Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

hate the way I sound on the internet.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

Being a grown-up or something

I went from temp for a year to perm. I work in MC still because I like it; in the Business & Economics Department, which I know nothing about; as an Administrative Aide II, "running the show" (apparently [which makes sense, seeing that I'm the only one here at all times]).
I have my own office, with a half-wall that divides mine with a part-time assistant's office. I have two large windows, a big desk, two bulletin boards. The windows are crucial. 3 weeks on the job. I'm very happy so far.
The AC is strong, so it's always cold in here; a perfect excuse for me to bring my contigo thermos and drink all of my random teas that have been lying around forever.

I drink caffeine now. Mostly aforementioned tea. I love coffee but it makes me jittery and ADHD as of now. I've never been a regular caffeine-imbiber in my life before now.

Can't. stop. ordering. dresses. Ugh, Modcloth. You will be the end of me. Give me gift certificates?

Probs eating too many sweets. Whatev, idc.

Started drinking regularly. Ha. My job in the guv'mint drove me to it (no, seriously.) and now I'm a regular connoisseur. Also (DRY) hard cider. Ugh again. Discovered local gin distillers! Bought George Clooney's tequila! Smuggled gin home from Colorado!
Subsequently decided to drink only on weekends. $$$$.

Sam and I got into bingeing on shows. The Wire, The Tudors, Breaking Bad, Twin Peaks, Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Adventure Time, etc. It's beautifully unproductive and sometimes inebriated.

Started seeing a psychiatrist forreal. Added Lamotrigine and Propranolol, and then hiked everything. It's been a month now on this combination/dosage, and I feel pretty good. A lot better.

Went to an AFP party. Cool stuff. Conflicting feelings about her but I like her.

And oh yeah, completely and wholly in love with my Sam.

Quick update:

• Painted my nails for the first time since middle school or something
• Finally cleaned my room mostly. I need a larger dresser.
• WE GOT A KITTEN HER NAME IS PHEBE.

• I got some medication. Lithium Carbonate 300mg 2x/day and Sertraline 50mg 1x/day. Standard medications for Bipolar II. This is from my GP. Long story short, my insurance has changed and I'm still not sure if I have mental health insurance right now. I hope my GP doesn't get sick of me asking for more refills on prescriptions they granted me based on the assumption that I'd be visiting a psych in the near future. That was 3 months ago...
• Despite the fact that it doesn't feel like my meds are working, I think they are. I've had a better quality of life, I guess.
• I will likely become a permanent employee relatively soon and I'm actually pretty happy about it
• Family stuff sucks and, emotionally speaking, I've kinda been all over the place
• But I think everything else has been better?
• Sam is my warm blanket, my worn record, my found heirloom, my old photograph, my kite in flight, my gin & tonic, my dog-eared book, my--HE'S THE FUCKING LOVE OF MY LIFE

Oscillating

I think, overall, things are looking up for me, emotionally. I'm learning how to communicate better what I am feeling, and what I need. It's frustrating sometimes that I have to be so blatant about things but I realize that if I can barely deal with myself, how can I expect someone else to just know how to handle me. There's only so far intuition can go with mental disorder, you know?

I'm in an in-between place. I can keep myself relatively stable and good, but when something does get me down, I explode, or implode. I either yell and cuss (I never really cussed before Sam. It's still weird to me. What a squaaare.) or I fold in on myself and it takes the greatest effort to speak at all. But it takes a little more to get me there. The real triumph is that I don't crumble into a pile of self-loathing nearly as easily. Which means I'm actually being more understanding and less selfish and definitely better able to be there.

I wish I didn't get to the point of like...agitation saturation. Critical mass.

I am bad at doing adult things so I didn't look for a psychiatrist for a long time. But I'm a doof because I realized the other day that my urgent care center treats depressive illnesses. I'm not sure if this includes Bipolar, and I'm eagerly awaiting an answer to my inquiry. Hoping!

A lot of good things are happening right now. I'm leaving for New Mexico this weekend. I'll be there for 10 days, and I'm psyched. I started a new job at Montgomery College in Germantown and just started full-time again. So I can pay down my credit card, thank goodness. Paying the minimum was making me anxious.

Sam wrote a song about me, and it makes me good-cry. For various reasons (probably mostly biased), it might be my favorite song of his. I could write forever about how amazed I am at our love. Even when I feel at the point of destruction, I know this is an intensely, heart-spillingly wonderful relationship. Today, the first lucid words out of his mouth as I woke him up before I left for work: "you're so pretty." N'aw.

Between a rock and a crazy place.

I'm in a high right now. Which means that I feel awesome about myself, quick to spring back, cheerful, and energetic.

It also means I can get into full-blown mania. In which I'm quick to anger, can't control what I feel, get stuck in cyclical thoughts of self-hatred and annoyance and self-awareness ("I know I shouldn't feel like this, I hate myself for feeling it, is it worth saying just because I feel it even though it will bring everything down or should I shut up and try ineffectually to feel better on my own..."), feel sensitive to the point of rawness about a lot of things that I normally would be able to brush off and/or rationalize and move on from.

