"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 My boyfriend has actually sat me down and told me that because of being so withdrawn, I haven't been participating in the relationship.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?

Change in Meds

Started Lithium today. I almost don't care about the horror stories, the side effects, I'd take anything right now if it'd help with these mood swings. I'm riding a roller coaster, where the drops are steep and the rises aren't nearly slow enough.

Tumbled

I'm feeling better. The moods come, but they don't linger. I'm restless and aimless, but it doesn't feel as frenetic. Music and lyrics and books and tv and movies still trigger me, but I can get past those. It's the anxiety I'm finding it hard to battle. When nothing's demanded of me, I'm fine, but a phone call, having to drive somewhere, having to go out of the apartment by myself, these still make my heart and stomach clench up, make me nauseous. When I'm depressed, I'm more apathetic than depressed now. Like everything's tumbled me smooth as a rock.

Joint Venture

Jb and I had a talk yesterday. He doesn't think I should stop blogging; he thinks it's a good outlet for me and useful. I tried to express to him, though, that being laid bare and not being allowed into his thoughts about what's been going on is a little more vulnerable than I want to be. His response was that he didn't think he was supposed to respond to what I said here. I told him, on the contrary, I'd really like his response, especially if he posted it here -- to help me see how my perception of myself or incidents synch up with his perception of them. He agreed to try this.

This all stems from the fight we had over the weekend. Sometimes, in fights, I can't give in. I simply can't let it go. My emotions are too ... overwhelming. I become extremely tenacious or confrontational. Because I need it fixed, or else my emotions and mind go a little crazy, turning toward types of thinking that I really shouldn't: about breaking up, about hurting myself, etc. Anyway, when I finally got Jb to open up enough to tell me what, exactly, was wrong, he came back with this statement that I was always negative these days. I was negative about everything. And I felt, somehow, blind-sided. My knee-jerk reaction was to assert that I hadn't been negative all this time. But then, my belief in that became precarious. Had I been negative? Had it been something I couldn't see because I was so busy dealing inward with my own moods?

Having Jb comment on my posts, or on my emotional and mental state of mind, would help a great deal toward my own awareness, but it would also give me something to tell the psychiatrist. I can say I feel depressed, or I felt high as a kite, or I couldn't control my emotions, or half a dozen other things, but it's one thing to say how you feel or see yourself, and it's another to add, "And my boyfriends says I do this or that or the other." Since, we're assuming, this outside view of the situation is far more objective than my own inner view. Because that's what happens, isn't it? When you're inside the maelstrom, you can't see what's going on outside it. All you know is where you are, and all you can do is try to get through the worst of it.

Hard Day's Night

This is a hard day. I wake so depressed that I immediately go make brownies to make myself feel better, which it doesn't. (I always tell myself that eating the almost burnt edges doesn't count.) It makes me feel as if I just gave Jb more ammunition to criticize me for. Then I'm chatting online to another person who is probably as fucked up in the head as I am sometimes, though he's far more passive-aggressive about it than I am. It's one of the few social things I get to do all day, and there's something in knowing he's as fucked up in his own way as I am. We're both in foul moods this morning, though, so the conversation is short, and that's fine with me, except that it isn't. I spend the morning listening to Pandora.

I am doing nothing. I am achieving nothing. I have anxiety about what Jb'll say when he comes home, about the mood he'll be in, about how much he'll hate me for the nothing that I do or feel. I cannot focus on any one thing, and the only emotional hit is music. "Ten Year Night" by Lucy Kaplansky comes on, and I'm triggered back to Michigan, flying down the highway along the railroad tracks far up toward the peninsula from a little town called Cheyenne where I braved a bar to get a cheeseburger that tasted better than anything I'd had. And the shifting of gears was so necessary to my running, the control of the down shift, the letting go as you up shift, the jump of the gas as your foot grows heavier, and all around you country you couldn't know. There's a certain face, too, that comes to mind with those times and that song, and it's as hard to out run that history and burnt bridge as it is to shift through the old melody line.

The tears are in my eyes before I ever realize I'm crying.

I remember what it's like to fly.

