Wasting away

Today is a hard day. Really other than two short periods, when I was on vacation in Vegas and right when my meds got upped in March, there have been many hard days. A lot of hards. So many that I cant even give you an estimate. When I got diagnosed I knew it would be hard, I knew that there wouldn't be any miracles and I would wake up one day suddenly a normal person. But I didnt think that every day would be a struggle. That each day I have to convince myself to get out of bed (not that I sleep very well in that bed anyways). That I have to convince myself eat, and drink, and try to be normal. Most days I go back to bed with the basics being done. I eat, I drink, I go to the bathroom, I get dressed. But thats about as much as I can say I do on a regular basis. I can go days without brushing my teeth because I dont think about it. Showering seems like a bother, why take of my pyjamas if I am just going to be putting them back on when I am done? I do the dishes, I pick up after the boys, I will put clothes in the washing machine and dryer. But I don't put those dishes away, the toys are just thrown into a corner, or bookshelf, or pushed off to the side, and I never fold the laundry. I'm always too tired to do anything else, too unmotivated to live like I should. I feel, most days, that I am failing at life. That one day I am going to regret this, but I can't seem to do anything about it. I can't get off my ass and be better. And I am sick of it. I feel like I fail at everything I try. That I cannot succeed at life, that I am meant to be mediocre and live with it. People think that they understand, but they dont. They say, I am here if you want to talk anytime. But they dont understand that talking doesnt help. All it does is make me feel worse, at the end of this blog post I will be done for the day, its that mentally taxing. My problems arent fixable by talking, its all chemical. Which is why I never talk about it. My sister in law gets it. She has bipolar too (although she has talked to me about going to see someone to talk, but I pushed it away in the corner with the toys) but even she has gotten better on medication. The same medication that I take, helps her, but at a lower dose. I am maxed out and its still not enough. My dr is looking into adding something to my medication now and part of me is hopeful. But a bigger part of me is terrified that its not going to work. That its going to be yet another failed medication. I mean, failing at life is what I am best at right?

Wait....what?

So here I am, months after my last post and I off my latest meds, for almost a month now. My doctor is off on maternity leave, and her replacements have been less than lackluster. Despite being on a priority list for needing to see them regularly, I have seen a doctor 1 time since March. Once. And I was put on a new medication in July, which wasn't the right dose. So why bother taking it if its not helping? I do have an appointment in 2 weeks, but that was only after I called them and pretty much forced myself into an appointment, they gave it to me rather reluctantly. And even then I think they made a mistake with my diagnosis. None of the medications I have taken have helped at all. I was diagnosed Bipolar 2. Dont get me wrong, I am certain I have Bipolar disorder. No if, ands or buts about it. But if none of these medications are working, maybe they missed something in my diagnosis and a whole other type of drug is what I need. I clearly need it that is for sure. Since stopping my meds, within a week, I noticed I was moodier, I was sad, really sad, for no reason. Then as the time passed that became more pronounced, but more things were added to the pot. I was short tempered. I didn't want to do anything, I cried even easier than usual (I am a big crier), I cant seem to form coherent thoughts or express myself properly and I feel like I am all over the place when I am thinking or talking. And most recently, 3 weeks after the original symptoms came back, I feel like I am paranoid or something. My husband feels like he can't really talk to me because if he says anything the least bit critical I switch it all around that I am not good enough, that I cannot do anything right, that I am pretty useless. When that is not what he is saying at all. Any time anyone says anything negative, or suggests I do something differently, in my mind I feel like a failure, that I cannot do anything right, or that I always mess everything up. I mean my father said I can give him a list of things to pick up for Christmas baking when I get there, but make sure I use it because last time there were left overs that went bad in the cupboard. A normal person would be like oh ok I will make sure its all stuff you can use later on even if I dont use it (my parents arent Fluff fans apparently). In my mind I was like, well great, he doesnt want me to do baking because I leave this huge burden behind when we leave and they have to deal with it and man I thought I was good at baking but now I cant even seem to do that right and does he even really want me to do any baking or should I just not bother. Ok I will go cry now  because I can't do a single thing right. Yea, that stuff isn't even bordering on normal. Its like off the chart cray cray. But stuff like that goes on in my head over and over all day long. And I feel like, if I say anything to anyone, people are going be like, oh shes gone all woe is me, poor me, looking for attention again, its always about her. I know part of it is my self confidence, but not all of it.
Reading this back afterwards I look at it and I am like, wow, you are nuts. Its not fun feeling like you are crazy. Its not fun needing medication everyday just to be tolerable. People laugh when someone has a mood swing and their friends are like, wow bipolar much? I'm not laughing, there is nothing funny about being bipolar.

Statistics

When it comes to mental health there are statistics for everything it seems. So how does someone not become a statistic? It seems like its impossible really. Scientists and reasearchers live on them. Journalists and the media like to throw around any numbers they like, and sometimes I wonder if most of those stats are actually from reliable sources. In a world where everything is a statistic, how can I keep myself from being one? I guess I will just focus on the positive statistics I am a part of. I am in the minority when it comes to bipolar and substance abuse. I've never been institutionalized. Medication works for me (to an extent but hey, even a little is better than not at all right?). Those statistics I don't mind being a part of.

I really suck at this blogging thing!