I had a really crazy episode earlier this week, and it came right after two weeks of almost constant awesome feeling. I fell from a high place and crashed hard. I thought, well that was a good run. I guess I'm grateful for the only two weeks in the past two years that I've felt really me.

One part of my mental illness is the powerlessness of spontaneously forgetting things when they upset me. Oh, it's even shittier than it sounds. In the middle of an argument, I'll forget what I/Sam has just said. Literally JUST said. I'll forget previous arguments, I'll blank in the middle of a sentence. Right now, I cannot even recall what I got upset about the other day. This might seem like a blessing sometimes. It's not.

Because now I just remember silently sobbing myself to sleep, hardly staying that way, hating myself from the moment I awakened. Thinking about wanting to just die, to just not be alive, that Sam would be so much better off, that I add nothing, that I'm just an overly-sensitive terrible person. That I'm annoying, that I'm whiny and self-righteous and WAY TOO FUCKING HIGH-MAINTENANCE, and I resent myself for that (what the fuck?).



Or, tl;dr: Mania = too much. Too much of myself, too many feelings, too polar.


This is what I said to Sam the next day:

"I just hope you understand that when this is going on, it's not my choice

• I don't choose to feel as full of rage and self-hate and anguish
• there's a catalyst - in this case, not being able to get to sleep and being awakened rudely - but it is never just about that
• my brain just explodes all over itself
• I'm sorry if I make it harder for you to be sympathetic
• I just know that I have to at least try to just allow myself to feel some rage and upset and yell a little (even on the internet) and fume and feel debilitated like I can't get out of bed

because I know - only from experience and habit, certainly not from faith in the moment - that it will pass. If it gets that bad, it's my disorder, and I need to let it pass."

The "even on the internet" part was referring to some self-conscious microblogging I did on Tumblr that day. I just wanted to yell where people could, possibly, see me. I don't know why. I wouldn't call it "reaching out;" more like being more honest and uncloseted with people about my fucking insane self. I guess I wanted a response, like an "I feel that way too!" or something, but that wasn't my motivation. I feel pretty good about doing that, actually. I'm fucked up. I hope I come across as sincere and honest, as opposed to whiny and self-righteous, but I'm fucked up and high-maintenance sometimes and I'm doing what I can to grow some self-acceptance.

I'm not quite at the same high point as before this episode, and it'd probably be stupidly nostalgic to wish for that. I do feel good, though.

- I bought a bathing suit and I feel awesome in it. Why did I not embrace the high waist earlier in my life?
- I'm looking for jobs, and trying to figure out what I really, seriously want to do, while I'm still young and privileged and still have few enough responsibilities that I can take stupid risks.
- My psychiatrist opportunity fell through (the search said she was a psychiatrist but she was actually a psychologist -- meaning no meds. Uh, no. I need them pillz, thx). So I'm getting up the gumption to follow through with that again.
- I'm about 99% certain I will not be continuing to work at the DOT, for the following reasons:

• I would need to pay $4-5 THOUSAND dollars to take one [1!] full-time class that spans at least a year and leads me to a certification in something I don't actually want
• I don't have that money just lying around, WTF
• I have the option of getting the money directly from them. On the condition (of course) that it is a 3:1 relationship. I.e.: I commit to 1 year of this course, free of charge, and then I commit to 3 years of work with them. Hell no I don't want to work there for three years.
• I'd be working in MARAD. Which, as I've recently found out, is a goddamned war machine. Not exactly fitting with my ethics, and I wouldn't call myself a pacifist, but fuck falsely righteous slaughter/ethnocide/genocide and the stuff that fuels them.

That is my life update.

Now I lust after Rehoboth Beach and being self-employed.

I wonder if, if someone knew nothing of my disorders and hung around me regularly, they would think something was wrong with me; if they'd see anything negative in how I act, socially. Anyone I know has access to my journal and my Tumblr and that's dandy with me, so I'm fine with not knowing the answer. I don't feel that I have much control over the way people view me anyway, and that doesn't often scare me. Everyone does what they are content in doing, or what they think will make them most comfortable with themselves and their image. I'm most content putting myself out there, being loud about my opinions -- sharing myself mentally, physically, emotionally. Sometimes I'm harsh about it, as with my political opinions, but I'm in it for the dialogue. I'm in it to change.

Facebook and Tumblr have greatly supplemented my understanding of the world. It's become a theoretical community, to me, outside of and after the Great Academia. It's incredible how much I've learned from crowdsourcing my interests. I mean, what better way to learn than from the people; the many people. I know I can't always be in academia, surrounded by young radicals who share my views but will always be open to argument/discussion/laughter/self-examination. The internet-world has become a wealth of growth for me. Everything changes constantly, and I've realized I'm happier when I don't try to keep things the way they have been. Not even that -- the way they are. So I'll get an iPhone and buy new clothes and spend more than I save.

