Clarity

I haven't written for a while. Sometimes I couldn't, even when posts would write themselves up in my mind. But everything is narrative to me now in my mind, even my life. I walk around thinking of myself in third person, as narrative as JD on Scrubs.

I see my psychologist today, and I'm thinking of what I want to say to him. It goes something like this:

I'm getting better, slowly. I have my good days, and my bad days. I still think about suicide. Sometimes it's fleeting, sometimes it's so dark I have to rock away the grief of it. Everything comes on worse at night, especially now that Jb is in Houston for an indefinite period of time. So when the moods come on, I sit, angry with myself, knowing I'm too much of a coward to choose life or death. So it's one step at a time, day-to-day. But it's a high wire act without a net. Sometimes I slip, barely managing to regain my balance. Sometimes I fall. And I'm broken until I heal. I am not stable, but I am not as bad.

The anger came out of nowhere, but it's strong now, and I can't help but think of the stages of grief. Maybe I'm progressing. Because I'm furious now. At myself, the world, Jb, our situation, the bipolar, my mind, my moods. When the anger leeches away, I feel nothing at all, or I feel desperate, wanting and needing something to cling to. But right now, I'm alone, more so than I've been in the last three years. And it's taking its toll. There's self-pity mixed in with the moods. It's ugly to see in myself. I wanted to be stronger.

Been Brewing

This is going to be long post. It's been brewing for a while.

Things at home, with Jb, are getting rough and rocky, and I know it's my fault. But I also know I can't control it. He's as much a victim of my mind as I am. I'm reading John McNamanay's book on living with bi-polar/depression, and he talks about how your mind drives your body around. And it's true, though these days it seems like my mind drives my mouth around.

My mother used to tell me that we were "discontented souls," and that was why we were never happy like other people. And worse, that we'd always be that way. I believed her. After all, wasn't I always critical? Wasn't I always aggravated by people who couldn't keep up? Wasn't I judgmental? It's one of the main reasons my mother and I could never co-exist.

That's how I feel lately. Discontent. With everything. Myself, Jb, the world, our situation. I'm resentful of things I'm expected to do, and I'm resentful of the people who ask me to do them. Jb tells me he wants me to do something, heavy emphasis on the something. As if I do nothing. As if I don't battle everyday to maintain some facade of equilibrium.

It comes on worse at night. Sometimes, it even starts in the morning. I'm aggravated, angry. I feel slighted. Any form of neglect, any perceived rejection, and it cuts right to my heart, which is like a discolored bruise that cowers from a touch. Instead, a mere touch feels as if someone's socked me in the heart, and there's a physical pain to it. Words cut.

Tonight, trying to expend some energy because my mind wouldn't stop, I laid on the bed and kicked my feet, and turned around restless, and stretched and twisted, and took some slim enjoyment from hearing the muffled impact of my shins on the mattress. Jb asked me if I was having a seizure, calls it having a tantrum, tells me I'm childish, seeking attention. And perhaps the last part is somewhat true. I do want attention. Because I feel like the Tinman, an empty shell where a heart, or some sense of self, should be.

Mostly, I am trying to deal. I am trying to tire myself out. I am trying to let things out, and yet keep them inside. Jb says I talk too much, tells me to shut up. That's a dagger. Who is this person he despises so much that she's not even allowed to speak? He says I'm always bitching, always whining and whining and whining. And I don't see the whining, I don't. But the bitching... yeah. When I'm in that mood, when the aggravation takes over, when nothing anyone could do would be right, I'm witty as hell. The comebacks come quickly and painfully. They hit below the belt. They're meant to hurt. It's the way my mother used to treat my dad.

And then there's the fact that Jb thinks he gives me his time when, to me, all I see is that he gets up around 9am, logs into the computer, and stays on it until well past midnight. I'm left alone. To my own devices. And it's like living with Greg all over again. Once upon a time, Jb would seek me out, would stop playing simply to connect with me. Now it's a battle. Requests and expectations are known, but not acted upon. And that hole inside aches more. Except, it's me who's driven him away. It's me who makes him shrink into himself. It's me.

I can't expect someone to fill that gaping abyss that is self-loathing, guilt, a need for constant reassurance, for someone to cherish me and hold my hand, the way someone might take care of you if you were physical sick in bed with a high fever. I'm overly needy now, and I don't think Jb can handle that. I think it's part of why he retreats into World of Warcraft. I think that's why Greg retreated into his games, too. Both were good at looking out for themselves. And here's me: unable to even know who I am apart from Jb.

