Sober post?!

I think this will be my first completely sober blog post in probably a year.  I usually only write in this when I'm depressed and drinking.  About 90% of the time drinking makes me feel less depressed but that other 10% is the part that writes these.

As of the past week things have been abnormally good and it kind of scares me.  I'm not used to feeling ok.  I'm still completely broke so I can't really go out but other than that I feel good(ish).  I saw a counselor yesterday and he strongly suggested that I'm bi-polar.  It has been said before but I've just always been so depressed with no manic episodes.  He told me that even if you've had just ONE manic episode ever that's enough to be diagnosed.  Wonderful.  Late in high school I had some pretty intense mood swings where I'd have a flight of ideas, talk loud and fast, become super creative, drive fast, spend lots of money, etc.  That's pretty much a textbook example of a manic episode.  I've been doing some wiki research and there are a few things that really stood out to me:

"Advanced paternal age has been linked to a somewhat increased chance of bipolar disorder in offspring, consistent with a hypothesis of increased new genetic mutations."

My mom was 35 and my dad was 32 when they had me.  I looked up what constitutes "advanced paternal age" and it's pretty much anything after 24 but gets progressively worse.  Noted.

"Genetic factors contribute substantially to the likelihood of developing bipolar disorder..."

My sister has it.

Here's the thing that really prompted me to blog this so that I could remember it later:

"The "kindling" theory asserts that people who are genetically predisposed toward bipolar disorder can experience a series of stressful events, each of which lowers the threshold at which mood changes occur. Eventually, a mood episode can start (and become recurrent) by itself. There is evidence of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis) abnormalities in bipolar disorder due to stress.

There is fairly consistent evidence from prospective studies that recent life events and interpersonal relationships contribute to the likelihood of onsets and recurrences of bipolar mood episodes, as they do for onsets and recurrences of unipolar depression."

To me this clearly says that my crazy breakdown over a relationship about 3 years could've caused all this.  That is when everything went to shit.  It was a traumatic experience and I actually exhibited PTSD symptoms for awhile afterward.   Ever since that breakdown I've felt like it physically broke me.  When I was in the middle of it I actually wrote in journals that I felt "like my brain was physically falling apart".  Allie even suggested bi-polar a couple years ago.  Apparently, it's really hard to diagnose because most people just call it depression.  I can see that being really difficult because I don't see my good moods as something negative.  They aren't, it's just abnormal compared to my default state of melancholy.

 

 

Off Switch

Any time I end up talking about or thinking about Allie I end up wishing that I just had an off switch.  It's far too much for me to STILL think about.  It's so fucking hard when people quiz me on my past relationships because I don't want to be that guy that says "I don't want to talk about it" even though that's what I feel.  We may not have been perfect for each other but that relationship was the first and last REAL thing that I felt.  I have never before or since had my life altered in that way.  That is why is was so hard for me to let go.  Even if we weren't going to be romantically involved, I still wanted some sort of interaction. I now know that it wasn't feasible but my brain didn't know that.  I just wanted to still be connected to the only thing that ever showed me what love and joy was.  It's hard when you were the one that threw it away.  It eats you alive.

Just what I predicted!

Yep, things are getting bad.  I'm desperately grasping at things that will sustain me and none of them work.  I'm half a month behind on rent and getting eviction notices.  I honestly think I'd be in a much better place if it weren't for so much financial bullshit.  I just cannot live like this and I don't want to.  I have birthday parties coming up and St. Patrick's day but I really can't attend them because I have $-13 in my bank account (that will be shut down soon because of that).  This is all way too stressful for me in my current state and I seriously cannot deal with it.

Always the same

Well, lately my life has been a bit weird.  Honestly, I've feel better than normal since I stopped taking all my meds.  It scares me a bit.  I feel more impulsive and less restrained.  I won't ever hurt anyone else but I feel like I'm unshackled (for better or for worse).  I spent about an hour sitting at Bethel park tonight around midnight smoking a cigar and drinking a beer.  A tsunami of emotions crushed me and I could not stop crying.  It made me realized that maybe all the "normalness" I've been feeling was just withdrawal symptoms of my meds and now it's going away.  It compounded upon itself because I knew that I felt good and felt ok with myself.  The problem came about when I realized that I was still depressed no matter what has happened to me.  In the first place I had no hope, then I had multiple people in psychiatry treat me and none of their help actually worked.  THAT is the most depressing thing ever... to know that the most talented people around have tried to help you to no avail.  To know that the things they say now are just to appease you when I can see through them.  They don't want to say that they don't know, but I can see it in their faces.  They are scientists like me and I can tell.  Sometimes there isn't an answer.  That is why we work.  I just don't agree with their methods and I'm afraid it will end in my death.