Ironic or just backwards?

I've never been one to journal. It's been something I've tried several times and it's been recommended to me many times over the years as it is to almost anyone with any kind of mental illness. It's always proven a problem when it comes to consistency.
But here I am with a blog that I write on fairly regularly... What's the deal there?
I feel, for whatever reason, that there are strict rules with a journal. It has to be written in a 'Dear Diary' fashion. Or at least that's the crazy (hellloooo?!) notion in my brain. I just don't always have something to say. I've been told many times that it doesn't have to conform to any set parameters, that it's just there for whatever you want/need to get out, however it comes out.
Hello...earth to Melissa, what do you think you're doing with this blog?!
Yeah, I know, I know. But gimme a break-I am crazy remember?? I'm not expected to make sense!
If you're reading this expecting me to make any sense, you had best stop now. Take your disappointed ass somewhere else cuz you're not in it for the long haul with me here! ;)

So anywho.

I've been writing general wonderings, crazy emotional questions, random thoughts, and poetry in my hospital notebook lately and some of it is making it here on the blog and some is not because I think it's just too random or crazy or just plain doesn't make any flippin sense.
But then again, that's me in a nutshell and you love me so far....
:)

Musings

Things have changed,
  what's changed?
Everything is the same
but the same is different
Different is everything new
and everything old.
Everything old is still
here but nothing new
is gone again

So I had a good day yesterday.
I need to say that again.
I   had  a  good  day  yesterday!

I've also noticed a pattern to my mood shifts.

The days that I have to get up and get going first thing (days the littl'n has school) I am moderate in the morning. Thinking of things that I need/want to do and usually actually acting on them. More often than not I don't get back in to bed. By 1:30-2:00pm I am struggling to stay awake and engaged. Everything and everyone seems a little distant and I keep having to orient myself to what's going on. Kind of like a reality check. Is this actually what's happening right now? Around 4:00 I fake it for a few hours, usually with a headache coming on by around 7 if it wasn't there already. By 8:45 I'm tired and have a headache that doesn't seem to relent. By 9:45 I'm still tired but am awake and have a lighter mood again, ready for all that isn't going to happen until I make myself go to bed between 11:30-12:00.
This is pretty much my standard day now. The rule much more than the exception.

So what to do about this afternoon-evening lull? I feel almost dissociated from the world of reality. I mean, I'm with it enough to participate in whatever is happening, I'm appropriate, I understand, I engage but everything feels like it's outside of a bubble that I can't get through. I have to keep double and triple checking with myself that what's happening is the reality and that I'm actually taking part.
That's not normal. That can't be normal.
How do I get out of the bubble? I'm not always in the bubble. Where does this bubble come from? Where is the crazy place that keeps all the bubbles? Cuz' I'd really like to send it back.
Return to sender please. Thank You.

So that's me. Good day yesterday. Bubbled everyday. Good days have less of a bubble than bad days.

Truly yours,
Bubbles

Yeah....No

  So I'm reading a book. It's a wonderfully expressive account of one woman's journey with bipolar. She's funny and snarky and real and matter of fact. She has an excellent vocabulary and uses it with great skill.

And she totally intimidates the shit out of me.

  I've been told that I write well. I've been told, by more than one person and on more than one occasion to write my story into a book.
Not-a-gonna-happen my friends. Not after reading this book. There's no way that I can come anywhere near this woman's talent.
Afterall, it is she that has so helpfully put into words so many of the things that I have been feeling and thinking but just couldn't articulate.

And besides, no one wants to read about all the shitty things that I've lived through. I don't even wanna hear about all the shitty things that I've lived through.

  But I love writing. I love getting it down, getting it out of myself. Like somehow releasing a balloon: no one else is going to get it and that's ok. It was mine, I let it go "into the great wide open" as Tom Petty so aptly wrote. Such a great song. Boy if that isn't some pertinent prose. If you're unfamiliar with the song I highly suggest you give it a whirl.

So yeah.
There's that.
Again, out there. Outside of me. No longer held captive by that which might stifle it down into the abyss that threatens the whole.

My mind has wandered again.

