Bipolar Blues

This is me today. In my world today it is dreary and gray and I am all alone inside myself. I hate sinking into these spells. It's been quite a while since I've slid this far back down into the rabbit hole. I snapped at hubman last night and today the realtor, who has been conspicuously absent lately, called with a client and I told her "No." What a stupid, stupid thing to do. And then the realtor lectures me. Fine. Tell them there's an open house Sunday. If they're interested, they'll come. I've never done this before. All of the times I've had this place spic and span only to have no one show up. Today, it's not spic and span and I don't have the energy to bother with it, let alone myself. Don't lay any guilt on me - I do enough of that all by myself.

I saw my MD Tuesday and all was well. Ever since Wednesday I've been on a downhill slide. I've always had the strength to put on my "happy" mask and march off to work or to dinner or whatever was required of me. I no longer have the strength required to slide that mask over my face and pretend that all's well. I can no longer carry out the acting skills necessary to waltz my way through an evening with friends and come home totally exhausted after hiding all of the junk I carry around with me, and hoping no one sees it. What I've done now is lay it all out on the table for everyone to see and nobody knows what to do. Another self-fulfilling prophecy...

Instead, I sit in a closed up house with one little light bulb on, feeling as if I could sleep 12 hours straight. I took my afternoon dose of meds like a good little patient even though there are times I wonder if they actually do any good or if they just line the pockets of Merck and friends. Maybe I'm taking placebos. That would be the ultimate joke. The other night I had a class of wine - one of the rare times I've taken a drink due to my bypass, which cases the sugars to dump straight into my blood stream for an instant high. I could get used to that...but I don't want to pile on another risk factor. I'm not supposed to mix alcohol with my meds.

One of the things I whine about to my doctor is having knowledge and not being able to change my circumstances. He has told me to view this as one would look at diabetes. Knowing you have diabetes and eating correctly is a good thing but there's not much one can do for depression/bipolar disorder except acknowledge it and work with it. Looking back into my family history, I can easily find 3-4 close relatives that I believe were also affected. But in my family, you didn't talk about things like that. I think that was typical in the '50's-'60's. If my brother knew I was keeping a blog and divulging so much of myself to total strangers he wouldn't "get it." But of course, he doesn't "get" my depression, either.

I've had a lot of loss in my life but others have, too. God has given me a husband that is sticking with me through thick and thin. So much different than the first time around! Thank you, God!
The guilt creeps in when I think about how much he has to put up with. I'm not a hoyden on a day-to-day basis but when the siren song calls me I can be a horrible person to live with. I am by nature a nurturer and when I draw up into a ball and become so self-centered I feel as if I lose contact with the best of me.

I have been having issues with both of my computers and when I cannot "fix" something (or someone) I absolutely go to pieces. I become fixated and will spend hours on a problem. I realized that I need to reload Windows 2003 on my laptop but everything is stored away. Can't find it - so, no clipboard and I can't perform a task I was looking forward to doing. My PC won't shut off and my windows program is frozen. I'm going to have to have someone come a fix it for me and that drives me crazy. So anger come riding in on a big black horse. I feel stupid, even though my background is not in IT, I should be able to read a few simple instructions. While I've been typing this, I've been crying and stuffing my mouth with Hershey's kisses. Stuffing that anger down again! I need to be out reading Miss Bee and Katie, Heart of Rachel and others who continuily uplift me and make me a better person.

But I will spend most of today brooding, wondering, and yes, HOPE that tomorrow will be better.