How do you get across things like you can't be bothered to cook when your boyfriend is constantly telling you he's disappointed in you. Everything seems to worsen everything. I don't want to play WoW, I don't want to play Spore, I don't want to watch tv, I don't know what to do with myself online or off. I wish Jb would read the bits in McNanamy's book that were taken from replies on his bi-polar/depression site. If only to catch a glimmer of what I'm thinking, going through, dealing with. Because I can't put it into words.

I feel lost, and alone, and as if there's no one to turn to, no one to take care of me. And it's my childhood all over again. So many expectations, and all I can do is try to build walls. But these days, those walls never hold strong. They crumble. Let things in. They don't keep me safe. And so I shut down, I recede, I walk around in a third person narrative, where things never happen to me, they happen around me--and slowly, oh so slowly, so that the world looks strange to me. But the world is as it always was. It's me who's out of step, out of time.

Knee Slapper

It's all a big joke. People sucked into games and out of their own lives. Escapism at its finest. Arthur C. Clarke shit. And where is the other person in the relationship left when they don't want to spend their life in an illuminated box? If I had a Post Secret, I think it'd be: Mostly, I wish he'd pick me.

24/7

Flat out: it's been a bad few days. Crying, too sensitive, bruised. disillusioned, angry--so angry. Jb says I threw a tantrum the other night, that I was acting childish. But it wasn't that. It was this rage, and better I beat pillows on the bed and punch the mattress than take it out verbally on him, which I do far too often.

The nights seem longer. I seem less motivated. SSDI comes in bits, very small bits, because it's so much information, and some of it, I can only guess at. The creditors want to sue me, the DHHS needs medical documents, which my psych will fill out, but which feels like one more thing on my back. And it's too much to deal with.

And that's how it is. Rolling fine, feeling close to normal, or as close as I know to normal, and then, despite all meds, I get worse. I'm snappy, angry, unforgiving, judging. I become a different person. All my barbs hit below the belt. I'm witty in cruel way, and it comes so easily. I can see it happening, and yet, I can't stop it.

Any Plans for the New Year?

You know you have a mental illness when someone asks you, "What are you doing for New Year's Eve?" And you say, "Going to my psych."

So. Things aren't much different. Taking meds. Upping my Zoloft to 150MG. I'm doing better, but my psych keeps getting on my ass to start the SSDI process. I started last night online. What a headache. I was completely drained after the first two parts.

The other thing my psych and I argued about was my recovery time. He says I'll need about a year once I get stable. I was all, "You're kidding me, right? A freakin' year?!" I swear. I wish I could pretend there was no such thing as mental illness. I hate my meds. Resent them.

Inertia

It's one of those nights. Up at 4am, on the computer until 6am. There are things I, supposedly, wanted to do today: See Twilight. Having read the book, every trailer I've seen has made it more and more enticing to me (perhaps, too, because I knew I couldn't go; we were too poor). Now I'm up in the middle of the night, wondering what it's all for. Jb got laid off a month early. No help forthcoming from JSSA. I'm supposed to do grocery shopping tomorrow, and I can't be bothered with it. In fact, I simply don't want to do it. Not in a stomp your foot, two-year-old tantrum sort of way, but in a deadened, "I don't have the heart," way. And for some reason, at 6:33am in the morning, I feel like crying and mourning my marriage. But then, I flip like a switch and mourn anything these days--anything without discretion. I've become a "Fragile: Handle With Care" package.

What to Say?

My mind's gone dumb. I have no wish to write anymore. I don't even know what to say. I seem to be all right, and then I'm arguing with my boyfriend. He's extremely hurt and upset, and I almost don't care. I do, but it's this far away part of me. But it's the up front, face to the world, part of me that wants to sleep, that doesn't want to cook dinner, that doesn't want to play the new WoW expansion, who doesn't want to get up early to drive Jb to work, or drive to the therapist or psych, or drive to pick Jb up from work.

I'm smoking more. Almost half a pack a day. I have a bad smoker's cough going, too. It's another sign that I'm in this holding pattern, circling around and around the airport tower not sure if I'm going to land or be sent around for another lap. The thing is that I felt fine last week. I did. Then Jb and I argued Sunday--well, not argued, per se, but something happened that upset me--and it set me off later that night all over again. Now I don't give a shit. About much of anything, and I hate being in that place. I hate feeling so distant.

