Oh, So Girl, Interrupted

I'm also having this need to read things like The Bell Jar, and Prozac Nation, and Girl, Interrupted. Or to at least Netflix the movies made from the books. Everything is so Sylvia Plath. In the hospital, you'd have morning group, right? And they always wanted us to start out with some pithy quote on the board that was meant to buoy us through the day. There were more than a few of us that looked around at each other, all aware that the only thing we had in our heads were snippets of Plath, Parker, lyrics and rhymes of the mentally ill themselves. We were the girls who did not know how to play nice in the ward, the ones that complained about the staff late at night in the dining room, the ones who didn't care if they left group in the middle of it, the ones who slept during the day to make it pass. Except for visiting hours, we thought the whole thing a farce. The only thing they cared about was that you took your pills at 9am and 9pm and kept yourself washed and clean.

What Day Is It?

More and more, I'm losing track of time: day, date. I have to ask Jb, "Is it Wednesday?" There's no reason for me to know. I have to use gmail calendar to send me reminder e-mails for appointments I have to make, except when I forget to put my appointments on gmail calendar. In the interim, I sit here, sometimes I take my morning meds, sometimes, like today, I forget. I smoke. I sleep. I listen to Carbon Leaf and Barenaked Ladies. I eat because I should. I haven't cooked in a few days. Just couldn't be buggered to do it. Care so little about things these days. Slept the entire day away yesterday. The entire day.

I got my stimulus check, still flapping in the wind over waiting to receive my medical assistance packet, running out of meds with no money or insurance to get them, and all of it, good and bad, I couldn't care less. (And to all those linguaphiles out there, "could care less," "couldn't care less," that's right, both work. Sarcasm is a wonderful thing.) Are we catching the drift of my mood? Indeed, I do believe we are. (Snarky is up there with sarcasm in my book.) I can't get through making this goddamn list for the grocery store. I can't do it. It's shoddy at best. How have I managed to stretch $100 for two weeks of food for two people? I am fucking clueless this week. I'm up to $110 on only 8 dinners and breakfast for the weekend. My mind will not focus.

And Jb's killing me last night. He's nagging me to go out, take walks, exercise because I'm out of shape from sitting around the house. Might as well call me fat on top of it. Then when he's all, "No, just, you sit home all day and we eat crap." Newsflash: you eat crap. You eat freakin' honey buns for breakfast and McDonald's or 7-Eleven hotdogs for lunch. What do I eat? Freakin' Special K and an apple during the day. A South Beach Diet granola bar. You've got to be kidding me. Of course, he works all those calories off. Yeah, he works manual labor, and I'm sure that helps him, but he can't pull the "we eat crap" card because I, at least, try. And you know what bites rhinos? I'm still not losing weight.

In a complete fit of pique, I went out and walked this morning. I hate exercise. I have always hated exercise. My body is not build for it. Never has been. I swear to god I'd love to be one of those people you see every weekend, biking, running, sweating off every goddamn thing they eat, but I'm not. I can't even begin to fathom that kind of dedication and commitment. My commitment is focused elsewhere. My cheating days, my days of blithe duplicity are through since Jb. I don't lie. I don't cheat. I don't look for that rush that goes with the chase. And I used to. God knows I used to before him. And sometimes I miss it. The rush, the high of it.

I wonder, sometimes, if that's what it's like for people with bipolar? I went years in which I was overly sexed, constantly trolling, but it was never the sex, never the actual act, that was satisfying. It was the chase, the knowing how to play a scene, or a person. And that, I know, I've had since I was little. I have always known what to be for a person. I would make a game out of being exactly what someone else needed to hook them, then get bored with the game, and the person. It was the challenge, the testing of myself, like sitting down to get a 4-hour tattoo to see if I was "man" enough to take the pain. It may not be "conventional" self-mutilation in the world of the mentally ill, but there was something freeing in the pain it brought on and the way it felt to feel something, and to master it. Reading things like that, I can think: yeah, that's fucked up.

