Category Archives: PTSD and Bipolar

My goal is to have this week be full of awesome days even though those days would not be, textbook-speaking, awesome. Take Sunday, for instance, which is one of my hair-trigger days, and yet I managed to make large parts of it awesome.

Monday was more of a challenge.

Good morning Twitter. I am awake but tired. No nightmares! But a wistful dream about trying to find out what I really want to work for.
Mon, 14 May 2012 07:40:29 -0700

No conclusions were reached. At any rate, while yesterday was not completely awesome at all, I managed to discover awesomeness. Kept me sane
Mon, 14 May 2012 07:42:40 -0700

I had to make the awesomeness happen, and/or make an effort to notice and recognize it. Now I wonder if I can make a work day awesome.
Mon, 14 May 2012 07:43:55 -0700

First thing to note, it’s unusually sunny outside for Seattle. This means that I should enjoy it as much as possible. Get out of the car?
Mon, 14 May 2012 07:50:33 -0700

Up atop the ferry in the quiet room. It’s peaceful as we loll across the sound. I forgot what it’s like to be a passenger. It’s novel.
Mon, 14 May 2012 08:22:20 -0700

Back in my car. Seriously thinking about becoming merely a passenger again. Work has shuttle support on the other side. Hmmm.
Mon, 14 May 2012 08:27:44 -0700

So that was first good thing of the day. Now I get to head into work and attempt to deal with a foobar computer. No shame is attached.
Mon, 14 May 2012 08:30:13 -0700

After I drive in, I can’t work on my story (not that I did so this morning). So must take comfort somewhere else. But where? Maybe tea.
Mon, 14 May 2012 08:32:28 -0700

Keep holding onto twitter. Day will go alright. Or something.
Mon, 14 May 2012 08:34:30 -0700

Frustrating morning with a loss of a little composure. Will be a redundant afternoon with loss of time on the project schedule. Negative.
Mon, 14 May 2012 11:19:21 -0700

Positives: learned something for the next new team members. Will soon see pretty desktop again and work with a challenge. I’m strange.
Mon, 14 May 2012 11:20:59 -0700

Still going to keep up with my plans to go to a learning series today. And there’s beef pho to be had. Positives.
Mon, 14 May 2012 11:22:42 -0700

Pho is a definite positive for the day.
Mon, 14 May 2012 11:59:00 -0700

Basically I feel horrible for no reason right now, which is to be expected of the bipolar. I try to find positive things, even little ones.
Mon, 14 May 2012 15:22:50 -0700

I think I may take a walk while something is installing.
Mon, 14 May 2012 15:23:50 -0700

I never did get my chocolate soy milk.
Mon, 14 May 2012 18:48:32 -0700

Tuesday was rather more of a challenge.

I’m doing my best to stay connected via Twitter, to find the positives in life (no matter how drudgy it gets), and to proactively make positive decisions—for instance, going on walks—when I’m feeling down.

Fingers crossed that I do okay tomorrow, where I work from home, away from people. But with Twitter, I should be alright. Or something. There’ll be plenty of laundry, too. Plenty.

I may end up taking a walk, or eating lunch out.

I don’t want to talk about the bad parts of today, but they have to be talked about. I was bad off, my anxiety was somewhere in orbit, and the memories were particularly bad, though not intrusive as in the past.

And, with the help of Twitter and friends, I’ve been able to hold up over the weekend without draining my little bottle of Xanax. Much. It’s got a dent in it, but I didn’t take 10 of them over the course of two days (more like three).

I also did the following:

1. I went out in the sun.

2. I stayed around people.

3. When I needed alone time, I found somewhere to be alone.

4. I scribbled away in my new Moleskines during my alone times. I don’t know why this is important, or even if it is important, but it made me feel better.

5. I stayed connected to Twitter.

6. I watched a big, stupid summer blockbuster movie.

#1-3 are pretty solid items to do.