From Up to Down in 10m Flat

Jb and I go out driving, one of the things we do almost every weekend since we've so little money. Usually, it's just what I need: time out of the house, good tunes, time with Jb away from the tv and the computer. Today, it's fine for an hour and a half. Then we end up at a lighthouse surrounded by a barbed wire fence that makes the shabby attraction look like a prison yard with the Chesapeake just beyond the fence, a concrete divide between the haves and have nots: those who can afford to be out boating on the lake and those who stand, locked away from the private beach. It's hot, depressing, and we're an hour and a half from home. I'm restless to get gone, and snappish by the time we're back in the car. The second half of the drive is full of crap music, silence, and then a song comes on and starts triggering me. I'm suddenly desperate for home, missing my family, my childhood, thoughts full of the last ten years, the knowledge that I'm already 32, almost 33, knowing the likelihood that I'll be anything come 40 enough to make me tear up, and there I am, crying behind my sunglasses, trying not to let Jb see, even when he's asking what's wrong. And what is there to say? I'm sick of always saying: I don't know. I just went from fine to depressed in 10 minutes, and I'm so pissed at myself that the disgust is thick. I'm tired of this. Jb must be tired of this. I can't ride these crests and dips. I know, there, in the car, that I need someone to talk to. I need to find myself a therapist. And soon. Because I am not dealing. I am not dealing with this up and down, this here and there, and the guilt of my mood always affecting the people around me that I love is strong. I'm so frightened that they'll suddenly see, suddenly see me, and throw their hands up in frustration, wash their hands of me. I can hardly blame them when I feel like doing the same myself sometimes. I'm even convinced, sometimes, that it'd be better for everyone involved if I lived my own life, away from everyone else's.

2:06 p.m. Huh

I feel . . . befuddled today. Slightly off. Not necessarily depressed, but not necessarily well. I feel confused, and a bit sharp, with some back and forth between the two. My focus still wanders, and the four walls close in when you're not working, and I haven't been terribly useful, but I did quite a bit of reading today, which means my mood is shifting. I'm starting to wonder if I didn't go into the hospital manic instead of depressed. Because I don't remember being depressed. I do, however, remember being suicidal, and my research has told me that suicide is more likely when a patient is in a manic state. I know I'd had a shuttery, jittery, can't sit still, hyperventilating sort of breakdown the morning I was hospitalized. Once I knew I was leaving my job and that it was unlikely I'd be back soon, I packed up all my things and ran. I couldn't wait for Jb to come get me. I had to get out. I had to get away. I went to wait at Starbucks to be picked up, and I could barely keep everything in. In the hospital, I was irritated, angry, antsy, often walking the halls, going from room to room, unable to sit through a whole group therapy session. But . . . I don't know. Every emotion is put into question now, and I don't know how I truly feel at any given time. Maybe that's why I feel so befuddled. Are mentally ill patients emotionally stunted? Unable to know how they're feeling because they have no sense of what a "normal" baseline feels like?

10:11 a.m. Check-In

Meds: Did not take them last night. Yeah yeah: bad me. Took my morning dose. Added Protonix to the mix again today. Stomach's bothering me.

Mood: 4. Not feeling well today. Could be allergies. I'm going sans-allergy meds this allergy season since they're all OTC now and expensive. Short of patience. Generally annoyed. Cranky.

Sleep: Woke up at 4:30, then again at 7-something. Had a hard time falling asleep last night. Was 11 p.m. when Jb went to bed, and I laid there for a long time trying to sleep. Yesterday afternoon, I was tired, but also couldn't sleep for thinking too much. Unable to relax. Feel vaguely hung over today: still tired, but unable to sleep restfully.

Misc: Don't feel like writing today. Feel as if blog isn't a substitute for a therapist. Also feel don't need therapist. Contrary as hell today. I don't know that I really have anything of importance to say and feel as if all this blogging has been egotistical navel gazing. Hate the blog. Hate myself.

Hearing Things: Heard humming in the kitchen last night. Melodic. Human. Was odd.

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.

