blaugra

Friend Break-ups are the Worst

Some friendships just drift away, there's no real ending, and there's no feeling of animosity between the two. It just happens. But others, oy. There's a turning point. Is there a turning-back point? That's what I've been thinking about lately.

My old friend Pam and I broke up a few years ago, but she's been weighing heavily on my mind recently.

Our break-up came at a time when we were both mentally deficient. I was struggling with my bipolar disorder and a deep depression, and she was struggling as an unemployed single mother, who couldn't work, who was forced to move in with her cruel mother and she was likely depressed too. She and I had drifted since her daughter was born, but rekindled our friendship probably because of connecting on Facebook.

She sold all of her belongings on eBay and then her PayPal account got hacked. She tried to work but then had painful bouts of rheumatoid arthritis. Her baby daddy was incomunicado, she received no child support. And her daughter had a chronic illness that kept her going to the children's hospital where she lived, about 90 minutes away.

So we started talking on the phone, emailing again, laughing.  We laughed about the weekends down the shore and the fondue party and the partying in Philadelphia and my wedding. She appeared desperate though. Her living situation was getting worse and worse. Her self-esteem was in the toilet. Actually, at that time, mine was too. I was emotional and weepy. But I was excited about being friends again.

Then she said, "I would love to come and visit you." But her car was not running. BUT she could borrow her brother-in-law's van, which wasn't reliable either but she thought she could scrape together some gas money and bring Chloe and visit me. "It'll be so good to get away from here!" she enthusiastically said. I told Salty D. and my parents, who knew her too. They were not enthusiastic. They said I wasn't seeing the situation well. I talked to Therapist Jan about it. She agreed with my supporters.

What would Pam do in my town without money? Would I be spending my non-profit salary to feed and entertain her and her daughter? How long would she stay? What if the van broke down? What if her daughter needed immediate medical attention? What if she tried to sell my stuff on eBay?

So I went from being stoked about seeing her to realizing that it wasn't going to be a good time. And I sent her an email message, saying that I didn't think it was such a good idea after all, that I was concerned about her daughter's well-being and needing to be near her doctor. I didn't say to her that I wasn't well enough myself to host her, or that my support team thought it was a bad idea, and what if the stupid van broke down.

She responded to my email with one word.  "Wow." 

I felt so bad. But I didn't respond. I blocked her on Facebook. I didn't want her shaming me or anything like that. But she had nothing more to say.

After a while, I let it go. I let her go. But lately I've been thinking about her again. Her daughter must be in high school now, and hopefully isn't sick. Were they still living with her cruel mother?  Did Pam get a job? Is she homeless? Does she hate me?  Did she ever get any money from the scuzzball baby daddy? So, I don't know if I want to re-open this or not. I'm in a healthier position now but I'm still anxious thinking about her predicament and getting sucked in.

Deep breath. I think I'll let it go. The end.

So, the friendship ended with a "Wow."

Laura Anne, with the shaky hand

That title's a take on the The Who song.

Why?

Because I have a shaky hand. So Salty D. sings it to me all the time.

Why?

Because I barely feel bipolar anymore.

A few months ago, my doctor upped the dose of one of my psych meds. It's a big dose. It worked! But you can't have the good without a side effect, with anything at all. And the side effect that came with this new dose is a tremor in my right hand.

There are drugs that can treat the side effect, but I've tried a couple of them with disastrous results. And so, I choose to have a shaky hand. It's distracting and uncomfortable and people think I have Parkinson's. I do not have Parkinson's.

But, like I said, I barely feel like I'm bipolar. I've been steady with regards to depression and mania. I still have anxiety in multitudinal dimensions. But the rest of the bipolar symptoms, well, I can sail through the day without a care about my brain.

Then my hand starts shaking, and I'm reminded why it's shaking and why I'm taking the meds. So although I barely feel like I've got bipolar, this tremor jumps up and reminds me every hour.

Every day I weigh the positive effects with the negative side effects. So far, the drugs have won. And maybe I have won? I don't want to say that and jinx anything. Happy Holidays!

On success

In the process of updating my resume and damn LinkedIn profile (why do I despise LinkedIn so much?) I am mired in my career path and thinking about successes.

It's a slow process. I find it hard to talk positively about myself, and to remember my successes.

But here's one. I have Bipolar Disorder II, and through it all, I've gotten my work done. Maybe not always at peak perfection. Maybe.

No wait, it's been more than done, it's been excellent. I've managed meetings, navigated events, attended board meetings, all while I was depressed. Sometimes depressed to the point of having suicidal ideations. I managed to smile and laugh with coworkers and visitors while in my mind I wanted to off myself. Sometimes depressed to the point that pushing myself out of bed to get to work on time was the biggest accomplishment of the day. Sometimes depressed where I locked myself in the bathroom for five minutes so I could cry my eyes out, and then get back to the reports at my desk.

I'm starting to think of all this as part of my line of successes. Perhaps they're not what can be put on a resume or on LinkedIn, but I can say, I got shit done, no matter what.

I'm not in a depression now, which is why I'm working on the resume stuff now. I haven't cried my way through a lunchtime walk in a long time. That's success!