#4 is a little… weird. It’s faster than typing on an iPhone, and slower than typing on my Transformer’s keyboard or my laptop’s. I write in block letters, cursive was always unreadable for me, and I need these notes readable. It’s… soothing, somehow. What’s probably best is that I associate writing in my Moleskines with this relatively nice day.

And yes, I’m using my Moleskines for figuring out fiction. The second scene in Seal Tales is giving me a headache, which is embarrassing but what can I do, it sets up a hell of a lot and involves two complicated characters. Scribbling down all of the little things that need to be done during the scene has been incredibly helpful.

#5 is something that some would consider unhealthy, but I’m starting to think I need. Not in a craving sense—just that it’s easy for me to get disconnected, or at least to feel disconnected. Even when I’m with other people, I still need to interact with people I know.

#6 took my mind off of bad memories for … three hours? Something like that? Yes, The Avengers is problematic in a few regards (see Cleolinda’s post, to which I would add one other sour note that I’m not going to talk about because I don’t want to talk about it), but it was still a fun movie whose noise and action did not leave me any time to think about anything else. It’s not my type of movie, but then again, it was better than if I’d seen Dark Shadows, which apparently would have left me with plenty of time to contemplate my parents.

Ah yes, my parents. To whom I do not owe anything. I figure if anyone wants to bring up the idea of child-rearing as putting children in debt, I think I can safely say that the years of terror, beatings, and strangling (even though it only happened once, when I was maybe ten)—oh yes, and some episodes involving BOILING WATER—well. I’ve paid that debt off and then some.

Of course, it’s one thing to say that, and another thing for the paranoia to let go during these times.

I know, from the past, that the woods haven’t come to an end yet. I sometimes suffer a weird relapse a few days after the “landmark” date. I don’t know why that is, you’d think it was over, but maybe that’s when I let go or something.

Anyhoo, I hope that I dream about the Moovengers. Rather than the possible other kind of dream. Which would break me for the rest of the day.

Yeah, so, let’s see what happens next. Maybe I should blog every day for a while.

When you are with me, I’m free
I’m careless, I believe
Above all the others we’ll fly
This brings tears to my eyes.

I heard this famous Creed tune come up on my iTunes omni-shuffle, and it was like those years of Zorn and Tharn again, except I can look at them in another light. Oh dear, another light. Thank goodness for Abilify.

That was when Crimney left me, and I was all alone. And my parents got me bang to rights, but I escaped, but it was all so scary.

As the music segued into “I Am the Doctor” from the 11th Doctor’s run, I realized that I could reach out to my Crimney. So I found him on the interwebs. He seems like he’s leading a good life.

I can’t risk it, no matter how rising the music is. Gods know what connections to my parents he might bring. After so many years, how can I trust him?

I’m tired. The cows are calling. It’s time to head off to bed.

Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
- Lucio, Measure for Measure, Shakespeare

Things are not going well at work for me. The on-call rotation saps sleep from me because I have insomnia, and sleep is vital for things like concentration, and concentration is vital for my self-monitoring (or attempts thereof) and, well, actually functioning in a demanding environment.

It should be as easy as moving to a team that doesn’t have a pager rotation, but those teams are far and few between where I work.

So, one was found. The transfer situation however is a lot like applying for a brand new job at my own company: five hours of interviews—seven if you count the initial screening interviews. The thing that gets me is that I couldn’t rock all the interviews, which is….

Well, let’s put it this way. I’ve been to many an interview debrief on the interviewer side of the table, and we don’t hire unless the candidate unanimously clears all interviews.

High bar? Hell, we try to make it higher each time. The idea is to only hire the best, the superstars. Of course, this leads to the interesting point that, at a certain caliber of candidate it becomes random as to whether we’d hire said candidate or not. It’s said (with data behind it) that half of any team would not hire the other half.

Realistically, I think they’re going to reject me.

So my morale is pretty low.

