blaugra

Freeway of Love

Imagine just the sight of a highway reducing you to a blubbery, sweaty, shaking mess.  Every time you drive by one.  Just seeing the cars rush by up on the overpass freaks you out, and you don't know why. That's the worst part, you don't know why. 

You weren't in an accident, you weren't traumatized. You woke up one day and it was just like that.

You used to drive everywhere. From Pennsylvania through Manhattan to Long Island, or to upstate New York in a blizzard. But you'd been reduced to being practically homebound, living for months driving only within a five-mile radius of your home. You couldn't even be a passenger in a car driving on a highway without crying.

I was ashamed of this fear for many months. When I first talked to doctors and a counselor about it, they acted surprised, making me feel like even more than a freak. Eventually I got a new counselor who had not only helped others through this but had experienced the intense fear herself. My doctor finally said to me, "Yeah. This is a common phobia  among people with bipolar."  Oh really? That information would've been good to know YESTERDAY.

Fast forward to today. I just drove on the highway again. I said my affirmations, sounding like Stuart Smalley. I threw Salty D in the passenger seat for the 5th time that we've been doing this, and I drove up the on-ramp. No turning back, I merged. This time I was able to drive four exits, to a diner for Sunday breakfast. For the first time I did it without much fear, without Xanax, without shaking or tears. Today I feel triumphant. It's getting better.

It's still a little like this:

Freeway Freakout
Clueless — MOVIECLIPS.com

Happy Effects

TODAY I AM HAPPY.

Whaaaaat?

I'm happy my drug cocktail is working.

I'm happy that it's a perfectly gorgeous June day.

I'm happy I'm not passing out at 6:30 each night, because June is the best month.

I'm happy I'm not crumbling under life's pressures.

I'm happy that I'm not suicidal.

For about a year, I've used this space mostly to chronicle the path of my bipolar disorder 2 storm. Maybe longer, I don't remember.

I've said that it's weird to feel a drug start to work in the brain, in little sparks. With this newest drug, however, it's been a smoother transition.  More a gradual change that I barely noticed as it was happening over the past few months.

But, of course, there are those nasty side effects that I still weigh against the positive primary effects.

This new drug has compromised my vision. It's blurry. I can feel it blurring. I wear glasses, so I thought I'd just go to the eye doctor and get a new prescription. But the psychiatrist advised not to change anything, because the blurriness will keep evolving. It might get better, might get worse. Well THAT sounds fun. I'm going to seek another opinion from the eye doctor.  Bummer, she says, straining to read the screen.

New drug also causes memory impairment. It's pretty fucking scary when you can't remember shit. Like, I woke up this morning and I had no idea what day it was, even after thinking about it for a while. Yesterday was Saturday, right? Am I taking mom and dad to the airport today or did that already happen? I had to check the calendar on my phone. Oh, Tuesday. I guess I should get up and go to work. I thought that only happened to old people in the nursing home. So I write down almost everything now.

Despite those side effects, among others, I'm happy.

I honestly believe this, and don't ask me to logically explain it because it's not logical: I believe the universe or a higher power is leading me to be healthier now because it's my turn to help people in my life. They've helped me, and they might need me soon, so I have to get completely well.  I refuse to feel useless. This is my truth. It's driving me and it's good to have drive again.

It's scary, but I think I can cope.

TODAY I AM HAPPY.

And this is my favorite pop sensation guilty pleasure song right now, even though Xtina needs a deep conditioning treatment (that's OK girl, I do too.)

 

The Greatest Love Ever

I came across Schmutzie's controversial post, 17 Untruths Parents Believe About NonParents.

She's a nonparent, I'm a nonparent. I don't have the same circumstances as Schmutzie, and I don't share all of her views in her list, but I respect her for putting it all out there and exposing herself to the elements.

Here's one untruth that resonates with me.

#6. "Non-parents don't know the true depth of human love."

Hmmmm. Oooh boy. All you parents out there, don't ever say this, even amongst yourselves when there aren't any non-parents present. It's cruel.

Over the years I've heard friends say it, I've heard the media and movies say it more, and it had become ingrained into my brain. I believed it. I said it to myself all the time. How could I possibly know true, selfless, unconditional, greatest love ever if I had never birthed a child?

I talked about this lack of greatest love ever in my life with my therapist. With my husband.

It's easy to be sad and bitter about living without the greatest love ever. It's harder to change that voice in my head.

Today, however, if someone were to say to me, "Oh, you don't have children? That's a shame, because you will never know the true depth of human love..." I would respond, "Who are you to judge what the true depth of human love is?"  I might also say "Bite me" under my breath in a passive-aggressive manner.

Liberated

There are so many books and blogs that talk about how to achieve your life goals and happiness, things you should do to make the world a better place, you know the stuff.

But me, I've decided to smash my to-do list into pieces.

