**This is a long post.  I apologize but after editing it and editing it, this is as concise as I can be**

I used to work with a guy who was prone to fits of rage.  If he’d been around 3-4 years old, we would have called them temper tantrums.  He’d get so mad at a client, he’d scream obscenities and slam his door so hard the ceiling tiles would fly out of place. 

I found out a few months into that job that he suffered from diabetes, and didn’t do a very good job managing his condition.  When his blood sugar would drop, he’d become irritable to an extreme.  Unfortunately, some of his clients got the brunt of it and equally unfortunate that his coworkers got more than their fair share. 

Many of us excused his behavior because oh, he had diabetes.  And he did.  When he managed his condition properly, he was a normal human being. 

So I wonder how different mental illness is from his diabetes. 

I myself have tired of hearing professionals and those of us who suffer from various forms of it say, “_____(insert condition here) is the same as diabetes or hypothyroidism or any other kind of medical problem.  It needs to be treated, and no one looks down on someone taking medication for a heart problem.” 

This is true, but the words sound hollow to me because let’s face it, telling someone I suffer from high cholesterol and take meds to manage it is very different than telling someone I’m bipolar II (always important to stress the ‘II’ part!  Because that means I’m half as crazy! It’s SOFT bipolar, dammit!) and “need” medication to “be normal”. 

The fact is, for many years I was misdiagnosed with simple depression.  No one, and there were plenty of people who knew, connected my eating disorder with my true issue.  An even bigger fact:  most people who knew me would have never known I was sick or suffering. I became a master at keeping my crazy all to myself.  It helped that back then, I was a “writer” and I was “artsy” because hell, all of us creative types were prone to moodiness and tears.  My eating disorder was also an excellent form of medication to keep the true symptoms buried deep. Some people compulsively shop, gamble, or engage in very unhealthy behaviors.  These are the regular types of self-medication. Mine worked very well for many years. 

It is not an understatement to express how grateful I am that I came undone at the end of my marriage.  It took me being able to realize how bizarre my internal thoughts were to also make me realize that something much bigger was going on.  Although I would rather poke hot needles into my nail beds than go through those things again, I am truly the healthiest I have been because of them. 

I’ve said all of this before. Why say it again? 

Because when I first decided to come forward publicly with my story, I spent a lot of time analyzing the pros and cons of it.  I knew that someday someone might try to use my words against me, call me crazy, fling insults, and just simply feel superior to me.  More than that, I worried my kids would somehow suffer from other people knowing about it.  At the end of my deliberations, I decided to write as openly as I could about it while still maintaining some semblance of privacy and hopefully, dignity.  All the others before me who had written honestly about their own journey had helped me so much on my own.  I felt I owed it to the people in my life and, in a weird way, people that didn’t know me, an insider’s guide to living with mental illness.  I still don’t regret that decision.

Honestly, my fears about coming out with it have come true on a number of occasions.  I’ve had to accept the fact that I can’t explain myself to those unwilling to listen.  I can’t control how others view me.  I just have to be okay with myself and the steps I’ve taken (and there have been many!) to be the person I am today. 

I think what’s frustrated me the most is that it’s so much more taboo to discuss mental illness and own it than it is to just live with depression or other things silently, all the while pretending you’re okay.  Because I’ve had years of therapy, a great psychiatrist and done tons of personally agonizing and difficult work on myself, I’m somehow “less than” a person who just chooses to ignore their poor life decisions, erratic behavior, self-destructive personality, etc. 

WARNING to FAMILY MEMBERS who FREAK OUT THAT I POSTED ABOUT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE:  You MIGHT want to STOP READING because OMG SOMETHING POTENTIALLY NEGATIVE HAS HAPPENED!  SOMEONE HAS JUDGED ME!  WARNING!!!!

(I do get the fact that those in my family who were concerned about me acknowledging what happened just can’t stand the thought of others judging me or potentially penalizing me)

It happened recently that someone found out about my (gasp) illness and was questioning Running Boy about it.  Did he know?  Was he aware? Was I on medication?  In a way, I was amused.  Did he know?  Come on, seriously? I may not wear a t-shirt that says “Kiss me, I’m Soft Bipolar”, but everyone close to me knows the truth and also knows how hard I work to be the best person I can. 

Actually, maybe I DO wear a t-shirt that says this!

I was okay with that part, but the niggling fear under my conversation with RB was, “Is this going to be used against me? Or him?  Is my presence in his life going to cause him more trouble than he deserves?”  The answer is yes, we could go through some crap.  However, I have people lined up to talk about who I am today – including the aforementioned therapy/psych people – and at the end of the day, I’d venture to say I’m more self-aware and stable than the majority of people at the grocery store in any given day. 