Not as mighty as I'd like

"The pen is mightier than the sword"

Not in this case. Especially since I'm staring down the blade of a double edged sword.
I'm stuck with a shitty ass dilemma.
Depression or side effects

Depression or increased irritability (highly unpredictable)
Depression or raging hunger
Depression or potential hyperglycemia (worst case scenario-diabetes [may or may not be reversible])
Depression or occasional headache

The doc told me to try halving the dose that way I'd still (hopefully) get some good effects from it but that the side effects would be decreased but I'm terrified. I can't afford to lose any of the good, even at the expense of the bad. I'm just too scared. I don't wanna go backward. I've had a couple of relatively good days. You can't take it away now.......

Please don't take it away

They just aren't coming

The words, I mean.
I've been really wanting to write the past couple of days, but the words just aren't there. I've got song lyrics galore traipsing about in my brain but nothing of my own.
I'm reading beautifully written books that are articulate and descriptive in ways that I only dream but again, nothing of my own.
It occurs to me, what a friend once revealed-that I don't write once my mood lifts. And he is right. I don't.
My mood has lifted this past week or so. I'm still exhausted, but it's a fatigue not associated with the desire for isolation. Course, my appetite has also lifted. I'm eating every damn thing in sight regardless of when or what else I've had. Sugar is my main crave and boy howdy if it isn't what I seek out specifically with great skill.
I attribute all of the above to the new med (Zyprexa [actually olanzapine]).
And while my mood lifting is wonderful, it has brought along significant irritability. Not so wonderful! My sweet loving husband has been getting the worst of that, as usual.
So while I feel this lessening of the deeply entrenched darkness that pervaded everything, I also feel an increasing despair over my instantaneous and unprovoked fits of anger. A biting disgust that overrules all other thought processes and lashes out like a whip at whomever (read: my husband) is in my path. Just as quick as I become aware of it at all it has encompassed my whole being and has taken supreme reign over my intentions and actions.
Whodo thunkit? An uncontrollable action in a bipolar???
Surely not!
Such devastation.....
Pfft. Right.

So damn. My mind has yet again wandered away from the task at hand and I haven't even the foggiest of clues as to where this was going.
Shit!
Oh well. It's gone now. I guess you'll just have to settle for what actually found its way out of the loopy labyrinth that is my mind.

Ugh

Bad day.
Don't know why.
Headache.
Some good spots.
Tired.
Still ridiculously hungry.

1 S(uper)

...kid, that is.

Well, my kid now has even more letters after his name. He is officially the only (identified) 2e student at his school.
2e meaning Twice Exceptional which means that he is in both Special Ed and Gifted.
Yep. In a school that ranges from Pre-K to 6th grade, he's the only one.

Come on! You knew that if there was only going to be one, it'd be my kid! "There can be only 1" Hello?!

So now, kiddo's got more initials than a post grad student. While all of these initials and designations don't say anything about who he is, they do in a way. They are descriptors of what makes him who he is as a person.

ADHD and OCD is a 2E with an ALP and an IEP. (In english, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a Twice Exceptional student with an Advanced Learner Profile [gifted] and an Individual Education Plan [Spec. Ed.])

Ha!

I'm so proud of him. He has faced, and continues to face, so many challenges and he is doing so well.
I am my son's biggest advocate, as it should be. Sometimes, his worst critic, admittedly, but ALWAYS his biggest advocate. I will raise hell, high waters, and anything else I deem necessary to get my sweet boy whatever it is that he needs to be successful. Both in school and in life.

So there it be.

My kid rocks like only he can!!!

A good day

I had a pretty good day yesterday.
I still had anxiety. A fair share too since I had to meet with my disability lawyer to prepare for the hearing next month. It went well though. He gave me a good idea of what will transpire, I got to see what my Fabulous Shrinkydink wrote in my favor, and my lawyer Mike and I got to chit chat a little.
Actually, he looked through my history briefly and commented on how impressed he was given how "life has really knocked you around!"