6:02 p.m. More & Less

More packing, less words. Jb's late again. He's always late these days. He works hard, works for the two of us, so I can't resent it, but I get lonely. It leaves me too much time by myself. It's... hard... to be constantly alone with all these interim hours to while away. I'm tired of packing, of doing the work here at home. I'm tired of being here. I've started thinking about the hospital, wishing, almost, that I was back there. I'm feeling depressed, and... brittle. I can't shoulder much more. I feel like it'd only take some small thing to break me, and I don't know what I might say, how I might act, how the anger might come out. It is anger. I'm so angry at myself for being this way, for feeling so broken at times. I can't tolerate the thought of being touched. I want my space, I want. And I don't know what I want. It's just this gaping hole somewhere, and my brain can't wrap itself around the feelings, this ephemeral thing. It's like this dark shadow behind you, breathing down your neck, and you just want to scrub yourself clean, scrub everything raw until it's bare and white and shining and there's nothing dirty left, everything that's wrong is gone. The pressure grows inside until you feel half mad with it. It's times like that I can understand cutters. I curl my fingers in and dig my nails into my palms until the pain makes the pressure ease. But I'll manage. I'll make myself manage. I have for years. I know how to put one foot in front of the other, and there are other people depending on me. I feel indebted, and so, force myself on.

Ahem.

Tori Amos, "Snow Cherries from France:"

You question me,
"Can you ride anything?"
Lord, do you mean like your moodswings?

Ahem. Truer words sometimes. Poor Jb.

7:36 a.m. Early Mornin' Check-In

Was up around 5ish this morning, then again at 7ish when I heard Jb getting ready for work. Took meds with a Barq's, and here's the fascinating thing about Barq's (yes, yes: we all know "it has bite"): it also has caffeine, unlike almost every other brand of root beer out there. So I've a 12-pack of the stuff, and my stomach is not a happy camper (TM). Caffeine exacerbates the IBS, which is always fun, and feeling sick to my stomach, literally, does nothing for my mood.

Note to self: No vivid dreams of late. Or, at least, none I remember. I'd like to say there was something just on the edge of memory when I woke up this morning, but it's long gone now.

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.

7:15 a.m. Triggers

One of the things I've begun to worry about is the possibility of a downward trend. The more I've gone over my past in my mind, trying to find the truth of my diagnosis, the more I've seen trends. Example? I get the Runaways in spring and fall. And my triggers tend to be major life events: going to college, switching my major, leaving college, getting married, moving, new jobs, buying a house, leaving graduate school, moving out of state, separating from my ex, beginning a new life with a new boyfriend, my father's illness, death, loss of a job.

Jb and I move in one week. Moving is always stressful for me, especially now when my motivation is low, and it seems a monumental task to get all of our junk into boxes and out of here. I'm worried it'll trigger something, send me up into a hypomania, where I couldn't be more thrilled with our new place, everything is wonderful, everything is fabulous! Or it could send me down into depression, where everything is new, everything needs to be learned over. There's no nearby store I can walk to, all the bus routes are different, a less than easy commute to the metro, everything is strange, and there I'll sit, without a job, without t.v. or internet for days because Comcast screwed up, surrounded by boxes I've no idea what to do with.

I think I'll be thrilled at first, a new start, a fresh apartment: hardware floors, white light coming from three windows, a bright new world. And no one loves a fresh start like me. I feel the need for them periodically, a sudden irrepressible urge to pack it all up, throw it all in, and start over, as if I could outrun my problems, my moods, my responsibility. Build a new life, rebuild myself, find my better self, one who doesn't screw up, one who doesn't mess things up. A better relationship, a better me, a better, brighter look on life. Like Annie Gallup says, "Anything Is Possible (Reprise):"

It was a phone booth in the middle of the Midwest
It was raining like the devil. I was depressed
I watched a pickup truck slowly float by with its hazards blinking
Windshield wipers slapping, I said, "I keep thinking
If I can hold it all together just one day maybe two
It'll all make sense and I'll believe it's really true
I wish I could take comfort in steady slow improving
But I'm scared most of the time. I don't feel safe
Unless I'm moving"
Ooh, yeah, anything is possible

Too much of that rings home: "I keep thinking: if I could hold it all together, just one day, maybe two. It'll all make sense, and I'll believe it's really true. I wish I could take comfort in this steady slow improving, but I'm scared most of the time. I don't feel safe, unless I'm moving." That's the depression, the Runaways, and my frustration with the long haul of recovery and meds. It's all there in one verse. And I don't know why, suddenly, my head is full of verses and lyrics, poems and lines. I've read in a couple of blogs that bipolar patients seems caught up in music, poems, latching onto lines the way they latch onto sanity, repeating things over and over in their mind. When I began this blog, all I could think about was Dorothy Parker's poem, "The Veteran:" "Inertia rides and riddles me," repeating that one line over and over. Inertia rides and riddles me, inertia rides and riddles me, inertia rides and riddles me. There's something compulsive in that, and something delusional in the way I put so much emotional investment into lyrics and lines, as if they could speak for me when I'm too befuddled to find the words myself.