Two months since I last wrote! Yea I guess I am not as good at this as I hoped I would be....But I figured today would be a good day to do a new post! I had my monthly appointment with the doctor. At the moment I am on 50mg of Lamictal 2 times a day. It's not going to well. Mostly because I only ever get about half of my dose. I ALWAYS forget my morning dose. Too much going on, and even with little notes around I still forgot, so I pretty much gave up on it. My doctor saw that Lamictal has an XR (extended release where you only have to take it once a day) version so she called my pharmacy to see if it would work for me....its not available in Canada! So I spent the last month looking online at different options and went in armed and ready for my appointment to talk about either adding a prescription or stopping completely for something else.
She was great and is consulting with my psychiatrist to see which two would be best (one that he had suggested and one that I suggested). My choice is Latuda, but it is new my doctor wanted another opinion to see if it would work. I can't remember the name of the one she suggested but hopefully in the next week we are weaning me off of the Lamictal and onto a new medication. Its frustrating when nothing seems to work right.

Is it me....?

Sometimes I have these days where I am just down. And I can never tell if its just one of those days where things are bothering me, of its just my bipolar going, Hey! Today feels like a great day to screw with your head a little.
I am having a day where I just want to be in bed and cry. I have a bad cold, my throat feels like it is on fire. I feel like the forgotten child at work. I work in a building away from the rest of my team, in a little office all on my own. Sometimes I wonder if they would even notice if I didn't come in sometime. I loaned a bottle of Purell to my boss last week and it got lost, and tried to give me a bottle of an off brand of hand sanitizer that was half empty, when my bottle was brand new. I'm tired, and I feel unappreciated and I just want to go and cry.
Today is not a good day.

My biggest fear

My biggest fear is losing my boys, all because I am bipolar. I am always terrified that someone will say, you have bipolar, which means we don't know what you will do in the future, therefore, because you could possibly go crazy, we are taking them from you. Up until now I knew that this rarely happened. Well in Britain it did happen. An Italian woman who was in Essex county 15 months ago, was forced by the courts to have a c-section and then they gave her baby up for adoption despite her pleas to raise her daughter. In court the judge even said 'If in later life she reads this judgement, as she may well do, I hope that she will appreciate that her mother in particular loved her and wished for her to return to live with her and to bring her up.It is not the mother's fault, nor the child's, that it was not possible and that a predictable home could only be secured by way of adoption.' All because the woman was bipolar. I guess in this world, it is still possible, in a free world and developed country, to have something like this happen to you. A sad but true fact.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517944/Judge-Roderick-Newtons-remarkable-message-baby-girl.html

Hi, my name is Melanie and I am a bookworm. **Allegiant Spoilers Ahead**

So for as long as I can remember my stepmom and my dad took me and my brothers, and eventually my sister once she came along, to the library. We were all pretty avid readers, Stephane and Whitney probably the least, but I was definitely the one that devoured books. And it didn't stop as i got older, in fact I think it's gotten worse as I have gotten older, if that's even popular. I love books. I am very invested in books. I have a Kobo Aura HD e-reader, as well a pretty big bookcase full of books (its actually too full and some are in boxes). I like book series, trilogies or series the most. Although I hate, hate hate waiting for the next book in a series to come out. Its pure agony for me. Well the latest source of agony just came out, Allegiant. And when I say just came out, I mean it, it was released yesterday and when I got home from my nice, new shiny hardcopy was waiting for me on my front step. I knew it had been delivered because I had checked this afternoon on Chapters to see where it was (after seeing in the morning it had arrived in the city!). I tore it open the first chance I got. Since Cedric had vaccines this morning I had taken the day off. And I finished just before lunch. I have never been so heartbroken in my life for a book. The only time I remember crying this much was with the last Harry Potter, so that is saying a lot. I think I was as much invested in the Divergent series as I was Harry Potter. And this ending, I don't know what to think. I don't feel like I had a satisfied ending. I feel like there could have been a different story told and not kill off 2 of my favorite characters in the book and leaving the 3 characters who should have died alive, and 2 of them are happy in the epilogue. It just doesn't seem right to me. Tobais should have been happy too, but 2 years later  you can see it still hurts for him. He is doing good with his life, but he is broken, forever. He will never recover from what happened to him. How the author can do that to characters that she loves it beyond me. I know we can't always have a happy ending, but this ending, killing Uriah was bad enough, but then killing Tris as well...it's kind of devastating as a reader, watching her and Tobias finally figure out how to function normally as a couple, to learn to be honest and to trust and just TALK about what they were thinking, and then the next day Tris is dead. And Caleb, Marcus and Evelyn are all alive. Even Peter lives! And he gets to take the cowards way out and erase his memory with the Abnegation serum. But she kills two of the best people in the books. Characters who everyone loved. Poor Uriah, whose life was full of death, first his father, then Maureen and Lynn.
The ending threw me off so much that I can't even tell if I liked the book or hated the book. The first 2/3 of the book are pretty good, the back story and seeing the reactions of Cara, Christina along with the rest of them, to the outside world. Tobias being manipulated by Nita and meeting Matthew, a character i wish had been in the whole series because he was that loveable. Even David, who reminded me a lot of Janine even though he was supposed to be a 'good guy'. Learning about Tris and Caleb's mother, and where she came from and how she knew about the outside world. It was all fascinating, but then I feel like it was ruined. I'm going to have to read it again, but I'm kind of scared reading it will solidify a hatred for a book, and I've never hated a book before. Disliked yes. Hated? Never.