Category Archives: mental illness

Thoughts we speak not of…

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*******EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING**** EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING*****EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING*****

I decided I wanted to write about those “thoughts” most of us have, but we never speak of, say them out loud. One reason I am sure is fear and shame. Who would comprehend these types of thoughts. Who could we open up to about these thoughts and not judge us, or look at us like we are “crazy”? I am only going to mention a few, because there are plenty. I am doing this so others can see/realize they are not the only ones who think like this. And there should be no fear or shame for thinking these things. They are just thoughts, not actions. We do not act upon them (for the most part). I also think we have these thoughts because we have such vivid imaginations, it is difficult not to. So, today I am going to share my “disturbing” thoughts with you.

I will start with thoughts I had as a teenager. I thought everyone was watching me all the time. Like ALL eyes were always on me. It felt really uncomfortable. Sometimes, I could handle it, other times, I couldn’t. Like while in crowds, it felt like EVERYONE was watching my every move and/or talking about me. Judging me, laughing at me. Thankfully, I ‘grew’ out of that. That lasted a couple of years, and it kind of just went away.

Another thing I always thought of was when I was in bed trying to go to sleep. I would imagine an intruder (murderer) breaking in the house, I would wonder how I would hide, where I would hide so he could not see me and kill me. I would wonder which rooms he would go into first, I would wonder if my parents would get shot while sleeping. Things along this line of thinking happened often. I did not feel safe in my home, I was terrified. This, I also eventually ‘grew’ out of. It happens every now and then, but not as often as before.

Now the following I have always thought of, as a teenager and to this day. Sometimes I hate having such a vivid imagination!

The latest one is seeing myself in the bathtub, slit wrists, tub full of blood and I am slowly dying as the blood oozes out of my arms. As my hair dances in the water, I just kind of float there, staring up, slowly dying… peacefully. Feeling all of my worries, concerns and fears oozing out along with my blood. (This one I was actually planning on doing, I was really feeling it, almost ready to do it, then I confessed this to my husband and that is why he decided to take FMLA to stay with me).

Other times I see myself hanging from a rafter or beam. Just hanging there, lifeless. I have searched around the house for something like this just in case I were to decide to do this. Thankfully there is nothing in this house I could hang myself from.

Another one is when I am in a vehicle, I see the car hitting something and me flying out of the front windshield, colliding and bouncing on the pavement, bloody, body parts here and there. I am still alive, I see myself standing there and an angel next to me, staring down at my bloody, disfigured body, slowly dying. I am not in any pain as I slowly drift off into an eternal deep sleep.

This one I do not think of often, I think it is the most disturbing of all. I think of pouring gasoline all over my body and lighting myself on fire.

Sometimes I think of bashing my head in the mirror, over and over, until I see enough blood to satisfy my need to see my blood pouring down my face.

Other times I imagine myself in a public location and a gunman shooting everyone in sight, including me.

Another one is me jumping off a tall building, plummeting to my death.

The overdosing on pills I no longer think of, because I have tried that one many times and the outcome was not fun at all. I also tried the gun thing and was not successful. I could not do it…. thankfully.

______________________

I guess the worse part of all of this, is that I can so VIVIDLY see it happening. Like watching a movie, they seem so real.

And the last one I will write is me at night hoping, wishing not to wake up. (I think that is a popular one among us, along with the ‘just disappearing”). The sad part is I think this even when things are going well. I wonder, why would I not want to wake up when things are okay, when I am feeling good and ‘happy’? It does not make any sense to me.

Seems these thoughts have become second nature. They just pop in when they want to. When they pop in and stay for a while, I try to distract myself so as not to think of them. We can control our thoughts. I know this. But I am 38 years old and have been thinking like this for so long, it is not an easy task to do. But I know it can be done, and when that day comes… well I can’t wait until that day comes, where I will no longer think or imagine these things. Or I can get rid of them the second I start thinking of them.

Until then, I will take it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute to even second by second, if and when I have to. I will do what I can to stay alive. To keep fighting. I will keep struggling. To spread hope. To help others like me realize that they are not alone. There are many like us.

