To tell the truth

"No, really, how are you?" he asks again.

"How am I? I'm stuck living with my dad in a cramped apartment full of his stuff (he's a bit of a collector), he's moving it all around to get ready to lay down new floors and he keeps coming into my room and moving shit. I have no privacy. I'm a thirty year-old woman with no privacy.

I'm living on the support of the state through unemployment because it's been 5 months and I can't seem to find a job. It doesn't matter that I've had 17 interviews at this point; no one seems to want to hire me, and I feel like my brain is wasting away.

My med situation is all fucked up, and now I've got these awesome side effects like weight gain, bloating, and serious irritability. I'm irritable. I'm angry. I'm scared that nothing is going to change and I'm going to be right where I am this time next year. I'll never get on my feet again. I know it's not true: something has to give. But I'm fucking miserable. All the gratitude lists and positive thinking in the world can suck it. My life sucks. And I can't fucking stop eating.

That's how I feel."

"You're better this week," he says. "You've got a fight in you you didn't have before." Right. Cause I'm at least not suicidal. I'm just angry.

What's in a name?

"By its very nature," Dr Phelps tells us, "bipolar disorder is a problem of cyclic changes in mood and energy."

Well, I'm not buzzing out of my skin today, I think thanks in part to the 2 days of Seroquel. I didn't take it today because I kind of want to be raw for tomorrows meeting with the doc. Is that silly? Probably. It's brought me to a nice, even level where I just want to kill myself and I'm having "pauses" in thought, instead of racing so much I can't gather a single thought.

I've been researching bipolar a lot today. I fit, and don't fit, a lot of the criteria. It's never taken over my life, I don't think. I've been out of control, but.... I was going to say never hurt anyone. I think that's a lie, though. I can get pretty physical, especially during blackouts or when I'm feeling high. My impulse control just lapses and I end up kicking people, so I hear. I used to smash stuff when I was a kid as anger management. Maybe I should go back to doing that.

I've been thinking, too, about all the crap I'm angry about. Deep down in there, there's one pissed off, rabid little spirit. Did I tell you all about the time I saw her? I was doing some meditation for therapy, and she was so scary I had a panic attack just looking at her. I had to have the therapist stop the session. I suppose at some point I'm going to have to deal with that, but I think being on meds makes it easy to just "chill."

I've come to acknowledge that I'm a pretty angry person. What's funny is I don't think anyone I know would ever use angry as a word to describe me. I don't get angry. I can remain calm in any situation. But being off meds, I'm angry at little stuff. It's all seeping to the top.

And I'm thinking a lot about bipolar. When I read stuff like Marya Hornbacher's "Madness" I can totally identify with the way she describes mania and depression, yet I've only been hospitalized once, and that was for a suicide attempt. I think I could probably fly under the radar if I wanted to. My emotions aren't "out there" for the world to see, I don't think. I can function in daily life.

Or is this functioning? Is talking yourself out of paranoid thoughts (last night I thought the shower drain could rip off my hand and I couldn't get close to it) normal? Is seeing things in the corner of your eye and getting panicked that they are ghosts and if you look at them they'll attack you, normal? Do I just have an over-active imagination?

Does it matter, then, if what I've got has a name? You bet it does. It's easier to handle something if you can name it. You can Google it and follow other bloggers, join the debates, and know where to go for help. If it's just life, and life is fucked up, then what? Then you're all alone.

3 year angry men

"After a 3-year abstinence, men from the recovering alcoholics group displayed greater signs of hostility and covert aggression. They were different from non-alcoholics on measures for indirect aggression, irritability, negativism, suspicion, resentment, and guilt."

Interesting. Apparently the aggression and anger doesn't just go away when you stop drinking. DUH. Jesus, really? They had to do a study? There is a thing called sobriety, which is excluding substances from your system, and then there is a thing called emotional sobriety. Emotional sobriety is where you take responsibility for your actions and try to change them for the better. Which is what a lot of people do through the steps, or through prayer and meditation.

Adam and I talked about it the other day, and we both agreed that alcohol is but a symptom of our emotional problems. He told me today we have a lot of the same problems, and he's right. We are both a little contrary, a little aggressive sometimes, not great at saying what we need. It leads to some miscommunications between us.