7:06 Meds, Check

2 Lamictal, 1 Klonopin, and 1 Seagrams Ginger Ale (Note: Caffeine Free). Went to bed at 1:30 a.m. Maybe more like 2 a.m. I resent the way Jb rolls over and is out like a light and snoring within a minute of deciding he's tired while I lie there, thoughts random and a mess. Forecast for staying up? Slim to none. Maybe. If I dreamed, I remember nothing. Haven't in days. May be starting a downward trend. Too early to tell, but spent parts of yesterday and the day before morose and in a general funk. Emotionally sensitive. The regular symptoms. Could it be the lower dose of Remeron -- an antidepressant -- finally leaving my system? Unsure. Maybe going down 15MG was a bad idea.

7:45 p.m. Up and Down the Merry-Go-Round

It can be the best day one minute, then one song -- one song -- and my eyes are burning, my heart's aching, and something in my stomach turns sour. I want a cigarette more than life, and even then, the tears start to well up.

Early in the day, Jb and I drive out to Cracker Barrel. All the way there and back we listen to country, Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, my music, and sometime in the last few weeks, Jb's bothered to listen to some of it, has learned to appreciate some of the songs. It means so much to me that the car flies down the highway, the wind blows in the windows, and everything is green, lush, flowing. And I'm happy; I'm content. Nothing sparkles, the colors don't glow vibrant, so intense they light up my heart, and the pure feeling, the feeling of the moment doesn't overwhelm, doesn't fill me to the brim, not like it used to. And I miss it. The day has been beautiful. I recognize that, appreciate it, but I miss the ecstasy of it. I miss the unnatural high.

We come home, and suddenly, I can't stand being here in the dark when the day's so beautiful. I get antsy, something beneath my skin starts to itch, for the sunlight, for relief. Waiting on Jb, I'm surfing YouTube and I'm watching some Firefly montage to "Ain't No Reason" by Brett Dennen, a song I've never heard before, and it hits home unexpectedly:

There ain’t no reason things are this way.
Its how they always been and they intend to stay.
I can't explain why we live this way, we do it everyday.
Preachers on the podium speakin’ of saints,
Prophets on the sidewalk beggin’ for change,
Old ladies laughing from the fire escape, cursing my name.
I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same,
A window and a pigeon with a broken wing,
You can spend your whole life workin’ for something
Just to have it taken away.
People walk around pushing back their debts,
Wearing pay checks like necklaces and bracelets,
Talking ‘bout nothing, not thinking ‘bout death,
Every little heartbeat, every little breath.
People walk a tight rope on a razor's edge
Carrying their hurt and hatred and weapons.
It could be a bomb or a bullet or a pen
Or a thought or a word or a sentence.

There ain't no reason things are this way.
It's how they always been and they intend to stay
I don’t know why I say the things I say, but I say them anyway.
But love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set me free, yes.

Prison walls still standing tall,
Some things never change at all.
Keep on buildin’ prisons, gonna fill them all,
Keep on buildin’ bombs, gonna drop them all.
Working your fingers bare to the bone,
Breaking your back, make you sell your soul.
Like a lung that’s filled with coal, suffocatin’ slow.
The wind blows wild and I may move,
The politicians lie and I am not fooled.
You don't need no reason or a three piece suit to argue the truth.
The air on my skin and the world under my toes,
Slavery stitched into the fabric of my clothes,
Chaos and commotion wherever I go, love I try to follow.

Love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set me free, yes.

There ain't no reason things are this way
It’s how they always been and they intend to stay
I can't explain why we live this way, we do it everyday.