I'm more into Spore than the World of Warcraft expansion that Jb's been dying for. He's upset I'm not as excited and all-consumed as he is, and... I'm not. I don't know why. I don't know if it's because nothing really excites me, or if his excitement sets me off, triggers me into this overwhelmed anxiety that I can't deal with well. And shouldn't I be able to after all this time? Spore is easy. You sit in your little editor and make your little creations and it's like art therapy in the hospital. It's private, personal, no one rushes you.

Anyway, I go see the psych tomorrow. Woo. /sarcasm. I have no enthusiam for anything.

Throw Out a Lifeline

The last I wrote here I'd had a breakdown. A pretty good one. I didn't take my meds for a week. I wasn't eating. I had hit apathy so hard that nothing mattered at all to me. Part of this, Jb and I am sure is that I lost my therapist for about three weeks while she was nursing her son who'd shattered his foot and had to have multiple surgeries. I don't think I understood how very important therapy had become for me. How balanced it helped to keep me.

My dose has changed again. 100MG of Zoloft, 300MG of Lamictal twice a day, and Klonopin 3 times a day. We're winnowing the meds down, which is one of the reasons I like this psych. He had tried me on Lithium, and I couldn't stay hydrated enough to keep up with the shakes and disoriented, vertigo-like sensations. So we dropped as not a good drug for me.

In between, I've been moving along as well as I'm able. I had a week and a half after the major depression where I couldn't sleep. I'd be up until 5 am and running on 4 hours of sleep a day. I was restless in bed, could not fall asleep, thinking and thinking and thinking. I think I might have swung up into a bit of a hypo mode. Anyway, now that's gone, as if hypo episodes burn my body out, and now I'm feeling exhausted and unmotivated and all around... feh.

An amazing thing happened last night, though. Jb came with me to therapy. He actually wanted to. How many guys would do that for you? My therapist thinks he's the best thing on two legs. It was a productive session. I think he got to say a lot of things that were on his mind, and none of them exactly hurt or were negative toward me, but I couldn't help feeling guilty, and ashamed, and humbled by how much he truly cares for me, regardless of my condition. There was so much love and worry there that it really made me tear up.

So. Apparently, I have the best boyfriend in the world.

Last tidbit about what I've been dealing with. Balance issues. I'm still having them. In fact, right after the therapy appoint when we got home, I literally fell on my ass when I got out of the car and rolled down the grassy slope. I'm always tottering. I almost fell on Jb while he was lying on the bed, and when I was cleaning the other week, I feel smack on the metal garbage can we keep in the front room. I've bruises on my arm, bruises on my foot where I dropped a fan on it, and I've fallen into the closet door in the bathroom more times than I can count.

What else. I've a DHHS appointment to review my foodstamps and temporary disability. It's at 8am, and there's really no way we can work the single car situation with Jb working. I've called to see if they'll reschedule, but I had to leave a message. I'll try again later because frankly, I don't trust them to get back to me.

And the SSDI. I got the info about my doctors, though I couldn't get all the dates of tests and visits. I had to fudge and guess years of when I saw some of them. Best I could do. But I can't seem to get further than that. I brought up the online application page and just sat there looking at it for an hour, overwhelmed and unable to start it.

Lost It, Again

I lost it in the office at the psych's. Completely, utterly broke down. Shaking, sobbing. I think I used half his tissue box. I couldn't stop. And he just sat there and let me cry, which made me feel stupid and dumb and broken. I admitted I hadn't been med compliant and that I couldn't keep up with the hydration on the Lithium to offset the side effects. And when he suggested Abilify, I had to shoot that down because I'd been on it and gained 50lbs. And that's when my last psychiatrist suggested bariatric surgery rather than meds. What the fuck?

So I'm out in the parking lot outside the office, calling Jb, because I suddenly realize what day it is and that he's not getting paid 'til next Friday, and I blew all our foodstamps on food for, like, 4-5 days and a bunch of crap, and we've a whole other week we need groceries for. So I fucked up. And I'm bawling on the phone to him about that. And I can't stop. I can't stop crying. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Fucking roller coaster, and I want off. But no, the psych says, "That seems to be symptomatic of your illness." So it's official: I'm a rapid cycler.

Anway, prescription changes: off the Lithium. Still on the Lamictal and Klonopin. Wellbutrin is now gone. Zoloft has been up from 50 to 100MG.

Meh.