You know, though, I don't know how much clearer I can be about anything big. It's just the little stuff we argue about, like tonight I thought we were going to dinner and he thought I had eaten. Neither of us voiced anything about dinner, just made assumptions. And you know what assumptions do. We argue like little kids, too. He pinched me tonight! Bastard. I don't know what this has to do with the article. I'm just rambling at this point. See, I just got home from his house and we took a nap together, again. I love it. It's so comfortable to be with him. He's a great cuddler, but I just wish he would kiss me. I just wish he would be spontaneous and dangerous sometimes. He's much more of an overthinker than an actor. I can't expect him to be anything he's not, but I'm so afraid to make any sort of move for fear of rejection. We'll never get anywhere this way.

Damnit.

Michael can be a bastard

Michael, my ex-boyfriend and current friend, can be a real ass. We broke up for a reason, and that reason was I couldn't take it anymore. I finally came out of my depression and noticed all the mean things he said to me and all the chaos he was causing in my life. So I broke it off and moved out.

I have a few resentments against him, but I've got a major one I'll tell you about. He's got a really bad temper. Well, not really bad, but bad enough. One afternoon we were driving over to a friend's house for a party, and I was feeling especially annoying. I used to love to pick fights with him because he would get so frustrated and I could just laugh. So we started talking about the Iraq war. Big mistake.

My whole family on my mom's side is Army. They've fought in all the wars since WWII, and served in their retirement in many capacities. Michael started to talk about how all the military was stupid and evil, and I got a little pissed. I mean, I know the war was kinda stupid and fought for all the wrong reasons, but it's not the Armed Services' fault. They listen to their commander in chief, el presidente. I know you'll say, "but the Nazi's said they were just following orders, too!" but I don't buy it. It's not the same thing.

So we got into a huge argument. We started yelling at each other in the car, and all of a sudden he slammed my side of the car into a stop sign. Head on, into a stop sign. Luckily I'm obsessive about wearing my seat belt, and he wasn't going that fast. But he did damage to the front of his car. He got out, yelled in frustration, and got back in. All I could do was laugh. Dumbass broke his car out of anger. And the more I thought about it, I wondered what else he could do. He's a body builder, and a hell of a lot stronger and faster than me. Even at my heaviest he could throw me on his shoulder, and he's short, too.

I started to get a little scared of him, and so I left.

I know it's weird that we're still friends, but he's a hell of a lot nicer now, 3 years later, and I call him on his shit all the time. When he's mean, I tell him, even if there are other people around. I don't let him push me around.

Speaking of Michael, he's coming over to drive me to the airport. Let's hope no signs get in the way.

If we were to live we had to be free of anger

I don't know if it's the meds or the therapy, but I'm getting over anger. I feel really peaceful lately, but I know there are things buried deep in my subconscious that make me crazy. I am angry, I know it, but it's just there so far in the chasm that I can't seem to reach it.

I know I'm angry at my parents. Who isn't? It seems so dumb to think that at this age I should still harbor resentments at the people who did their best to give me everything they could. They were only human, too, and my mom was especially human in her sickness. She couldn't help but hurt me.

Hurt. Yes, hurt and anger go hand in hand. I'm hurt, like a wounded little child. My parents tried to show me love in the only ways they knew how, but why is it never enough? They gave me shelter, comfort, food, and support. So they screwed up a bit in my latter years, so what? Why should that keep me from a happy existence?

Anger. I'm angry that they didn't seem to notice me. I went under the radar for years. My dad seems to remember everything, but at the time I think he thought that not showing interest in my problems would help me just get over them. That's why I hate when he said, "offer it up." He would just ask me to pass it on to God, when what I really needed was his help.

So let go and let God has a deeper meaning to me, and creates a little resentment. I've felt better letting God help me deal with my demons - letting him back into my life to show me the way out of my self-destructive ways - but like any wounded child I ask, "Why didn't you protect me? Why did I have to go through all that?"

Character building. God never gives you more than you can handle. And look what I did: I handled the blows given to me and came out an independent, strong, and wonderful human being. Thanks to his foresight, I was able to take care of myself in difficult times.

Character defects. Now some of those ways I've learned have become defective. They no longer save me from external situations, but keep me from growing. Tonight I'm taking a look at step four. Finding out what all those things are, and asking God to give me more insight.