Not only did I have my interviews that day, I needed to get some of my normal work done, too. I think I felt shittiest when I had to leave a design discussion early (after about 50-some minutes in), which you never do in my team. The whole process has been engaging in days and days of deception of a team I had bonded with for years, even if my own bosses know about it and support it, and it all made me feel like an utter heel. AND tired.

I don’t really know anymore. I only feel ok when I’m in a restaurant around other people; then I can read books and Twitter and so on. When I walk out, I fall apart all over again.

This all probably means something. But I can’t think all that clearly at the moment.

I just want to cry for the rest of the weekend, really. I have a really good start on that.

It’s hard for me to think of my life as a good one. And truthfully, for one-third of it, it wasn’t a pleasant life at all. But these days… these days there’s a lot I’m thankful for, even though right now the day job is difficult, my life in general strolls on merrily. I’m all too aware that could change, but for now… life is good.

Although I don’t agree with some of the lyrics in this song—there’s plenty to worry about in the world, like systematic racism, sexism, homophobia, jingoism, etc—but the rest of it is like a mantra to myself. I’ve come far, and this is a fine night, and this could really be a good life.

I remember a coworker of mine would listen to a radio station that was nothing but a prayer, over and over again. Or perhaps it was a tape, actually (I don’t have a tape player, or CD player, or anything in my car; it’s as simple as possible, because I believe in simple when it all comes down to the wire). Good Life is my prayer (for the most part).

Naturally I also wish it for all my protagonists in my fiction, though at times I’m puzzled as to how they’re going to get there.

My brain is currently broken. It’s broken most mornings, but as I’m waiting for the Abilify and the Buspar to work their magic, I thought I would write about psych meds and me.

Once upon a time, I didn’t believe in meds. Or rather, I did, kind of, but I didn’t think they helped. I thought they did the opposite—that they killed who you were inside. That’s if they worked at all.

The media told me this, and why would the media lie about something like that? Not just the media, but the books I read, and the shows I watched, and the comics (both web and offline) I read. Why would writers lie about something like that?

My friend with depression told me this; he would go on and then off the drugs, because off the drugs he claimed to be sharper, if more depressed. Because we both work in a place where you need to be very, very sharp or else you’re very, very fired, meds were scary to me.

But the thing about brain chemistry is that it doesn’t care if you think meds are scary. Trying to be strong in the face of bad chemistry doesn’t work. That all by itself is scary to think about.

One day, I lost it. You can read about That One Flashback.

The thing that took me the longest to understand was that what happened wasn’t an indication that I was evil or weak about my morals. It was… well… chemistry.

Doesn’t the fact that the chemistry can defeat me, doesn’t that mean I’m weak? Doesn’t the fact that chemistry can defeat me, doesn’t that mean I’ve given up all responsibility as a human being?

Doesn’t admitting to this fact mean that I’m evil and weak about morals?

What do you think the media says about this?

All I can conclude is that the media is scared about meds, too.

Years later, I still don’t believe in my own meds. Even though they work. Abilify, Lamictal (a lot of it), Buspar… they’ve all brought me back from the brink in one way or another, even when I didn’t believe that they ever would. They battle the bad chemistry in my head, and then I’m functional. It’s not perfect—I’m kind of coming to grips with the fact that it’ll never be perfect—but I can suddenly get out of bed in the mornings.

I don’t think the problem is that people are scared of meds in and of themselves. I think people are scared of the implications of meds; like, somehow, it would mean that some people that society says you should think of as evil or weak about their morals are suddenly not, and paradigm shifts like that? People really don’t like those.

This leads to strange things like people who accept that meds are effective, but don’t accept that brain chemistry can affect your judgement in the first place. Basically, they accept the effect but not the cause, and that’s even more problematic than not believing in meds in the first place.

Every morning I battle myself to take the meds. I wonder if I should lose one day, what society will judge me as.

Okay, now it’s time for breakfast and tea, because fuck, that was depressing.