8:24am Aargh

Could not go to bed last night. Tried. Honestly, I did. Sort of. Jb crashed around midnight, and I was still wide awake. Read some of Nora Roberts' Blood Brothers. Still convinced that she is a deceptively good writer. Stupid me, I held out for years thinking such a prolific writer must be a hack. Way to go, jackass. Granted, her novels--the ones I've been reading, the more supernatural ones--have the same structure: 3 women and 3 men brought together to battle some sort of evil, and in the process of the three-book series, they all hook up. But she does a wonderful job of characterization and creating a sense of a non-nuclear family, but a family all the same.

Anyway, off track. Could not sleep last night. Woke up several times. Up at 8:24am. Groggy per usual, but I don't know, my sleep pattern is definitely shifting. I'm finding it harder and harder to not stay up half the night like I used to. The fact that I resist sitting there watching Adult Swim all night helps, I'm sure. But reading with the light on probably doesn't. Still, I can't just lie there and think, and think, and think. Because I start thinking of blogs to write, or scenes to write, and what's happening in the book, or what I'd do or say if X, Y, or Z happened. Feh. Useless, stupid things.

Slippery Slope

I'm heading for a depression. I can feel it coming on. I've lost interest in most everything again: reading, computer games, movies, sex, going places, doing things. I am angry at myself about this, so I'm cranky all the time and restless. Sometimes, instead, I'm listless and passive. The IBS and GERDs is acting up as well. I'm beginning to stress about things like Jb coming home at night. While other things, I don't care about at all: like whether the bills get paid, whether we have money or not, whether we have food or not. When Jb tries to ask me about these things, I get annoyed, short with him. He is constantly yelling at me for snapping at him. My temper and patience are nonexistent. I resent Jb's intrusion into my "world." More and more, he says things to me like, "You know, maybe you should try living here in reality, like everybody else."

This morning, on waking, I remember having a very vivid dream about living in a city with Hitler and being somehow close to him. Because he's a despot and mercurial of mood, everyone is always on eggshells around him, not wanting to curry his disfavor. I am someone he favors, and even I am very careful about what I do and say. It is stressful, this living on the edge, never knowing whether he'll be kind or cruel. And he can be very kind, as well as very cruel. There is a small resistance in the town. They know each other by the books they read. But those loyal to Hitler know them by the books they read as well. I try to sneak past a Hitler supporter with one of these books tucked among many. I make it, barely, out to a terraced park full of students and wildflowers, and there are two women who oversee the whole body of supporters. L-----, from the psych ward, is there in my dream. She screams out at a line of nuns who walk past the park; she was always screaming out about freedom and being closed in.

The dream is telling. I am having a hard time dealing with being home all day, then having Jb come home and disrupt my little world. It's like Jayne says in Firefly, "[He] damages my calm." It also sends me back to my childhood--when I lived in fear of my mother's moods, never knowing what they might be from minute to minute. I have to admit to myself that I've felt this way for the last year or so. Even when Jb was picking me up from work, the last hour of work, before I knew he was coming, I'd start to get sick to my stomach, I'd taste cigarettes in my mouth, and my IBS would suddenly flare up, so that I missed almost a half hour of work at the end of the day, every day. I think, perhaps, this is an inability to deal with change on a small, localized scale. And like in my dream, I used to escape into books. But since the hospitalization, I've had trouble concentrating enough to read them, except in small snippets.

Jb also gets on my ass--understandably so--about not having started to unpack. I took a week off because I needed it after the move, but I've no energy for it. It's been up near the 100s this week, so I tell myself it's because it's been so hot and I've been trying to keep the A/C off during the day. But the truth is that I simply don't have the motivation to do it. And Jb's losing patience with me. We had another fight last night. He told me that I've ruined every night so far in the new apartment, that I no longer participate in our relationship. And I'm left hurt and shamed and guilty and small--and angry at him for making me face the truth. I wish, sometimes, I could not listen. That I could wrap the bubble of my quiet day alone around me.