I haven't been writing in a while. Haven't been taking my meds lately either. I just can't be buggered. Which sounds blithe, but really, I mean that there's something inside me that simply doesn't care. I don't know what motivates it, what brings it into being, but there's a level of apathy that's so profound that I, very honestly, do not care. Last week, I didn't care enough to eat. This week and last, I don't care enough to take my meds. Tell me how that works?

Then there are days I'm fine, except for a mild Eeyore down. Something constant and stable in its own way. But that's a day or two, and it's deceiving. I feel like I don't need all this kid glove handling. Still, Jb says I've been up and down. And I haven't been doing things I normally do. I'm trying to lose myself in books and sleep. And it pisses me off. Because I thought I was better. I wanted to be better. I want to be better. I just want this all to end.

How Deep is Your Well?

A day best slept through than lived. You can only understand that if you've ever been truly depressed. Made myself shower. It had been a week since I'd washed my hair. Made myself refill my pill boxes and take my morning meds. It'd been three days.

I confessed to my therapist that I hadn't been med compliant. And she asked me why, which is a reasonable question, and I surprised myself by saying, "It's not really intentional. Last week, I was so high I didn't think I needed them. And then when I crashed, I couldn't be bothered to care."

There's a lot of that last lately. Can't be bothered to eat. Can't be bothered to care about food, groceries, money, bills, pills. As if they will all, somehow, magically take care of themselves. Don't care about my hygiene, how the apartment looks, if I'm able to get anything done.

I've started having the gas mask fantasy again.

They're Back

Psych took me from 600 Lithium to 300 because I was showing side effects. And while Lithium at 600 seemed to stabilize my mood, it stabilized it at a moderate depression. The 300 Lithium, however, doesn't stabilize me. I've had one 3-4 day period of hypo/mania, and I crashed afterward into a moderate depression. This is hell on my relationship with Jb. It's hard to feel close--for him, as well, I imagine. I don't know how to get closer to him when I feel like this. I feel so self-centered and day-to-day. The financial situation doesn't help. We argue over spending $5. That's how bad things have become. And the IBS just gets worse and worse.

Med Update

Therapist is going to help me fill out my SSDI form. My psychiatrist is behind this as well, which helps having the two behind you.

As for meds, psych is dropping me down to 300MG Lithium. I was showing side effects: shaking hands, disoriented, walking like a sailor. He suggested I hydrate more.

Restless 12pm

Can't sleep. Spent an hour tossing and turning. It's not going to happen. Couldn't sleep last night either. Up until 2am. I haven't been eating much. Lost a few pounds, despite the Lithium, which I hear tends to pack on the pounds. Just not interested in food, shopping, making meals. You'd think this was the beginning of an upward spiral, but I'm still walking--stumbling really--around at about a 3, though to be fair, I have my moments of okayness with Jb.

Obligated

I feel somehow obligated to put up a post, to talk about what's going on with me. But I don't have anything to say. I can't get up quickly, or slowly, and I can't bend over or else I lose my balance. I smacked my head into the closet door yesterday and nearly went down on the Ikea rug. The shakes are worse and are making it hard to type or use the mouse. I can't tell if the lymphedema is worsening because of the lithium or the deteriorating stockings because I can't afford new ones. And I forgot to eat dinner last night. It sat there right next to me, but I kept forgetting it was there. Jb tried to make me eat it. I just put it in the fridge. I am ... nowhere. I see the psych and therapist on Wednesday. Until then, I remain tired (I'm not sleeping well), unmotivated, and I feel like an old lady at 33. It's wearing on me. On a scale of 1-10 today, 10 being the best I've ever felt, which is more like a 12 when I'm hypo, I'd say I'm walking around at about a 3.

(Dis)Orientation

This is like a meta discussion in graduate school: talking about talking about the disorientation that I've been dealing with. When I discuss it, it's always in the context of what I did while disoriented: nearly took a header off the front porch, fell into my car, fell headfirst into the bed. But I feel like what I should be talking about is what it feels like to have to talk about "the spins" or this rolling deck type motion that comes over me.

I hate having to discuss this. It makes me feel weak. This whole situation makes me feel weak and small, and at times, I hate myself for being this way. "The spins" are getting worse. I can hardly make it into the bathroom late at night. I nearly fell in the tub the other day. There are so many near misses. When it snows, I will surely bust my ass on the paving stones. Jb has taken to walking behind me, as if he'd catch me if I fall. He watches me, to make sure I make it in the door, up the steps, across the yard. And all I'm able to say about it is, "I can't help it."