I've been letting go of my scrimping habits, letting go of calories, letting go of blaming myself for my own emotions. I don't see how I won't continue to encounter new things to negotiate, new-old habits to break, new prejudices and privileges to check. I've discovered so much and I'm exuberantly, self-indulgently happy or proud of it all. Even if I spent all day on the computer, who's going to judge that as wrong, and why? If that's what I wanted to do with life, I'd do it. For me, "everything in moderation" is just another guaranteed-to-lose form of control.

I'm not comfortable being such a harsh judge of myself anymore (an arduous concept to unlearn, as I was always convinced it helped me), which I think makes me more accepting in general. If I want to sit in bed and eat 10 brownies and stay up until 2 and not exercise to make up for it, how is that wrong? I'm still as judgmental as the rest of us though, so I function just fine. E.g.: I don't judge a person for eating a pan of brownies in one sitting; I judge them if they don't "take care of themselves" in general. That's still terrible of me, right? What does it even mean?

Haha, I've sort-of become that awful kind of post-structuralist, postmodernist that is impossible to explain and often threatens to self-examine into oblivion.

I think I'm going to cross-post this to Tumblr, but I maybe think Tumblr will become my new journal. Hm.

How to Fall in Love without Losing Yourself (When You’re Bipolar II and For the First Time Now Have Someone Who Challenges You as a Person):

1. Lose yourself. You were already lost; you didn't know it.
2. Come to realize this slowly. Agonizingly. While being incredibly selfish, because you have no self to give, so you just take, take, take...
3. Enter crisis. Doubt that anyone can love you, because who are you, anyway.
4. ^ Live accordingly.
5. Try to snap out of it. You know that's bullshit.
6. Fail miserably, often. Causing plenty of grief for your partner as ze feels ze has to walk on eggshells with you, and rightfully resents it. Hate yourself more than you don't, for being a pitiful amorphous blob or shell of a person. Hate yourself for fooling someone into loving you.
7. Ponder who you are. Are your impassioned political views just a way of avoiding your own self-hatred? Is it all just a ruse to feel like you’re a good person? Doubt everything else "good" about you. Doubt that it's genuine.
8. Worry that you've ruined your relationship. It was all a show from the beginning. You fooled hir into believing you were as wonderful as ze said. Think about this every day, because you’re all but convinced of it.
9. Realize some things that are genuine. Notice what you do in your spare time, or what you do in your not-so-spare time when you should be doing what you should be doing. Realize that this is probably something you.
10. Talk to your partner probably too much about all this shit, seriously bumming hir out and ruining a lot of good moods because you can't stop thinking of yourself. Have a lot of blowout fights because you’re both so raw and coiled all the time.
11. Try to reclaim those things that are genuine. Actively identify with them more, and show it. At least pretend to be proud of them. Hope that it gets easier.
12. Keep trying. Know that you always will. Know you’re being naïve perhaps. Reckless perhaps. Break down often. Come this close to losing hope. Try anyway.
13. Realize one day that something has gotten better with you, in your head and heart. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but one small part of you and your life is better. Feel wonder-full and somehow content with that.
14. Repeat Steps 3-13 ad nauseum.
15. Notice the good times getting better between you and your partner. Somehow. Notice your sense of self has gotten more substantial. Somehow. Start thinking about your dreams again. Not just your nostalgic projections.
16. Do things for yourself. Do them by yourself, do them with other people. Make more decisions (make any decisions, because you never have, really). You’ll feel like you can’t; literally are unable to. And you worry about what your partner will think of you. Do it anyway (ze loves you).
17. Feel like ripping your hair out (it’s already falling out, why not) because your emotions get ahead of your thoughts, running wildly out of reach -- wildly, crazily, stupidly out of reach -- never to be caught by your reason and intellect.
18. Regularly remind yourself that just because you don’t want to be irrational, just because you know one thing and feel another, that does not mean you can just shove it off and be done with it. You are all of it.
19. ^ cry.
20. Hysterically
21. All the fucking time.
22. Feel out of control every day; some terrible version of you powered by -- if you want to get Freudian about it (I don't really know a better word for it though) -- your id. Worry that it's all been latent, dormant. And it's all who you "really" are. Hate it. See 6 above.
23. Continue to be wildly in love. Don’t hold back.
24. FIGHT. Yourself, your partner, fight with your fighting. Fight against nausea, fight against complacency, fight against that wanting to just detach. DO. NOT. DETACH.
25. Outwardly trust that your partner isn't just fooling hirself; they've made the decision, knowingly, to be with you and to do whatever that takes. Believe, outwardly, when ze says you're worth it, you're a good person. Inwardly: you want to believe it -- you trust them -- but it's never enough to really feel it.
26. Until sometimes, fleetingly fragile, you might believe it. You want to. And you realize -- you want to, you want to.
27. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten.

This journal entry brought to you by the letters BPD, CD, SAD, ADD, and ED.