I cannot blame Jb, though. He is working hard, for both of us. He has every right to resent what he must see as my laziness. And it's like work all over again. How many times can you say, "I don't feel well," before they begin to look at you askance, like you're lying, or making it up. Depression isn't an excuse, but it comes across as one. Unless you've been there, deep and alone, you cannot ever truly understand what it feels like. Mild depression is not the same as major depression. Trying to follow each mood swing is exhausting. Depression is depleting. You are told, expected, to be this or that, but you can't be. Part of you no longer even cares that you can't be. Another part of you is angry and bitter, guilt-ridden and ashamed. And still, even though you want to meet someone's expectations, you can't. The will to try sputters and flags like a flame about to go out, and you're left feeling helpless, and you know it's all you're fault. You are the one who is broken. You are the one who is wrong.

8:01 a.m. Med Check

Lamictal and Wellbutrin taken. Breakfast: salmon cream cheese and bagel. I've taken my pills and eaten--like a good girl. I'm fairly miffed at having to do this and beginning to resent it.

Change

As Jb puts it, "It happens." But then, so does shit if you believe the bumper sticker, and this week has just been a shit kicker for me. Major life changes have always been a trigger for me. This move was no exception. The last few days before the move I was already in a passive-aggressive state. The two days of the move, I was snappy, angry, bitchy, and hard to deal with. Jb and I went 'round several times during those two days, and even more since the move.

I actually had a small breakdown over not being able to put my own computer together. This from the girl who's always been capable with her own computer setup, who used to troubleshoot computers for her co-workers, etc., etc. This time, though, the wires were too much, and I sat there throwing things around and having a tantrum, all the time looking at the wires like they were some foreign entity I couldn't wrap my mind around. And that pissed me off. I can't explain the frustration. Somehow the fight escalated to me swearing I'd leave Jb -- and all sorts of irrational nonsense.

That night, in bed, when I was far calmer, Jb told me that I couldn't control my moods anymore, that it was worse now than before I went into the hospital. And I feel so helpless in the face of these moods. They overtake me on a whim. I hadn't realized how mercurial my moods had been until Jb pointed it out to me. And at least, at the time, I was in a rational state where I could really look back on the last few days and see that Jb was right. That hasn't stopped the moods, though. We had another fight yesterday, and I ended up sitting in the bathtub for a while. We've already snapped at each other this morning.

The following are among the things that are setting me off:

• My computer setup: I hate it. It's uncomfortable, too compact, and I have no where to put my feet up, which is crucial to me because of the lymphadema in my legs. But I have no space, and I can't stand that. I can't stand not having personal space.

• The bed: It is on the floor sans frame. I hate this. It's difficult to get up, and frankly, I slept on the floor on a futon the entire time I was in college and at my ex's place, but I was 21. I'm freakin' 32-years-old. I want a proper bed frame. I'm too old for this shit, and I wake up every day feeling like someone pummeled me during the night.

• My knee: The osteo-arthritis is acting up. Maybe due to all the rain we've had, maybe because it tends to be seasonal. Either way, it hurts like hell when I'm trying to get to sleep at night, and the computer setup isn't helping any, neither is the bed.

• Cutting: Jb wants to cut this Ikea bed table we have to give me some sort of setup that gives me more room, but (1) I don't want him cutting up a $200 piece of furniture and (2) it won't solve anything because I need a solid base, like the end of the bed frame, to put my feet up. I've been trying a storage container, but the sucker moves all over the place, my keyboard feels like it's sliding off my lap, and it's uncomfortable as hell.

Also, when Jb brought home the saw and measuring tape to modify the Ikea table, I broke down in a crying fit, trying to explain that it was too much change all at once. That I needed time to test out the new setup, to even see if I liked it. I was so brittle from all the newness. I needed time to get my bearings. I swear to God modifying that table would have been the last straw for me.

