Disorganized Chaos

This is the brain:  

This is the brain with bipolar disorder:

Did you see what I did there?  Remember those commercials with the skillet and the fried egg?  “This is your brain.  This is your brain on drugs?”  Yeah…?  No…?  Well, anyway, you get the picture.  Get it?  You get the picture?  ‘cause I used pictures?  HA!  Gotcha twice!!  Sigh.  Okay.  I’ll just dive into the post and quit with the poor attempt at humor.  For now, anyway. 

I thought it might be time to lighten things up a bit and maybe provide a bit of insight into the bipolar brain.  After my initial diagnosis, I was amazed at how much *“Flo” was able to tell me about myself. 

The bipolar brain is hardwired differently from “normal” (whatever that is) brains.  Do you wonder if there’s such a thing as a normal brain?  I have three sons with definite, diagnosed mental illness yet they seem quite normal.  I know what they deal with, but most people are completely unaware. I might even consider the other two to have OCD. Everything has to be in place and major purchases are researched to death.  Yet, they walk around out in society, completely undetected. 

Notice what happened there.  I drifted off into a completely different direction than the one in which I started.  Typical bipolar stuff there, peeps.  Very similar to ADD.  But a little different. 

Okay, okay!  I’ll get to the point!  Keep in mind, I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on TV (though being an actor on TV would be fun!) but I’ve done a lot of research and spent a lot of time in the yellow room at Flo’s office and in the chair at my current therapist’s office.  Need to come up with a name for her.  She’s really pretty and very knowledgeable.  Her office recently underwent a makeover and is much more comfortable.  My psychiatrist’s office is also very comfortable.  The chairs available for patients are amazingly soft and cushy.  They envelope you with comfiness when you sit down.  I’ve never seen the stereotypical psychiatrist’s couch, more’s the pity.

AAAAACCCKKKK!!!!!  I did it again!  Once more totally off track.  I swear I’m not doing this on purpose to make a point.  This is literally a few moments inside the brain of the bipolar person.  Half-finished projects.  Disorganization.  You should see the inside of my purse!  I actually thrust it in the face of my psychiatrist to show him what it looked like and told him it was an extension of my brain.  He said that’s normal for someone with my diagnoses.  Well, thank you very much!  And my crafting area…you don’t wanna see it.  I sit down sometimes to try to make some sense of it and I’m totally overwhelmed. I find myself being sidetracked with something of no real importance just to ease the stress on my brain.  Youngest son was frustrated at one point by the disorganization of the kitchen.  I asked him to organize it for me and he did a great job.

Can you understand the feeling of inferiority this causes?  My desk is currently covered with my medications, a three hole punch (don’t know why it’s there…I didn’t do it), speakers for my computer, a Mannheim Steamroller CD and an Elton John CD, a necklace, a bracelet, a mug, oh…two more bracelets, a computer ink package, a Celtic Woman “Home for Christmas” CD (highly recommended), my favorite Bath and Body Works body spray, a bottle of perfume, an essential oil vial, and a blood pressure cuff. Also, my monitor, keyboard, and mouse.  No cat at this moment, which is unusual.  My desk is 19” wide and 41” long.  I feel like Pigpen from Peanuts…I can clean it and it almost instantly becomes cluttered again!  The same with my purse.  POOF!  And it’s a mess. Sadly, I don’t know what to do about it.

I try taking it one step at a time…as I mentioned in my first blog post, start at the beginning…but then I start doing the sidetracked thing, run out of time and need to cook dinner, or fold laundry (oftentimes it doesn’t fully get put away) and it starts all over again the next day.  That’s assuming I’m even able to do anything.  Remember, I may have bipolar disorder, but the main way it’s exhibiting itself right now is with major depression disorder.

I know it has to be very frustrating for my family but fortunately they’re extremely patient with me. In fact (Oh, left out an item on my desk. I don’t know what it’s doing there but it’s a bottle of leave in conditioner for hair) my husband gets annoyed when I apologize to him.  And I catch myself apologizing a lot.  He’s asked to me quit.  He has his own brain cooties in the form of neuropathy and we’ve promised each other to quit apologizing for the limitations our illnesses place on us, but I insist on feeling guilty and apologizing.  I’m getting better, but it’s difficult.