     As a matter of fact, my therapist, just 2 hours prior had commented to me that she was so taken with my "perseverance" through everything that I have had to, and still do, deal with.
  I hope this doesn't come across as bragging. I'm definitely not doing that intentionally. I just have always found it entertaining to make professionals, especially mental health professionals, marvel at the batshit crazy wonder that is me. ;)

     As for the disability hearing, Mike said he feels pretty confident about our case. The only real variable is the judge that was assigned. He has never worked with this judge before. All the intel he has gathered on her reports that she runs around 50% awarding, meaning that she's pretty middle of the road as far as approving and disapproving the claim. That's way better than a few of the judges apparently. There is one that has around a 25% award rate. Yikes!

     Mike was also able to give me a recommendation for a different, less expensive, bankruptcy attorney. Yay! I gave her a call and we spoke today. (Check it out!!!! I made a phone call!! To an unknown person!!! .... YAY!!!!!)
  I have a meeting with her next Tuesday (eeeek) to go over everything. She's about $300 cheaper than the other attorney that we had spoken with. It just kills me how expensive it is to file for bankruptcy.
HELLO?!?
I'm broke!! That's why I'm filing for bankruptcy. How on earth do you expect me to afford to file for bankruptcy?? If I could afford that, I could freakin' pay my bills in the first place!!
Shit!
  For those unaware (I'm hoping that none of you have had to go through this), it will run anywhere from $350ish if you file yourself (scary!) to $3000 for a lawyer. Ours is middle of the road. Equally as important, she was recommended by someone I trust and is already looking out for my best interests.

Anywho... My mind has now wandered so I'm not sure where & how I was going to end this.
So this is the end.

State of the unstable

If you know me, I'm big on choices.
I believe that you always have a choice. Not to say that it's a balanced choice, an easy choice, or a big choice, but one nonetheless. Even in the crappiest of situations, you have choices.
When facing the guillotine, you have choices. Your top pick, to get the frack outta dodge may not be one of them, but you still have options that you and only you can exercise. They don't seem like important ones, but any choice, even the smallest, is important.

I saw some thing on facebook earlier that got me thinking. It was one of those dumb things that has some bit of "wisdom" that gets shared and shared and passed around but is really just somebody's...whatever...spreading and taking hold amongst the masses who don't know how to make sense of things on their own.
Anyway.
It said "Cheating is a choice not a mistake".

Well, yeah. And no.

Of course, I'm not necessarily referring to cheating here. Cheating, in whatever sense you take it. I'm referring to the choice.

Each of us make choices. Choosing one option over an other. Choosing one option over none. Choosing nothing over anything else.
I'm thinking about choices in mental illness.
When mental illness takes over your brain, it does...just that. It takes over your brain. It takes away so many choices.
So many ...
We're still left with many, though they're certainly not as expansive. They don't usually have much of a range. It's not 'Go to law school or go to med school'. It's more like, especially when in the throes of mania, 'Run the Boston marathon tomorrow without ever having trained and buy a hotel just so you can have a choice of beds to sleep in each night or run the Boston marathon tomorrow without ever having trained and then buy 2 hotels just so you have even more of a choice of beds to sleep in each night'.
See what I mean?
There's still a choice, it's just not exactly one that covers as much ground.
When you're in the depths of depression, it's like 'Roll over and cover your head with the blankets' or 'Don't waste the energy that you don't have on something that won't make any difference anyway'.
Nowhere within either one of those scenarios is there an actual rational choice much less the ability to handle it were it actually there.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not excusing behaviors. I'm just trying to shed a little light on them.

Choice is a funny thing and must always be taken in context.
Especially...when it's not funny.

Heard....or is it herd?

I got word the other day that my disability hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday, December 17, 2013.
Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!

They call it a "hearing". But will I really be heard? Will my medical records be heard? Will they see me?

I guess I'm just terrified that I'll be taken as part of a cookie cutter mold of crazies.
Don't get me wrong - I'm crazy! Well all know this.
But I am my own brand of crazy damn it!
And barring any complete sedation from the drugs I will inevitably have to take to survive just getting there, hopefully the judge will see my own personal flavor of wacko and help out our struggling family.

Thoughts, love, hugs, prayers, juju, vibes....anything ya got, I sure would appreciate it all on December 17th. I'm going to need it.