So, in summation, the apartment is quite nice with its hardwood floors, its quaint window frames that sometimes need to be propped open, and the wild jungle that is our backyard and which I can see through the kitchen window. It's grown on me, though I spent the first few days walking through the place, touching things, opening and closing things, like some befuddled ghost who's trying to understand her surroundings. The neighborhood is quiet, you can hear birds, but little else. And it smells green and loamy when it rains. The apartment feels homey, mostly because it's one of five apartments in an old house from the 1940s. (This is why it's quaint. I'd swear the cabinets and a few other things hail from the '40s, as does the washer/dryer and the stove.) We've met the upstairs and downstairs neighbors.

All this change makes me feel very Benny and Joon-ish, though, as if I'm Joon: fine as long as I'm in an environment I'm comfortable in, but change anything, take me out of my comfort zone, and I start to flip out emotionally, lashing out at Jb and exhibiting a sort of dysphoric mania: the depression and the anger and irritability of hypomania mixed. It's a little like being in a life raft in a raging sea with a small bucket, trying to keep the water from overwhelming the boat. Unfortunately, Jb's no Sam, and he's not dealing well with my outbursts of late. Not that I blame him, but it does remind me that bipolar people are "three and a half times more likely to [`divorce'] than the rest of the population."

Furthermore, the entire time I was unable to log onto the internet because of Comcast's ineptitude, I didn't write. Even Jb asked if I'd been writing, suggesting I probably should be keeping up with that, that he thought it was a good outlet for me. But I simply didn't want to. I felt like I had nothing to say. When in reality, I had plenty to say, especially to Jb. It just all came out in this destructive, irrational way. And part of me feels guilty about it, and part of me feels like I had the right to vent my spleen. That's the grandiosity: the thinking that I'm entitled to more than other people, that I'm different, better somehow. More and more I hear Jb telling me: "You don't care about my feelings, that I'm hurt. You just don't care." And to a point, he's right. There are certain moments when nothing matters to me but me. As if I'm due more than everyone else. And that's solipistic to say the least.

I do care, though. I just don't know how to show it anymore. I feel like an emotional retard, unable to access certain emotions, while others are making hay while the sun shines.

10:10 p.m. Communications Blackout

Halfway through the move, and there's still so much to do. There were several breakdowns -- mine and Jb's -- and much snapping, some crying, bad accusations. So things go. I think my parents threatened each other with divorce at least four times when they retiled the kitchen.

Anyway, this will be it for a while. Since Comcast doesn't know how to add a new address to their database, it may be a while before we're able to get internet access again. Disconnecting the computers and putting them away is a little like shutting off the air in a space shuttle, or losing communications entirely with the rest of the world:

"Houston, we are going for a blackout."

12:01 p.m. Pharmacies, Insurance, & Copayments, Oh My!

Thwarted at the pharmacy. I swear. Took a bus all the way out to the hospital, and I could only get the Lamictal filled. Luckily, it was the one I was completely out of. Since I seem to have dropped off prescriptions elsewhere, insurance won't pay for them until June 13th. Nevermind that my prescription has changed. But I've enough Remeron and Klonopin to last me a couple days more. I checked out my receipt for my Lamictal and about went into sticker shock. $20 with insurance. Without? $276. My god! I need to look up one of those free prescription programs my nurse practitioner (PCP) told me about. (This is when I seriously consider moving to Canada.) Health Insurance will certainly be a big influence on who gets my vote, that's for sure.