It brings me down to a level I haven't been at for almost two weeks now. I'm ready to cry. I can't understand the meaning of it all, and everything seems momentary: this too shall pass, this too shall pass. But no one ever acknowledges that also means that this happiness, that passes, too. And we're left on the up and down of a merry-go-round, holding tight to a pole, sometimes brave enough to reach for the brass ring, but mostly so frightened that all we can do is hold on tight and close our eyes and wait for the world to stop.

The worst is that I remember the hospital again. I remember how faithful Jb was, coming every night for that single hour they allowed visitors, and twice on the weekend. Every time he came, and when he left, the girls in the ward made such fun of me: "You know he loves you; you can see it in how he looks at you," "Oo, J-----, hug me, too!" Even the nurses, one of them noting how'd come in the middle of the night to bring me something when I couldn't, and hadn't, slept for three nights in row. She told me if he didn't so obviously love me, she might have a go at him.

Half the women in ward sat in group and talked about love, failed relationships, divorce, and every single one of them got a sort of hungry look when Jb was with me, as if they'd give their selves for something, for someone, to look at them like that, to make life more bearable. And all I could think, swallowed by the deep water of depression and lost to the currents of my own thoughts, was that love couldn't fix me. I had the perfect boyfriend; he loved me, was there for me, supported me in ways I'd never expected anyone to support me. But love couldn't fix me.

10:48 a.m. Nada

Didn't feel like writing yesterday, which is... meh. First time in two weeks I haven't felt like writing, and I don't know if that's the first sign of a change in mood, or no. I know it's the one thing Marya Hornbacher notes in her book as a telltale sign, and I can verify that one of the ways I knew I was sick was that I couldn't read or write.

Before the hospitalization, I was a voracious reader, going through the used books my mother sent me like they were M&Ms. I could finish one in two days reading only on the train during my commute and at lunch. I'm a Writing Intensive English major with a Master's in Writing and a concentration in Teaching & Pedagogy, as well as Creative Nonfiction. I've worked in a library on and off for over five years. I've taught college level English Composition I, II, and III. I have a certificate in teaching Adult Literacy. I've been a tech writer and a non-profit public relations writer.

I am not the kind of person who does not read.

Writer's block, however, happens. But it's the depression that takes all desire to write away from me, and I've been too depressed for years to take up that task. My writing comes out strong when I'm hypomanic, riding the edge of energy and anger. But now, words come slow and dumb, and even this blog reads clunky to me. In the hospital, I thought, "What a good opportunity to write about something important, to do a bit of creative nonfiction," and maybe one day I will, but at the time, I couldn't even bother to ask for pencil and paper. We weren't allowed pens. And there was a sort of respected silence, as if we were all in jail, and you didn't dare ask why someone was in there, or if it was voluntary of involuntary.

This lack of desire to write, to have anything to say, nor to read... it worries me most. I've a box of books my mother sent me, and I haven't even cracked it open. I tell myself I don't have time for them with the move in the next week. But part of that is justification for not reading. My greatest secret pleasure has always been women's magazines, but even in the hospital, and even now, I can't flip through them and retain anything. The glossy pictures hold no interest for me, and the spicy headlines no longer make me flip, almost compulsively, to page 112.

Dorothy Parker has always been a poet I've been able to relate to in my moods, though, and often I find myself repeating bits of poetry, like a magpie who collects shiny strings of lyrics, poems, sayings. If it weren't for the last line of the poem, Ms. Parker might have been spot on in her "Symptom Recital:"

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the simplest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick. I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore:
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men.
I'm due to fall in love again.

There's no falling in love again, but the symptoms, those came from a women who knew what it meant to fantasize about suicide, to try it herself, someone who knew depression, and it shines clear as day in that poem. These days, like Parker herself, I can't help but feel that that my "world," as well as my words, "is but a bunch of tripe."

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).

12:20 p.m. Breakfast

I dutifully make my breakfast -- a little bread, butter, and brie -- and eat it. I'm not really hungry, though. I'm also not sure what to do today. There are things to do around the house, but I don't want to do the things I should do, I want to do fun things, and maybe I should call the therapy places, and I should call my primary care physician (PCP) about that blood work. Then there's the gas and electric and cable to move over to the new place, and someone has to call that in. And there are bills to pay, so maybe I should do that, but I can't find the letter about my premium charges for my insurance. And I think I could be very productive today -- if only I could focus.