What’s truly sad is that you’d think from what I’ve said that I was some raving lunatic in my previous life.  I wasn’t.  Unfortunately, by being so “normal”, I went undiagnosed for years and years and years – which meant that by outsider’s standards, I was fine – but internally I suffered in various ways. 

I have a medical condition.  I am on two medications, at low doses, to manage it.  I spent many years looking at my internal thought processes and my various crutches that enabled me to live with it.  As I hiked Sunday with a good friend, she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy.”  I’m not sure I’d call it happiness as I don’t trust that word.  I would say I feel the strongest and most calm I’ve ever felt in my life, and this feeling has been with me for the last two years.  I still have good days and bad days like the rest of the population, and I still have to really manage my sleep patterns and make sure the people in my life are healthy people themselves.  But honestly?  Judging me because I’ve taken major steps to be a better mother, a better person?  That thought process makes me tired. 

I’m curious.  Delurk, even if anonymously.  Tell me how many people in your life have suffered from mental illness. Share what you can.  Have I helped you?  Hurt you?  What do you think the best way to combat this stigma is? 

A short, incomplete, and not well-thought-out list of areas I need to improve.  Or could improve. 

1. I suck at asking for what I want.  I expect people to read my mind.  When they are incapable of penetrating the dark, smoggy forests of my brain, I dislike them for their inability to figure me out.  I mean, REALLY.  Why are things that are so obvious to me so difficult for others to discern?  If it’s clear in my head, it should be clear in others.  Unfortunately, I’m deluded, and the things that are clear to me are almost never clear to others.  I think this is because my brain is wired backwards.  If I were a car, I’d go sideways instead of forward or back. 

2.  When I do ask for what I want, I suck at dealing with the response.  See, here’s the rub in asking.  When I drop all pretense of coolness or humility, and I ask for what I want or need, the end result is usually the same as if I hadn’t asked in the first place.  We are all sort of selfish, and we do what we want and what makes us feel good.  It is not other people’s fault that I give more than I have to give or put my personal needs aside because theirs seem suddenly so much more important.  My reaction to being turned down is disproportionate in their mind because really, I asked them, they answered, and now I’m having a full-blown hissy fit.  Hey man.  Don’t ask the question if you fear the answer. 

3.  Staying upright on my bike.  I may just bite the bullet and invest in the egg beater thingies that Julie recommended.  I think I might have figured out my problem with the clips on my bike but I’ve been too nervous to ride on my own lest I fall in front of a Mac truck again. 

4.  Time management.  Now that I have a GIN-YEW-WHINE job, I’m trying to find time to train for a triathlon, run my normal amount of miles, be a good mother, stay on top of the laundry (normally impossible anyway), attempt to have a relationship with someone, and not lose my patience every 5 seconds. 

5.  Friendship. I hate talking on the phone.  This is problematic when 85% of my friends are not within a day’s driving distance of Richmond. 

6.  Being patient.  I find the thinner I am stretched, the crankier I become.  My crappy refrigerator doesn’t like being opened without something inside breaking.  Tonight, one of the shelves fell open onto my foot.  This is the same foot that is going to carry me 8 miles tomorrow morning.  Grape jelly and an old bottle of wine landed on me.  I cursed and tried not to scream.  Simultaneously Lily started chanting “Mommy!!!! Mommy!!! Mommy!”  Turns out she just wanted to inform me that she’d put something in my room, but at that moment, I needed everything quiet to prevent myself from losing it.  Poor thing.  I apologized later. Patience, it is a virtue.  It is one I do not possess.

7.  Properly medicating.  I’m starting to think I’m way under-medicated.  I hate taking medication so the least amount I can get away with is what I take.  Perhaps I should start listening to my doctor and taking what she says I should take. 

8.  Letting go.  When things don’t go my way, no matter how much that may suck, I really need to learn to how look for the chocolate-lining in that cloud.  I’m really, really bad at this.  It’s almost as if letting go of the disappointment means I’m cool with being disappointed.  Yeah, it makes no sense because I’m the only one suffering. 

9.  Taking Care.  Some people in my life love to think I’m selfish because I do things for myself occasionally (like hiring babysitters so I can run on Saturday mornings).  In some ways, I’m good at taking care of myself.  In important ways, though, I totally miss the mark.  See item number 1. 

10.  Being nice to myself.  I’m still so harsh on my inner-workings.  Every time I think I’ve stopped abusing myself from the inside out, I find a new way to do it without noticing it.  Maybe I’m worse now because I haven’t had therapy in months and I have no one calling me on my crap besides Running Boy.  Maybe I’m worse now because I’m generally dissatisfied (and concerned) about the direction of my life at the moment.  Whatever the reason, I need to give it a rest already. 