Sometimes I feel like taking on the world!  And sometimes I feel beat up.  Today is a take on the world day.  Think I may do some laundry.  Maybe even put it away!  Wouldn’t that shake up my family…?

I’ll say it again, I’m so humbled by the love I’ve felt from my readers.  Thank you for having my back.  And please know I’ve got yours. 

*Not her real name

Just Three Weeks

Three weeks.  I only needed three more weeks to complete the semester.  One more semester after that then student teaching.  My original goal was to teach social studies at the high school or junior college level.  My husband said I was crazy (HA!) but I even liked the idea of teaching history at the junior high level!  I wouldn’t just teach out of a book, reading, blah, blah, blah…but we would reenact battles!  Reenact moments that changed the world!  Make videos, interview the great minds of history after researching together…it would be an interactive class.

After moving to Poplar Bluff, in order to obtain the degree needed to teach social studies I would have to attend school at Cape Girardeau.  For those who don’t live in the Bluff (that’s what we locals call it, the Bluff), it’s an hour and a half drive.  I was dealing with depression pretty well at that time, thought I’d kicked it’s butt, but I had a family to consider, and occasional dangerous driving conditions.  So I settled.  The requirements for an elementary teaching degree were taught by two different universities on the campus of the local community college, Three Rivers College.  (Do my Cali peeps see a connection with the whole “Three Rivers” thing?)  I decided to complete my courses with Southeast Missouri University (SEMO).  I could get a cross categorical degree that would allow me to teach elementary education and special education.  Even better, I wouldn’t have to take college algebra.  I’d literally seen adults in tears over that class.  SEMO it was!

Teacher ed courses are taught in blocks and all the classes for a block have to be taken at one time. Block I went well.  I was taking the regular elementary ed classes plus the special education teaching courses and was loving it.  It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it.  Block II started well, then I began to slip.  I didn’t see it, but it was happening.  I found myself studying into the early morning hours then sleeping late into the day.  I know now it was a survival mechanism.  I just couldn’t deal with everything but had to take care of school.  By adjusting my hours I could avoid the household needs but keep up with the school load.  I pushed myself Monday through Saturday then collapsed Sunday and slept almost all day. 

I’m not proud of this, but anyone who’s ever felt depressed can relate.  “I’m busy, busy, busy so don’t have time for…” whatever it is that needs to be done.  I did cook most nights, or put something in the crock pot on the nights I had class, but it fell to my hubby to take care of the kids, do the laundry, do the housework.  I felt ashamed even as it happened, but didn’t know what to do.  I just didn’t have the strength for it all and had too much invested in school to quit. 

Three weeks left to go.  Just three weeks.  And suddenly I didn’t think I could finish it.  My father had died a few months earlier, other family matters were affecting me, the workload of Block II with the addition of the special ed courses was intense, and there was the worsening depression.  I had become dependent on Darvocet prescribed for my fibromyalgia pain and I began abusing it, needing the relief it brought mentally.  That’s something else I’m definitely not proud of, but anyone with a mental illness can likely relate.  Self-medicating is a common theme.  Whether through alcohol, street drugs, or prescription drugs…anything for a change in outlook.

But I knew how to put on a good public face.  I’m kind of a champ.  My psychiatrist at the time was in St. Louis, a two and a half hour drive.  Oh, that’s right!  I haven’t told you about having a psychiatrist yet, have I?  Well, I had one, and have one, and now you know.  There’s something called “presenting”, a term docs use to describe a patient’s appearance.  For psychiatrists, it’s a clue as to the patient’s well-being.  Only once did I go up there to see him without doing my hair, make up, and dressing nicely and that’s when I had a melt down after the first ice storm I experienced in ’07.  A quick call, need to see him, it’s an emergency, and off I went in sweats with barely combed hair.  We had no electricity for water (we have a well), and I was told to be there in an hour and a half.  I flew up there with ice on the windows an inch thick.  Seriously.  The ice looked like those thick glass blocks.  I felt like I was driving a giant shower.

In that case, I looked like I felt, but usually at least looked like I cared.   And when I went to school I also “presented” like someone who felt well, was full of confidence, and cared about her appearance.  Until those last three weeks.

Somehow I made it through those last three weeks.  Then I crashed and burned.