me. The shadow of the lives I wanted for them.

They say it doesn’t matter. We’re together. But it matters to me. It does matter when I hear my youngest child planning on working full-time as soon as school gets out for summer because she doesn’t feel like I can support the three of us. She believes so strongly we will be without food or a place to live. Right now she’s totally correct. I have refused to let either of her siblings work the summers before high school graduation. Why? Because these are the days when adult life kicks into gear and never looking back it never slows down. Rest, live, enjoy before … before becoming what I consider a full-fledged adult. Of course they probably are much more so than most of their friends, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll be damned if they have to work before I want them to. Know why else my baby thinks/wants a job? She wants some money of her own. Anything, something.

Back to the beginning now where I’ve wiped my face with toilet paper and rubbed my eyes too hard and I try to breathe. In two days I’ll see my med provider. Because of backlash I’m off sleeping pills and Neurontin (for Bipolar and FM). I’m running hard with sticky emotions … well … sticking to my life and driving me to my knees… to a single one.

The bloody new series “Resurrection” features a theme song that is wrenching my heart this way and that. I hear the refrain over and over taunting me and my ridiculous hold on my emotions  and my thoughts… “I’m coming home, I’m coming home…”

Toilet paper in hand I sit upon my bed. My heating pad tries in vain to ease the tight knots in my shoulders. My breathing has slowed. My tears stopped for now. I keep hearing that song… “I’m coming home…” endlessly repeating….

I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
let the rain, wash away, all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits, and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
let the rain, wash away, all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits, and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
let the rain, wash away, all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits, and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
let the rain, wash away, all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits, and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
let the rain, wash away, all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits, and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
let the rain, wash away, all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits, and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming…

I’m crying again.

Friday I got “good” news. I saw a neurologist and finally got to rule out any of the neurological problems that can cause facial ticks. Mine has been getting worse. Sometimes I just have to stop talking. I’ve noticed it gets worse when I’m even a little stressed… or excited. I have to stop and take a breath. It’s frustrating.

The doctor told me to talk to my mental health specialist. It’s psychological. Terrific.

It really is good news that I don’t have yet another physical problem. On the other hand it is very … depressing to find out that my brain is even more screwed up than I thought. When I say this I mean really that I have even more work controlling myself than before. Now, anyone who knows about the tick and what’s causing it (that would be me) will know that I’m stressed. How do I know that? My kids have already started doing it.

It makes a difference when there is a physical manifestation with my mental alphabet. I don’t even know how to process this.

Is it a good thing to have an obvious facial tick … the kind of thing I don’t know if I can control always … or is it bad because I know I’m mental? It’s heavy on me. Weights me down.

Families. I’m really sad about this whole thing. It “makes” me snappy at my kids. I’m hurting and they go about their lives. I guess I’ve raised them that way, to carry on. I don’t want them to be destroyed by my pain. Of course I want them to help me. Yet, I wonder what that means, really. It isn’t the kind of pain they can  slap a band-aid on like they do when I hurt myself.

I won’t say  “I feel like I’m dying inside”, because while I’m stricken with this news, I’m not so depressed that I can’t breathe. Actually, despite how horrible I feel since learning this tick is “in my mind” I’m sleeping really well. 7 – 9 hours a night all weekend. That never happens. I still feel tired though. Maybe though, maybe this is my brain’s way of saying… “Hey, now we know what the game is. We can fight back. Let’s make a plan.”

Question: Is there something you feel pressing on you like I feel about the tick? Something extra, added to your life that’s really messing with you?

It’s okay if you do. It really is.

The thing each of us needs to decide is how we decide to go forward… are we going to choose going forward? I have to decide completely how I’m going to deal with this. I can decide to fight the whole idea and let it destroy me. Or, I can let it roll over me like a wave.

I like the idea of a wave best. Absorb it. Make it part of me. Grab it and take it along for the ride. I can be more at peace rolling in the wave, than I can be when the wave inevitably comes crashing down on me.

Gonna roll.