On Control

I have bipolar disorder, and because of a crushing depression earlier this year, I tried a couple of new drug cocktails. The last one was very surprising to me. I told the doctor that, and I asked him, "Is this the concoction of last resort? Am I that bad?" He said, no, there's plenty to choose from. Well, the surprising weird one is working for the depression.

Now I have hypomania. In the past, the mania has been really fun. Really productive but at the same time destructive. My drugs work pretty well for the mania, but some always comes through.

When it came on recently, I didn't realize it. I used the surge to get involved in some projects. Then, I realized it. So I'm trying to control the hypomania. I don't want it to kick my ass again - I've been through it and through it. I don't want to lose the positive feeling but there's a point where that positive feeling crosses over to feeling out of control. And I really don't want that again. Did I already say that?

Some things I do to control it, healthy or not, include excessive sleep, immersion in routine, eating well, walking a little, drinking a little alcohol - a little too often -- and Xanax. A little. I give myself extra time to think through decisions. I breathe deeply. Basically the same things I do to try to control my depression, although I tend to drink less and eat worse when I'm depressed.

It's so boring. I just listened to Pet Sounds and thought about Brian Wilson and his mania. Now that was exciting.

 

On Giving Up

I was in my kitchen last night, trying to come up with dinner because the leftover Mardi Gras gumbo with all its seafood was not appealing. And I just thought, I want to give up. Not just in the kitchen, which I'd so loved over the past few years, cooking new recipes all the time. I want to give up everything.

How freeing it would be to just stop trying and throw my goals away. I wouldn't feel guilty or ashamed about not doing things. I already partly do this. I'm often in bed by 8:00, happily snoozing a dreamless sleep for as long as I can.

I was in a very popular grocery store on Superbowl Sunday - my mistake, it was so crowded - and while entering an anxiety attack, I thought, I don't need this shit. This isn't the way to live. But this week I really don't know the way to live.

Knowing that my depression, through my bipolar disorder, is lying to me is only partly soothing. I'm listening to the lies.

And frankly, I'm tired of trying to understand everything that happens in my brain. And tired of trying new meds. If I gave up I wouldn't have to keep trying.

This story has no ending.

"You don't have to be a veteran for it to work"

That's what my therapist said to me last night. She got started conducting EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy - with veterans, and absolutely loves doing it because it gets results. I still have no idea how it really works. But it's working like crazy whoa to bring down my anxiety so I can conquer my phobia.

My results, after just two sessions --> I drove on two highways for a round trip of 90 minutes, no tears, no shaking, no freaking out. I have a way to go but this was huge. It really feels like I'm in Driver's Ed again. I also went into a few normally nerve-wracking social situations with no problem, no Xanax, no anxiety - and one was my 30th high school reunion! I'm old.

Prior to starting the eye movement therapy, I took inventory of my body, noting where the tension was. Then I was asked to imagine a safe place to go to if it got too stressful. I then visualized an image of the problem I wanted to solve, and I rated how anxious it made me feel on a scale of 1 - 7, with 7 being most terrified. When I started, I was at a full tilt 7. When the eye movement stuff is done, you revisit all of this.

Then, the movement started. My eyes followed the therapist's moving hand and I let my mind go, first focused on my main problem. When she stopped moving her hand she would ask me, "What do you have?" what was I thinking of, what images came up? My brain unearthed all kinds of stuff, and a lot of it wasn't bad. Some was. It was very quick. There were tears. And laughter. And food. Lots of food experiences! Grandma's blueberry muffins came up more than once.

The therapist explained it to me in simple terms (because that's what I need): "sleep can process your anxieties but sometimes things are too big for sleep to process." and that EMDR gets these "things" unstuck, gets them processed and flowing.

It's surprisingly tiring. Most talk therapy is, but doing the eye movement sequences for just half an hour is almost exhausting.

I guess what I don't understand is how memories of Grandma's blueberry muffins with cold butter on them, made with blueberries that Grandpa had just picked down by the creek in upstate New York, how getting that through my brain helped me with my driving phobia. But I'll take it.

What does EMDR stand for?

I have a new therapist. Not because my former therapist didn't do it for me, but because that therapist discontinued her practice. Gee, was it something I said?

This new therapist, I like her too. A few weeks ago she introduced the idea of doing EMDR with me. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy.

She explained it as mimicking REM sleep, when your mind wanders more freely - but you're awake. She'll wave her hand in front of my eyes for me to follow, but, it's not hypnosis at all. Some therapists may use tapping or some hand-held buzzing devices. A former therapist from a few years back had me hold buzzers in my hands that buzzed alternately and got me talking more. But it wasn't formal EMDR.

EMDR is used successfully by the Department of Defense for veterans dealing with PTSD. While my anxiety and driving phobia aren't anywhere near the trauma of being at war, they can be "cured" using EMDR.

I'm hopeful, but a little scared of what might come out of the therapy. There are things I want to stop talking about, I feel like I've beaten those things to death. And there are other things that I'm sure have been hidden that will bubble to the surface.