These are the things that I noted in the past that I "should" do:

• Plant a vegetable garden
• Write a book
• Read a book
• Return to volunteering on three nonprofit boards
• Go to Costa Rica
• Ride my own motorcycle
• Become a Big Sister or mentor
• Learn algebra
• Drive across the country
• Get a master's degree in something
• Play the piano again

All good things. But, one by one, I have let go of each of them. Rather than being sad about letting go of things that might make me a better person, I feel liberated. I feel lighter. Unburdened.

Maybe this makes me a bad citizen of the world, to just let go of good goals and dreams. Maybe people will think I've given up.

I haven't given up on life or on myself. I've come back to believing in myself. But I need to clear out the clutter of those "shoulds."

I'm taking care of a few non-fun things right now. When those things are done, I'll see where the road leads. I can't do it all at once, I'm not Oprah. Maybe I won't have the luxury of time to see where the road leads. Maybe I ought to feel more urgency about a road trip or community service. Right now, I just want to let it go.

Wine. Whine.

I like drinking alcohol.

I really do.

Summer is summer with a gin-n-tonic or vodka gimlet in hand. A good dinner is made great by a bottle of wine. Baseball games are synonymous with a cold beer. A buzz is a good thing.

Not drinking is hard. Drinking a Diet Coke at a happy hour when friends are taking advantage of drink specials sucks.

When you order that Diet Coke and the bartender throws up his hands at you and says, "Diet Coke? Why Diet Coke, come on!" That just adds to the challenge. When this happened recently, I responded to the bartender, "Work with me, here!"

My therapist advised me to order fun spritzers! Cranberry and club soda, for example. I tried that. All I could think was "What a waste of calories. No buzz."

I'm a social drinker. However, admittedly, I've overindulged a few too many times. Most recently, some of the indulgences were to counteract the symptoms of the bipolar disorder that the medications weren't taking care of. Self-medication. Admittedly, these times were really fun.

Now that I'm getting stabilized, the point has been made to me that I ought not drink. The alcohol interferes with the medication.

Every once in a while, though, I have a Guinness. Guinness is good. Or a glass of wine. The doctor said a glass of wine would be fine. But wine no longer tastes good to me and I get a little nauseous. That's a crying shame because wine is one of God's great creations. Diet Coke is not. 

I don't want to go through the rest of my life without drinking. I'm just going to say it and I don't care if I sound like I'm a whining baby when the world is full of heartache and hardship. I really don't. I would like to feel that buzz and taste that -- as one of my friends calls it -- nectar.

I know I could go searching for a natural high from a fucking green smoothie or a rigorous hot yoga class instead but I'd honestly rather have some cool Hendricks gin and sparkly tonic with a slice of cucumber on a warm sunny day.

Are you on the wagon? Tell me how you do it.

The Vanishing Self

What do you like to do?

Nothing.

What do you want to do?

I don't know. Nothing.

That's how a regular conversation goes between me and my therapist. She keeps trying, but I have nothing.

What do your friends and family say you're good at?

I don't know. I don't believe them anyway.

You don't believe them when they compliment you?

No. There can't possibly be truth there.

For months, this is how I felt. It's the cruelty of Bipolar Disorder, and perhaps the medication used to treat it.  I tried to explain it, how I'd lost myself. I didn't know where my self went. Where were my interests and passions, my desire to be with people, my drive? Where had it gone?

I just saw this article from this weekend's NY Times Magazine. It's painful and touching and heartbreaking and triumphant. And as of this writing it has 351 painful, touching, heartbreaking and triumphant comments.  I'm comforted by not feeling alone.

In the article, the writer, who has suffered Bipolar Disorder 2, talks about her treatment and her doctors' lack of addressing her "vanishing self" in the process. What some of her meds did to dull her brain. Yet it's not all gloomy.

As my treatments are starting to really settle in, I'm getting what I keep calling glimmers. These glimmers are momentary flashes of things I've done or want to return to or new things I want to try. The glimmers make me think not of death and nothingness but living. It's like the scene in Back to the Future where Marty's family starts to reappear in that photograph and Marty is able to play guitar again at Enchantment Under the Sea. 

I often forget these glimmers because they happen when I'm on the move. I have to remember to stop and write them down.  I think they're a key to bringing back the self.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

Last weekend after feeling a bit drained by media coverage of the Boston bombers terrorizing my friends' neighborhoods in Watertown, Salty D. and I ordered Chinese food and watched Finding Nemo.

Two grown ups, no kids around, quietly watching Finding Nemo.

It's a really good movie. I adopted Dory's "Just keep swimming" song this week as my own motto. In a world gone mad, just keep swimming.