I am staying alive for myself and for others. You, my family, my friends, strangers, everyone. If I make a difference in one life, if I can save just one life, than I have served my purpose. Hopefully I will save many…

Until then keep hope alive! Much love and peace ~Bekr

 

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UPDATE to last post

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UPDATE to last post:

I did not end up getting hospitalized. My husband took FMLA to stay with me and watch after me. I have been taking my medications as prescribed. I am not really feeling any better. The house has not been cleaned in over 1 month. I did manage to clean the bathrooms, because ewwwww. :) I have lost interest in most things. I stay in bed most of the time. I go 3 days without a shower. I don’t eat much. My husband does eventually force me to eat and shower. I have been wanting to write this post forever, but have not had the energy. It feels like all of my energy has been zapped out of me. I feel like a puppet hanging on the side of the door. I do not find amusement in anything anymore. I am just here. Every now and then, yes, I will laugh here and there and feel “human”, but otherwise I feel like a waste of space. I don’t feel useless though. I have not lost all hope, but it seems to be slowly fading away. A good thing is that I have not self harmed in the form of cutting or burning. I have had piercings, which has been my own form of self harm. That is what has kept me from cutting and/or burning or anything else.

My husband is doing the best he can, but I am not making it easy for him. I do appreciate him doing this for me very much. He is my angel.

I know what I need to do to get better, but doing it is another story. Getting the energy and motivation to do what I need to do seems impossible, although I know how easy it is. I could just force myself to do things, which I have. I have done the laundry, and other things. I just need to keep forcing myself to do things until I get back into a ‘normal’ routine. So easy, yet so difficult. I am sure most of you know this.

It’s Time

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History: I completely stopped my medications against doctors advice in February. I titrated off of them, so as not to get too many withdrawal symptoms. I was good for about 3-4 weeks. Then things started going downhill. My mind was not well. So my husband and family decided to fly my sister in to watch me for 2 weeks. So she came over, I was ‘okay’ for the most part. We had a great time, then she left. It has been pretty bad. My thoughts, my ideas. I made a ‘plan’ to kill myself. The intent was there at one point, but not as much anymore. I decided to tell my husband about the “plan” a few nights ago. He then decided to take Family Medical Leave to look after me. It has been 3 days, and I just realized I am not getting any better like this. I know my husbands intentions were well, but he cannot help me the way I need help.

Current Situation: I have not cleaned the house for 3 weeks, which is the longest I have ever gone without cleaning up. And I really don’t care, nor have the energy to clean. I have NO energy to do anything. I have had to force myself to do laundry every few days. I have not cooked, my husband has been cooking or buying fast food. I finally took a shower today after 3 days. I wore the same tank top and pj bottoms for 3 days. I did not leave the house, I basically stayed in bed and slept. When I was/am awake I was/am on the sofa. I don’t want to do anything, I find pleasure in nothing. I am just completely depressed and numb.

We moved here last November and I have a new psychiatrist and therapist, which of neither I really like. Long story short my therapist told me him and my psychiatrist thought I committed suicide. So, as he tells me this, I am thinking, if they thought I did this, why did they not take 2 minutes to call to make sure I was alive. I realize they have lots of patients, but seriously?? Am I wrong for thinking this? I do not want to see a therapist that does not give a shit whether I live or die. Plus, I think I pissed my psychiatrist off by stopping the medications and he has given up on me. Again, what good would it do seeing a doctor that has already given up on you. And that is why I have not gone to see either of them. I did see my psychiatrist to start new meds, he put me on the same meds and added Zoloft and basically told me there was nothing he could for me.

Sooo, the VA Hospital here is not open yet. I will be going to the Air Base Hospital tomorrow and see what they decide there, to send me to a civilian hospital (psych ward) or what.

It is time. I had hoped it would pass, but it hasn’t, and it is not getting any better. And like I wrote months ago, this is what I said I would do. If I did not get any better, I would go to the hospital.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been in and out of psych wards a million times, I know how they are and what they are about. Some of them don’t really help at all, they are like holding cells, but they keep me alive, and that is a good thing. I have not been to one in 4 years or so, which is a record for me, considering I was committed at least twice a year before 2009. I hate having my freedom taken away from me, but hey, it needs to be done.