For the most part, I don't want to talk about what's happening to me. I had a professor who told me that even silence is a form of rhetoric, and so it is. My silence says that I am, in some small place, ashamed. This is even worse now that I've started getting the shakes. When Jb and I go out for a smoke, I start to shiver and my hands start shaking. As it's coming on fall here, he's right to ask me if I'm cold. And sometimes, I say, "Yes," and sometimes, I say, "No" -- without any more explanation than that, though the true answer is always, "No."

All this silence, all this guilt, over a year since I went on FMLA at work. Around six months since the hospital, and in some ways, I'm worse. How can BP show up at 33 and just wreck your life? Oh, I know, I know. The signs were there. I made excuses. I didn't see them. But if they were spikes in the Richter scale of my life, this breakdown was the Big One. And yet, I still don't know how to talk about how I talk about it.

Overwhelmed

I can't help feeling overwhelmed lately. I've gone to 300MG of Lithium twice a day, and whether it's that or something else, I've started getting the shakes, the spins, mild headaches, constipation (which is funny, considering the IBS alternative), and dry mouth. All this on top of an IUD period. (An IUD period means you will bleed like a stuck pig, for days and days. You will go through three boxes of tampons, having to use one every two hours at your worst, and the cramps make you feel like shit.) So. Good times right now.

Perhaps it's all the physical symptoms that are making me feel touchy. I'm reactive to every bit of criticism, every bit of rejection. When Jb's goofing around, doing a little smack talk, I get upset. I feel disrespected. I can't find it funny anymore. I'm touchy about everything. I want to be coddled, loved, take care of, and I don't feel that at all. And then Jb yells at me for not being involved in our relationship. And I'm absolutely fluxommed.

And Jb and I are fighting again. I'm supposed to clean up, do the dishes, make dinner, do the finances, plan meals, go grocery shopping. This is supposed to be me carrying my weight. But I have no interest in it. I've no interest in writing this blog. I've no real interest in anything. Thank god the book I'm reading has only 2-3 page chapters because that's about all I can manage at once. And there's SSI to think about. I should start that. I haven't the faintest where to begin. I'm just ... I'm tired.

I hate smoking out on the front stairs now because there's something about looking down the cobbled walkway that sets me shaking, that makes me want to say, "Good dammit!" And then the knives start to glimmer when I wash them. They look appealing. And I start to wonder if you can overdose on Klonopin, and if it'd just be like drifting to sleep. Because I'm a coward when it comes to suicide. But it doesn't mean that I don't want to sometimes.

Lady Lithium

I call her lady because only a female can come up on you so sly. Four days in, and I'm noticing the effects: the constant diarrhea and abdominal pain (it makes my IBS look like a kitten), the severe dry mouth. The dry mouth I can handle. The gastro-intestinal stuff ... Gah, wasn't IBS enough? I've been up and down all night in the bathroom. I haven't slept well. I'm dreading when I go to lithium twice a day. The bathroom and I will become very intimate, I'm guessing. Least the lithium doesn't act totally like IBS. I don't get the sweats, the shakes, then throw up.

And on another front, I'm still having the spins.

I was also a bad girl yesterday. The day before yesterday, I cancelled my therapist appointment. I was so down that I simply couldn't handle having to go out, much less drive Jb to work and back, then out to my therapist and back, the back to pick up Jb, etc. I just couldn't deal. A moderate depression as these things go. Not suicial like the week before, but depressed enough to be absolutely immobilized. My therapist is a doll and has volunteered to help me fill out SSI because ... I just can't get started on it myself. It's far too overwhelming. She's even volunteered to make a home visit to help. So I hope I didn't piss her off by canceling. I haven't heard from her yet.

I guess my big thing to do today will be to call SSI and get them to send me a Starter Kit. Their webpage says, "Don't worry if you don't have all the information. We'll help you get it." I wonder which information they mean, and if it's true. I've heard that you have to give them everything they want and be as detailed as possible. I kept horrible records until some time after the hospital. I thought I was merely depressed, that there was no help for people like me. I didn't know I had options, safe harbors, like the hospital, SSI.

Letting Go

I sometimes wonder if I should let Jb go. He never asked for this. He told me last night he expects me to do some cleaning today, but I'm not sure he understands how difficult that is for me. How little I give a fuck. And it hurts him. My ups and downs, his constant working to support us, my inability to keep the house clean, the dishes done. The way I drag my feet about cooking, drawing up a grocery list, going to the store, though there's only a stale box of Rice Krispies, some peanut butter, and corn tortillas in the fridge. And frankly, I don't care. I don't eat during the day anyway. I could go without dinner. The only reason I bother is for him.