I’ve written a lot about my experience with therapy and in particular, my awesome therapist.  I started seeing her when I hit my first of numerous bottoms.  I distinctly recall sitting down with her the first time saying, “My marriage is falling apart”.  After that I was crying so hard I’m sure I made no sense but, as she continued to be through the time I worked with her, she stayed calm and attentive. 

Over the year plus I’ve known her, small details about her have emerged.  We went through our separations a month apart from each other.  We both have two kids around the same ages.  We are both mildly obsessed with running and are both Weight Watchers advocates and flunkies.  Our social circles overlap - but of course we didn’t know this at the time I started seeing her.  Richmond is a very small town, so it’s hard to find someone who isn’t Kevin Bacon to your 7 degrees of separation. 

Lately, the ongoing joke between us has been about when we are going to fire each other.  We’ve both always been able to turn on the therapist/client relationship as soon as the office door closes.  When it opens, we talk about running or whatever else might be happening.  All of this is to say that we have balanced the fine line between friends and doctor/patient for a longish-time, and this is primarily because she is the master of professionalism and she takes her profession very seriously. 

Today we met at an out-of-office location for a variety of reasons, but primarily because we both have a coffee obsession and like the comfy chairs and white-noise coffee shop vibe.  Having grown up writing and talking and musing in coffee shops, it’s not difficult at all for me to speak about very personal things quietly in a corner. 

While we socialized for a few minutes before the session began, she shared some big things that are happening for her.  And I knew at that point we were going to fire each other, but I didn’t have the strength to do so myself.  Together we agreed to end our professional relationship and grow our personal relationship.  I’m kind of ecstatic because I adore her and have always wished she wasn’t my therapist so we could be friends; now I can do that. 

Is it weird having a friend that wasn’t a “friend” before? Yeah, a little.  She knows things about me that no one else knows.  I have shared some very dark things with her, dark feelings, bad days, the worst moments of my life.  But as she said today, the more I learn about her on a personal level, the more I won’t worry about being judged.  And frankly, I’m not worried about being judged. 

(I laugh about this a little too - apparently I’m so awesome that even my therapist wants to be friends with me . . . heheheheh . . . .)

On the harder note side, I cried in public today because of this discussion.  It wasn’t that I was sad she wasn’t going to be my therapist any more (well, it was, a little).  Mostly I was scared.  I’ve known for a while now that I’m doing much better, after the big road bump that was Christmas.  I have a great support system in place, I’m stable in my house and my finances are working themselves out.  Yes, I have stress, but nothing compared to the non-stop drama and chaos that took place for the better part of 18 months.  I did not accurately assess the damage to mind and body that those kinds of stresses can cause.  I needed her badly, as a sounding board when I was about to make bad decisions, and as a safe place to land and regroup when I made the bad decisions anyway. 

I felt a little untethered with the decision because it means she thinks I’m strong and stable enough to be done with therapy and although I agree with her, I’m still scared.  The only constant since my initial freak out have been my Thursday mornings with her.  Issues and doubts and fears and neuroses I’ve had for years - decades - slowly untangled themselves in the confines of her office and wandered out of her door, never to be seen again.  Even today as we talked about something unrelated to my own life, I had a number of epiphanies or “aha” moments. 

As we were packing up to go our separate ways, she asked me to go ahead and schedule with her for next week.  I was confused for a moment; hadn’t we just said we weren’t scheduling appointments anymore?  Then I realized she was making lunch plans with me - clearing time out of her very busy life - to have lunch with a friend she apparently cares a lot about. 

In the meantime, I’m standing on both feet (although one is very sore from Shamrock) and I’m not wavering much.  I know how to handle my bad days.  I know when to reach out and when to wait it out.  Having those appointments has been a security blanket for me, but I have needed them less and less from a crisis-perspective and more from a gut-check perspective.  I’m going to be just fine.  I know she will be, too.

Occasionally I can be concise.  So here I go.

It’s been less than 3 times since my infamous meltdown that I’ve had terrible, awful, soul-wrenching nights.  I had one last night, but I’m here today. 

This morning I skipped my run.  Everyone said it was okay to do that, but I still felt weird.  I got the girls off to school and went back to bed.  It was 58 degrees in my room, because this house is just *so* well insulated.  Thora got on my feet.  I went to the dark space where thoughts go away. 