I’ll be sure to bring a notebook and pen/pencil to write down ‘the happenings’ of my hospitalization :)

Much love everyone!!

I am a Lucky Woman

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I confessed to my husband last night about how I planned on doing ‘it’. My suicide plan. I did not want to really tell him, or anyone for that matter. But it was brought up and he begged me to tell him, so I did. I guess I scared the shit out of him because he decided he was going to take Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for 2 weeks to look after me. I asked him “what about the bills?” He replied “You are more important.” I love this man so much and I am extremely lucky to have him in my life. We were truly meant to be. It is amazing that we crossed paths again at the time we did. We we ready for each other.

I could go on and on about how perfect we are for each other, but I won’t do that. Yes, things are not always wonderful, but they are good. We do have bad days, and they are pretty rough, but we always make it through.

So I am just hoping things will work out and we will find a way to get the bills paid, and work on getting me ‘better’, more on an even keel. I have been back on medications for 2 weeks now, they seem to be working… well… sort of. They do take a while to get back in the system to start working. I do need to stop drinking. I have been doing that a couple of times during the week, and I know alcohol messes with the medications.

So here is to new beginnings and never giving up hope.

Us back in the dayThis is LoveLoveHappiness

It’s Alive! :)

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The sound is not in sync with my talking… sorry about that, I do not know how to fix it. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy :)

If you want to see more of my videos, look to the right and there is a link to my You Tube channel. Much love!

I am NOT well

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I will try to make as much sense as I can, but my mind is in quite a tizzy. This kind of all started sometime last week. I have had my days mixed up, not sure what day is what. At least I know what week it is. Sort of. Anyway, I could say this all started the day I decided to stop my medications. Well, I was good for a while. I titrated the meds and did not have any awful side effects. Things were well, life was looking up, la di da and all of that shit.

Well, sometime last week it HIT me BLAMO.  One evening I started to hallucinate. Yes, all of my life, I have seen shadows here and there, but nothing serious or scary. I have also heard stuff, like my name and other meaningless stuff, that I just took as being part of me. Well, this hallucination scared the crap out of me. Hey, maybe it was not a hallucination at all and was a ghost, I don’t know. Haven’t seen it since. Anyway, my mind has been playing games with me, can’t explain right now. Like I have other people in there having conversations. Yes, I have joked about this before, but those ‘voices’ were always my voices. I knew they were me. Well, these new voices, have faces, personalities and so much more. They do not take over, they kind of just hang out with me. They are friendly.

Okay, back to whatever I was trying to get to, I went on a Lorazapam binge. I have been on these meds forever, and NEVER abused them until now. (I was completely off ALL meds for at least 3 weeks, including Lorazapam). Sometime last week, Monday and Tuesday, I just kept popping them and going to sleep. I just did not want to deal with life and being awake. I get my meds in the mail, so I hid this bottle from my husband, he normally keeps them all locked up. Yeah. I am a sneaky little bitch when I want to be. So I was in a daze/fog for a few days. Stayed in bed and just slept. Time seemed to have flown by, not like normally when I sleep in bed all day. Normally the days drag, this time the days flew by. I guess I eventually told my husband what I had done.

I called my therapist and told him I had stopped my meds, then he told me to call my psychiatrist, which I did. I had to leave a message, he never called back. This was last Friday… (I think).

Yeah, I went into a severe mania episode last weekend, then crashed, them manic again. It has been a tailspin, of chaos and confusion. I do not know my left from right.

Soooo, as of now, I am angry and have lost all desire to live. But I am hanging in there as much as I can. I am not going for a pity party, oh, poor me, poor me crap. That is just not me. My attitude right now it “fuck it”. I know others have it worse than me, and yadda yadda, yadda. But I do not fucking care….