This weekend promises to be full of excitement. Here's what's going on:

• Attending a Weight Watchers meeting
• Eating a lot of pizza after the meeting, because I have points left and I'm freaking hungry
• Watching the Duck Dynasty season finale
• Working on setting up my will
• Supervising my mentally deficient brother in his job as my landscaper
• Dragging shit to the compost center
• Shopping for cheap clothes that fit my changing body
• Eating at a Chipotle for the first time ever

Are you dazzled by these plans? Oh, there's even more fun on the schedule that will just have to stay offline.

It's good to have lists and get shit done, to just keep swimming.

Why I think Oprah 'should' suck it

I read an article in the New York Times a few months ago (I know, I'm really timely and relevant - but wait, I do have a point) about Oprah Winfrey being at a crossroads.

Well, maybe she's not, because after all, she's OPRAH. But her media empire is at a crossroads. Was. Whatever.

She's showing signs of strain and fear of failure. I don't feel sorry for her; she's a strong creative woman, she'll make it work.

Her magazine was floundering just a little bit. To solve the problem she, just like Martha Stewart, wants a younger audience. Women in their 20's and 30s. How's that going for you, Oprah?

Oprah wants to bring younger women aboard to shape their minds because we 40-somethings should have it all figured out by now.

She says she wants "to be able to reach people when they are looking to fulfill their destiny.” She added, “By the time you’re 40, 42, you should have kind of figured it out already.”

"should have kind of figured it out already?"

It's that word "should" that makes me crazy. Like it's one of Oprah's rules that I have it figured out. If I knew my destiny, I could fulfill it. Maybe I am fulfilling my destiny and I just don't realize it. But a "should" isn't going to make it happen. Maybe I should have read more issues of the magazine in my 30s.

I'm 45 and I haven't a clue as to my destiny or my life plan or what I want to be when I grow up. I don't have it even kind of figured out, already.

Psychiatrists and Meteorologists

I get the sense that neither meteorology nor psychiatry is an exact science. Both fields have raised an equal number of questions over the past months. Similar questions.

"What's with all this precipitation that was not in the forecast?"

"Why is it so cold?"

"Where's the storm you said was gonna hit?"

"When will the sun come out again?"

Either professional says Hey, sometimes we're wrong. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Even with all this science behind them. It seems like a guessing game.  Doesn't inspire confidence.

The psychiatrist can't tell you how you're going to react to a drug. He can tell you what he'd like to see happen, but that isn't up to him. So you're stuck feeling too cold or too hot or crying too much or sitting like a catatonic blob or whatever side effects or symptoms you have, and he can just shrug it off, make a note, and recommend something different.

It's been about a year of bad, from what I can remember, shenanigans messing around with drugs, and I finally got more active and challenged the psychiatrist more. During times of breakdowns, when it was really hard because I just wanted relief.

After about a year, we're still futzing around with meds. Still. I know, I know. This is all a normal experience for someone taking any kinds of medication. I know. Salty D. keeps telling me this.

I've been impatient. But a ray of sun stretched into my doctor's office when we realized together that one drug was finally doing its job, and another drug that has been problematic could be phased out.

That's huge. We were on the same page. I smiled on the drive home. I am fighting the urge to put a deadline on when this girl will be rebalanced. I don't want to be wrong.

No buts.

Since January 3, I've been doing Weight Watchers.  And I mean DOIN IT. I go to meetings, I use the mobile app, I use it online on my big computer, I'm a mad point counter. I just wish the mobile app and the website on my big computer were more in sync. I haven't tallied up the total cost-to-date of doing this program, but whatever it was, it's worth it.

In about three months, I've lost 20 pounds.

I have lost the pounds mostly from my fingers and my boobs, but also, surprisingly, I was able to zip up my non-wide-calf boots the other day. 

The only new clothes I've bought in a new size are a pair of workout/lounge pants so I can get through Zumba without stopping to hike up the waist. So, I must be shrinking my hips, I guess. Hips don't lie.

I got scared one day. I thought, what happens when I have to buy all new clothes? I don't love all my fashions, especially the big shapeless sweaters, but I don't want to go through the fitting and the expense of a new wardrobe. On that scared day, I over-ate. I counted every point but I tore through a bag of jellybeans like nobody's business. I mean, jellybeans? Not even the good stuff. I also drank not one, but two beers. I didn't want to face success.

Psychology aside, I have to give props to Salty D., who has been so supportive and has eaten every Weight Watchers' recipe I've made during the past three months. Even the crappy ones.  The experiments. Even the Thai curries, one of which was really good but he doesn't  like Thai food, no matter what. Their recipes made it easy to track the points and I attribute some of the weight loss success so far to that.

One friend asked about the food prep, and it is more intensive than what I was doing, for sure.  She said, "I don't have time for that!" and some people might not. I've had time to work on changing myself.

This is not a paid endorsement. Just saying that right now, I like the plan. No "yeah, but's..." It's a good plan.  And it's the only weight loss plan that is recommended by my psych counselors.

Now if someone from Weight Watchers reads this, I could handle a free monthly pass. I have a way to go to reach my final destination.