New therapist told me that she worked with a guy who was deathly afraid of flying, much the way I am afraid of driving on a highway. And the therapy "fixed" the phobia. This possibility gives me goosebumps.

I'll do it, for the promise of regaining my freedom and getting over my intense driving fear. The anxiety has had to go somewhere, and this is where it went. Now, another attempt to get at the root of the anxiety.

I start tonight, and I'll report back.

Things are looking up.

Over the past couple of years, when I've walked down the street or through the park, I've looked down at my feet navigating the pavement, at the sidewalk going by.  I guess it's because of my low self-confidence, of feeling like I was going to fall, of wanting to be invisible.

I still have those self-confidence issues, and fear and anxiety, but have decided that I need to look up. The sun is warm and the air not at all stifling. It hasn't rained enough here so almost every day is beautiful. I need to walk to clear my head and work out the kinks from sitting in an office chair for hours.

So, today, I made that deliberate decision to raise my eyes from the painted lines on the blacktop, put my face to the sun, shoulders back, and walk. It was a real effort, actually. I had really fallen into a bad habit.

On my city's rails-to-trails-to-greenway park, I've loved seeing what some of the property owners have done to brighten up the area. I really noticed this one today while looking up:

I love hostas. I don't think they're boring at all. And how inviting is this urban home? So fun.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

And you turn yourself around

Sunday morning broke as a glorious June day. Absolutely perfect conditions outside to do...well, anything. It was the kind of summery before summer gets annoying and humid.

But all I saw was blackness and all I felt was pain in my core. This is fucking great, I thought. Here's the summer depression I know I get. My OCD and anxiety and everything kicked in at once. I cried and told my husband I didn't want to live anymore. Just like that, the words spilled out of my mouth. That's how I was feeling. But then hearing myself say them, I was incredulous. What was I saying? Did I really mean it? That's when I knew I could turn it around with a bit of pushing.

Salty D. listened and made me look up, stand up and walk out into the sunshine. He put me in my favorite purple fake-Adirondack chair in our front yard and said, "Sit there. Close your eyes and put your head back. Do it NOW!" That was the push I needed.

So I decided to play the viola to refocus my brain. I put on my sneakers and went for a walk by the river. The plants by the trail smelled heavenly. I don't know if it was the honeysuckle in bloom, or what. Against every voice in my head, I freaking went to McDonald's for the first time in a few years and bought a small order of fries and a Diet Coke. Each fry got bathed in ketchup. This too was heavenly. I love ketchup.

I drove to my favorite decrepit shopping center to go to my favorite grocery store to buy the hoisin sauce that I forgot the other day, and I picked up a couple of magazines.

Back at the purple chair, I sunned my sunscreened self in a big black hat from Uniqlo, with some cheesy AM-radio-reminscient music playing, real iced tea, with my trashy magazines, one with the not-so-shocking headline about Matthew Broderick and SJP's split. So I know all about that now. Ask me anything about that.

I prepped vegetables for the week and mopped the kitchen floor which had splatters of BBQ sauce all over the place. 

All of these menial tasks and steps were really important for my self-care.

D. came home from a day with his friends and asked if I had talked to anyone - and not on social media, he said. Why? Twitter counts. "No," he said, "pick up the phone and call someone in person."

No, I said, I still couldn't bring myself to call a friend when I felt really really low.  Honestly, I don't want to bother someone, who's having a terrific day, with my depression. I just can't do it.

Besides, I turned myself around with a little help from my husband and some online friends. So thanks.

Role Models

I have to admit, I've been managing this bipolar disorder pretty well lately. Even with the cold long winter, I've only had a couple of bouts of depression and I've sprung back rather quickly. The treatments are working, like I found out last year. But now, they're REALLY working. I rarely cry and I don't think about dying. I just don't. I'm not sure how that happened but whatever chemicals are coming into my body twice a day and causing some unpleasant side effects, keep 'em coming.  I'll take it. Life and its annoyances > Death.

In the mail arrived a very sweet card from a woman, Dianne, who works hard on managing her own severe depression. We've talked on occasion, and she's always so encouraging even through her own pain. Always.

In the card, she told me some of the new techniques she was using: aromatherapy and meditation. She said to have hope, that spring is coming. Then Dianne wrote that I was her role model.

WHAT?! I threw the card down. Then picked it up. I'm not fit to be anyone's role model. Nobody's. She said I inspired her to get on board with cleaner living.

My past self, the one that guzzled gin and inhaled Oreos, found that amusing. My current self, the one who is struggling with sugar and carbs and weight loss and exercise, is incredulous. 

Despite working for years on the negative self-talk brought by depression, it's still there.  Thanks to therapy, the negative voices are not as loud but they're my norm, until the mania comes. And with these drugs, I don't think the mania is going to come back.

I had been thinking that Dianne was my role model. At a public event last year she gave me a huge boost when I was breaking down. We talk and understand each other and what we need to do to manage the disease of the brain so that it doesn't take over again.

Dianne's card was very sweet but it meant more than that. Someone telling you that you're their role model, right there, gives you one more reason to grab life.