There's a point in some relationships where the bad starts outweighing the good, and when the bad goes on long enough, you can't help but wonder if you've lost the good. Having said that, Jb is my lifeline right now. He's who I hold on for, as little as I'm able to hold on. I don't want to hurt him -- even when I know I am -- because without him, I'd be completely lost. I'm not sure what would stop me during my episodes if it weren't for thoughts of Jb. But I've become an absentee girlfriend. I don't have the patience or attention span to listen to him. I lose myself in games and books, and when he's harsh with me, telling me I can walk up to the store to get my American Spirits, I'm not sure he knows that, no, I really can't. I think that he thinks I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and be done with it. I know he gets annoyed with me.

I was a crazy, awful wife to my ex. Crying all the time, moody, confrontational, hating him as much as I loved him, cheating on him, leaving him for impulsive jaunts to Michigan, Wisconsin, all with his money, buying things I didn't need. Spending, spending, spending. Being diagnosed with bipolar brings all of that into clarity for me. And while, I knew I had to leave him, that I had to hope there was something better, we were great friends, and in the end, I convinced myself that as hard as it was for me to leave, he would, eventually, realize he was better off without me. And that's what made it so hard, to know that I'd become a burden, and the sigh of relief he must have felt when that burden was lifted. How freeing that must have been for him.

I wonder if the same could be said for Jb. He says he wants to stay around, that if I didn't love him, he'd cry and cry and cry. An ocean full of tears. But sometimes people don't know what they're saying, what they're asking for. Jb would be angery to read this, saying something like, "Because I'm like your ex. Because I'm like every other man. I thought you'd know me better by now." He'd be hurt by the similarities I'm drawing. And maybe he is the stronger man, but I'm a handful: suicidal one week, manic the next, and in between I walk around in a moderate depression, unable to leave my front door, not wanting to interact with the world, incapable of drawing up a grocery list, needing my therapist's help to fill out SSI.

Sometimes I think Jb'd be better off without me, and that I should be the one to set him free.

"Feelings"

I hate sitting down in my therapist's or psychiatrist's office and having to answer the first question they inevitably ask: "How are you 'feeling'?" Because my answer is bitter and jaded:

"Well, I was suicidal for four days the week before last. I was hypo Friday afternoon. By evening, I was full blown manic. I switch from day-to-day, week-to-week, despite being on a mood stabilizer, an anti-anxiety medicine, and three different anti-depressants. My boyfriend can't catch up with me. He calls me every afternoon to, again, see how I'm "feeling" today. Whether it's to be sweet or to know what he's coming home to, I don't know. To top that off, it's been six months since my hospitalization, and you know what? There are days I still sleep all day and hide in bed. There are still days I'm too scared and anxious to walk through my front door. I don't go anywhere because I'm afraid of the bus, and when I go out, I think people are always looking at me and talking about me. Then, there's the lack of focus and motivation, the forgetfulness, the inability to attend to detail. The dishes have been sitting in the sink for three weeks, the house is a mess, and I can't make myself draw up a grocery list. I honestly don't care whether we eat or not. I cry at the drop of a hat. I'm reactive to anything negative in my life: a fight, criticism, perceived rejection. Movies and songs and books trigger mood changes, and I can't always predict which movies and songs or books will do that. I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which means I'm also stuck at home with diarrhea, sometimes up to 6 times or more a day. I know every bathroom on every route I take--just in case. And don't forget the "spins." One of these days I'm gonna fall and bust my head or bruise my tailbone. Because I can't walk without losing balance. I look like a drunk navigating the halls. I have problems getting up because I get disoriented and plop back down again. Then there's the irritability and bitch factor. I pick fights, I'm paranoid about what Jb thinks of me. I'm irritated and just want to be left alone in a relationship that takes two people. My boyfriend has actually sat me down and told me that because of being so withdrawn, I haven't been participating in the relationship. I'm anti-social. I don't want to do anything, go anywhere. All the things I used to like don't matter to me anymore. I jump from thing to thing, never able to settle on any one thing to do. So, I don't know. I can't sit or walk for long lengths of time because of my lymphadema. Sitting makes it worse. Walking more than a block or two is impossible because of the pain in my shins due to the medical stockings, which no insurance will not pay for and which are $400 every three months. So. What do you think? That's how I'm "feeling."

Is the total frustration evident?