As my therapist texted me last night, she reminded me that my fears of ending back where I was (in a hospital) only makes them worse.  I tried to suspend the fears.  I realized, as I sat with my feelings and allowed them to wash over me, that I have new coping skills and I was unconsciously using them.  I sent John a text.  I tried calling Philip.  I sent an email to Theresa.  I drank tea, finally gave in and took a pill for the anxiety, and petted the dog.  Even though it felt like the attack wasn’t going to end, I heard my friends telling me that it was going to end.  They reassured me that I have the skills necessary to cope now, and I wasn’t going to spontaneously combust with sadness and fear.  They were right.

This morning, Theresa pounded on my door until I opened it.  She made my bed so I couldn’t get back in it, made my kids’ beds, and picked up stuff around the house.  She brought my favorite chai with her and shouted, “It’s TnT today!!!!”  (Theresa and Tea).  I felt surrounded, and although I had to go through all of the stuff I did last night, in the back of my mind I knew I was going to make it. 

It’s a big victory for me, even though I am still raw as hell and reluctant to face this weekend.  I guess what’s victorious about it is that even though I am not feeling great, and still want to go back to bed, I’m not going to and instead I’m using all the things I’ve learned in the past year and half to deal with my horrible mood swing.  The stars in the sky last night, the sound of my wind chimes, the amazing dog I have, and the sound of my friend’s voices rallying behind me - all of those things I’m grateful for. 

It’s close enough to winter where I feel justified hibernating.  Today I am heading to a yoga class, then it’s back to the cave.  The cave has wireless and kids in it, so my hibernation won’t be the usual sleepytime bears enjoy. 

I’ve never been in this mode before.  Part of my personality - and sometimes I even like this part - is to be open and willing to give of myself.  This new person, unfamiliar to me, is not open, and not very giving, either.  I finally understand what friends mean when they say they are closed down.  It feels so foreign to me - perhaps it’s just the “Closed Til Spring” sign hanging around my neck. 

For the first time, the amount of people I truly trust can be counted on one hand.  I used to always assume people were trustworthy until they proved otherwise; I have now reversed this theory. 

I don’t think this is a bad thing.  I’ve had a cynical nature regarding myself since I took my first breath as a baby; applying my cynical nature to others is definitely a way to weed out those who probably aren’t worth my time or energy. 

After an interesting conversation with my sister yesterday, it finally clicked with me that honesty isn’t the same as self-awareness.  I had an experience recently with a friend who prides himself on being honest and direct.  That’s great, except being honest from moment to moment isn’t that difficult.  You have an emotion - you express the emotion - therefore you are honest.  What I am trying to do is actually ASSESS my needs, wants and desires before I express an emotion.  If I don’t know who I am or what I want, honesty is a joke.  It’s as fleeting as the actual emotion.  Unfortunately, I’ve met quite a few people over the last 2 years who need to do less talking and more introspection.  It amazes me that all around me marriages fall apart, yet most leaving the marriages (or those left) don’t take 5 minutes alone thinking about the reason it broke in the first place. 

I’m at fault too.  I’m probably worse.  Not only am I direct and usually honest, I am aware of my motivations and my desires.  My desires are not always in line with my needs - and I define needs as what is healthy and necessary to live a good life.  Some days I really want the greasiest cheeseburger I can find; those days I probably should pick the vegetarian colon cleanse option. 

I’ve been amazingly lucky to have some of the people in my life that reside here today. I’ve also made incredibly poor choices with friends and relationships.  Because I wasn’t self-aware when I got married, there was a lot of collateral damage.  I’ve exposed myself to people who are just like I was back then - and I am their collateral damage.  I’ve had more than one experience where I’ve been thanked for helping someone figure out what they really wanted; that’s great, except I don’t really want to be a textbook.  I’m still just a girl, and relationships make one vulnerable.  When others use me as a Psych 101 class, I end up empty and slightly more dead. 

Some members of my family don’t like it when I blog about my struggles.  This will probably be another post that embarrasses them.  I don’t write for anyone here except me, and it’s been incredibly helpful viewing my entries - especially from the last year - and seeing the patterns.  I know that the bad times will turn into the good which will bounce around again like the stock market.  I know that everything, including extreme happiness, is fleeting.  It helps me get through the ugly times, and it helps me appreciate every second of the good ones as well.  It reminds me who is truly important in my life, and what is not. 

As usual, it took me hitting a complete bottom before I am able to say I’ve had enough and wave the white flag of mercy. It’s okay to be all about me for awhile.  I don’t have to give to anyone except those that deserve it.  I can’t save anyone but myself. I don’t have the emotional energy or fortitude to do so, anyway.  I can’t rescue all the lost dogs of the world, and I can’t continue to open myself up so that others have the opportunity to kick me in the heart.  It doesn’t matter if it’s intentional or not.  It’s okay - at least for a period of time - to truly hang the “closed” sign on the cave, hunker down with my fellow bears, and take a breather.