I forgot to add in here, maybe on purpose, that on a highly drunken night a few nights ago I did try to OD on lorazepam and zofran. Don’t think that would have really don’t the trick anyway, but it’s what I had. Well, once my husband found out what I did, I got the end of the toothbrush to my throat. So I’m pretty sure that got rid of most of it.

As of this second I am working on a ‘safety’ plan to keep my ass alive. Well, not this actual second, once I am done writing this and posting it. I will talk to my husband, well try talking to him because all I can seem to do right now is yell. After talking to him I will call my family back home. I DO NOT want to be hospitalized, because they totally suck, there is no therapy and I hate being told what to do. But hey, if that’s where my ass needs to be to keep me alive for now, then that is where it should be.

I am just writing as the thoughts are coming. I may not be on the Facebook page as much for a few days, just to separate myself from it, or I may, I do not know. I just don’t want to be bombarded with everyone else’s problems right now.  They are piling up right now,(the messages) and I KNOW I do not have to look at them, and will eventually get to them. But right now it is irking me. EVERYTHING is irking me. Yeah, that may seem a bit selfish of me, but I need my own damn time too. I am not a total bitch, even though right now I may be coming across as one. But I know me, and I know that those that care about me know I am not, and that is what matters.

I just wanted to keep everyone posted as to what is happening in the Wonderful World of MisAdventures of this Bipolar Girl.

Ahhh, the joys of all the highs and lows, and sideways, ups and downs, confusions, fog, haze. zigzags… the endlessness of it. When will it ever end??

Yeah, I am all about hope and never giving up. But I AM human and BIPOLAR, not some superhuman bipolar chick that can use a shield of power to pounce all negativity and stupidity away from me. I wish I could, that would actually be fun. PEW, PEW, PEW!!! That’s me deflecting all the negativity and stupidity away from me, and making it dissipate to never be seen again.

dark

To Medicate or Not: Update

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So it’s 4:30am and I’m wide awake. I tried closing my eyes for a few moments, but it just made things worse. I don’t really feel completely manic yet, but I can sense its onset.
I stopped (titrated) my medications without discussing it with my psychiatrist. I missed the appointment I had with him and 3 appointments I had with my therapist. I have been doing pretty good up until this point. I think it’s been shortly over 1 month since I stopped my meds. I fully believed I could do it. I second guessed myself a few times, but still went with it. It was only until today that I realized what I was actually doing when I was talking about it with my husband. I was first asking “what if I’m okay without the meds? Does that mean I was never really bipolar? Does that mean I’m not anymore?” Then I thought for a few seconds… And realized that this is EXACTLY what many of us do. We are on meds for a while (for me this happens to be about 4 years of being fully med compliant), then we get that “confidence” and think it is okay to go off our meds. Was I fooling myself? I did feel fully confident, I also knew I had enough self awareness (at the time) to ‘know’ if and when I needed to go back on meds. My self awareness extended only that far… Maybe I should have known better. Maybe I should still give it a go…a little longer… Maybe I shouldn’t and go back on my meds like I said I would if this happened :( I don’t feel like a failure… Not totally… I ‘know’ I’m not. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe that’s just a little too many maybes…

I have an appointment with my therapist in 6 hours, I will discuss what I have done and he may make an emergency appointment for me with my psychiatrist, although I don’t feel I need to see my psychiatrist right away. I already know what I need to do. Start my meds again…

And so the bipolar story goes…

On another note it did feel great to be chemical free for a little while. No midnight snacking. I felt “free”. I will miss that feeling, but my sanity is much more important.

BUT then again, I get like this even when I am on meds… Ahh, what a conundrum…

A Letter to My Teen Self

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Dearest Teen Me,

Hello, don’t freak out, this is the adult you writing this for you. :)

First of all, stop being so mean to your parents. They love you so much and are doing the best they can. Appreciate everything they do for. They are learning as well, you were not born with a manual. Nobody is perfect, we all have our faults.