On another note, side effects today. I was falling asleep on the bus and in the pharmacy waiting room. And walking was this odd sort of seasick weave out to the bus stop and down the halls. My feet kept wanting to go in front of each other, and my body kept wanting to gravitate toward the nearest wall. It's a strange sort of gravity, this dizziness thing. And I feel weak, unable to really get to work and start cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom, both of which need it. I was also planning on making this Creamy Sausage Casserole with Biscuits, but that might be overkill for today. I hate having to conserve and space out my energy. I understand how, even when a patient might be feeling better, that person might still be unable to work. I do believe it'd be frowned upon if someone was found, head on their keyboard, at work. Not to mention the walking like you're drunk. Stellar review, I'm sure.

By the by, I love my nurse practitioner. She gave me two months worth of samples of Benicar so I wouldn't have to pay for them because she knew I'd lost my job. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, are stingy bastards I'm finding, and look at you like you're a junky if you ask for samples. Given the fact that they're the ones prescribing the medicine, it just makes me wanna slap 'em.

6:52 And She'll Be Swingin'

Impulse replaced by crankiness, mood swings, everything that's wonderful about the up and down. It reminds me of a training exercise in Space Camp. We were on a moonwalk simulator, which was a glorified chair on a four-story scaffold with a pivot bar in the middle. The counselors would strap you in, and you'd push off with your feet, and you'd float up into the air, up two-stories, over the zenith of the simulator and back down, to bounce back up and over. It all happened in a sort of slow motion, with that awkward, bouncing gait of an astronaut, except that you had the leisure of being strapped in, of being able to look outside yourself and watch the slow upswing and then the slow downswing of each pendulum-like swing. That's how this feels sometimes, the way a mood will creep up on me, send me up into an agitated, pissy state, then slowly recede into something more depressed, more sluggish. Back, and forth. Back, and forth. Except this is a ride I can't get off.

1:16 a.m. Drained

Up at 1 in the morning. Maybe the lamictal. Psychiatric nurse practitioner mentioned it might mess with my sleep. Will start taking 2 lamictal in the morning and none at night.

Otherwise, woke up from a sex dream, again. Vivid. But I've forgotten it now.

Before bed, Jb and I were at it again. touchy and upset, arguing. Jb has a way of instigating things that makes me want to hurt him. He's the one who started off with the sullen, passive-aggressive shit, but he won't admit to it. So he goads me, which I don't deserve, and I end up confused and hurt and yelling back about what, I don't really know. Sometimes it just drains me.

2:32 p.m. Feh.

Might be hitting a downswing. Might be the change in meds. Stayed up late last night, got up earlier, around 7ish. First time I've seen Jb before he headed off to work in a while. Played with a "new" pally on WoW for a bit, then went back to bed. Woke up again around noonish when Jb called.

Actually, now that I think on it, woke up cranky this morning. Jb and I got into it before he left without so much as a kiss and a very meh "goodbye." Was cranky, too, when Jb called around noon. I'm just loads of fun after being woken up and waking up already in a "mood."

Was thinking last night before bed that Jb ought to be a co-author of this blog. It'd be interesting to see what he has to say about how I affect him, and what sort of symptoms he's seeing in me. It'd be helpful to have some of his thoughts down if I have to go for disability. Because I'm not always rational enough to be objective about how I'm acting or what I'm doing. I doubt he'd be into doing something like that, though.

I have been feeling the compulsion to buy things and go places. Luckily, we don't have money, so the trips I used to take spur of the moment aren't possible anymore. When I discussed this with Jb, he took our bank card out of my wallet and took it to work with him and proceeded to tell me that if he ever came home and found me gone, I'd come home to an empty apartment. I vaguely mentioned taking the car to go see my parents for a week or so. This was vehemently veto'd.

I was productive today, but only because when Jb called at noon, he sorta got on my case about needing to pack. So I packed the booze with a winter coat (for cushioning), I packed the binders with our cds, movies, and games, as well as his Magic card binders and transferred his loose cards to a sturdier box with a top. There's some miscellaneous cds in ziploc bags in there, too, as well as my knitting and another winter coat (again, for cushioning). I taped up the box of my Framboise, too, because that's the important stuff (i.e. my favorite).