Even though it seems that so many people turn to you and open up about their troubles, there are so many others that don’t and are actually going through the same exact thing you are going through and feeling. Do not worry about what other people think of you, what you think of yourself is most important. I know you don’t think much of yourself now, but you have many good qualities. You are a great listener, don’t you realize that by how many people completely open up to you? You are a good kid. Just because you have ‘messed up’ thoughts, does not make you a bad person. It is okay. And it is okay to cry, don’t be afraid to do it. You are also extremely smart, you have to believe a little more in yourself. You CAN do anything you put your mind to. Give life a chance, you will eventually go on to make a difference in many people’s lives. You have the power to make a difference!

I know you have an extremely difficult time opening up to others, but just try it. If you don’t like it, then don’t do it, but at least try it first. When you feel you can no longer handle life, seek help. Call the suicide hotline, speak to a trusted adult or a friend. You may be surprised as to how many people will listen to you.

Be careful, all of that risky behavior you are doing, the drinking and driving, the speeding and running red lights is not smart at all. I know you don’t really care about yourself, but there are others on the road to think about, and you could effect their lives forever.

Do not take any crap from men. You will have alot to put up with, but do not tolerate being disrespected. You have a voice, please speak up for yourself when you feel uncomfortable. Do NOT worry about them or what they will think, they do not deserve your worry and you deserve to be treated with the utmost respect. I know you don’t respect yourself, but please learn how to. When you respect yourself, others will also respect you. Learn how to stand up for yourself. I know you have a difficult time doing this because you are so unsure of yourself, but you can do it.

Do as much research as you can about mental illness. Go to the library, check out some books about the subject. Talk to your school counselor and ask them about mental illness, and ask if they have any information they can give you. The more you learn about it, the more you will see that it is NOT your fault for being the way you are. You are not being punished for any wrongs you think you have done. Again, it is NOT your fault. The feelings you are feel are not wrong. The thoughts you have are not wrong. And you are NOT your thoughts.

So please when you start feeling worthless, just know that you are loved and appreciated by many. You are worth it and you deserve the best. You are much stronger than you think. There is hope for you, please don’t EVER give up. You will grow up to be a wonderful kind soul.

I love you,

The Adult Rebecca

 

What you would you write to your teen self? I think we should all write a kind letter to our teen selves.

To Medicate or Not

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NOTE: DO NOT stop taking or adjust your medications without first consulting your doctor.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME ;)

I have been weaning myself off of my meds. I have not discussed this with my psychiatrist, but I have told my husband (he is the one that has control of the meds because of my history of overdosing). I have only seen my current psychiatrist 2 or 3 times, and he seems to like to throw meds out for everything I bring up :/

I used to not be med compliant because nothing would work. These medications have been working for a few years now, with an adjustment here and there. I probably should not be doing this, but I am tired of taking medications. As I am sure most of you are too. I guess I am going against my better judgment, but I feel confident. I also have enough experience with ‘my’ bipolar disorder to know/realize when I start getting manic, and if I feel this happening and I cannot manage it on my own and with therapy, I will go back to meds. Maybe I am just stubborn and have to learn things the hard way. I just hate putting all these unnatural chemicals in my body, which I am sure are doing harm. BUT the benefits outweigh the negatives when it comes to keeping me from mania and alive. Anyway, I slowly started weaning myself off my meds about 2 weeks ago. I am almost down to nothing and I feel fine. I do realize it takes a while for the meds to completely be out of my system. I will be starting these ‘supplements’ that will remain unnamed for now, that someone with bipolar disorder recommended to me and so kindly sent me 2 bottles of samples.

While I am doing this I will also be seeing my therapist working on DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) every Friday. So I will be being ‘monitored’ by a professional.

I will keep you posted as to how I am doing. And I am sure it will be obvious if I get manic or depressed while I am doing this “trial” from the tone of my posts.

I already know DBT works great! And I am hoping these ‘supplements’ will do the trick.  But if they don’t and I feel myself starting to get manic, I will have no choice but to start my meds again. I realize and know this. I am not putting pharmaceuticals completely off the table. This is just something I want to try. And I will never know UNLESS I try. So… here we go…

(I do realize I repeated a few things I wrote, but it was to make a point)