I had been doing well...

It's been awhile... a LONG while since I've written.

I've been out of the hospital for 2 years. Read that again. 2 whole years.
Where am I on my journey? Good question.

For the last 8 months I've been focusing on my physical health--- eating healthy, exercising the last month or so.... and I even had gastric bypass surgery.
But right now? I am struggling. Beyond. Belief.

I don't know up from down. Left from right.
I want to give up.

But I don't want to hurt everyone around me.

It's bullshit.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

You wouldn't believe it, but.....

The last two months I have really done well for myself. I have managed to pick myself up and do things better for myself. After a conversation with my therapist where she thought a group home setting might be more beneficial than living alone, I picked myself up from the depths of where I was, and I have slept when I needed to sleep, eaten when I needed to eat, brushed my teeth, showered, cleaned up, cared for foster kittens, driven for uber/lyft to supplement for lost costs, processed in therapy, applied for jobs, got hired at a job, and am currently dealing with a doctor who is discriminating against my mental health diagnoses and the fact that I take psychiatric medications, no kidding.

So, he says, "are you having mood swings as a side effect of your medications?"
I reply, "I'd like to think my medications are preventing me from having mood swings."

He asks, "What are the diagnosees you are being treated for?"
I reply with the two most prominent, "Bipolar and PTSD"
"and what is that?"
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." (in my head I ask myself, "are you kidding me? You're a doctor? Seriously, take some continuing education.")

This is the physical form I needed back by yesterday for my job that he highlighted and said something was showing up in the "physical" examination. Mind you, this states that if something is out of the ordinary that would effect my job performance due to vision, hearing, physical performance, and communicable diseases.... (it also mentions substance abuse, which I have no problems with.) So, my question... How many people out there providing child care are on some time of psychiatric medication? An anti-depressant? An anti-anxiety medication? A mood stabilizer? I clearly cannot be the only one! But yet, this doctor is depending on a letter from my psychiatrist to say I am "'suitable' to provide childcare" in order for him to sign off on my physical form so that I can legally work at this job.... wow, just wow.

Mind you, this is not my normal primary care physician. This was the first available appointment at my doctors office. But, what an ass. Seriously. I can't tell you how I felt. I couldn't even stand up for myself and say the simple, "But Doctor, I am a child life specialist, a national certified counselor, a board certified music therapist. I have clearances from the state of Pennsylvania that say I can work with children. How can you tell me that because I'm on medications I cannot work unless you have a letter from my psychiatrist that I'm having one hell of a time getting through on the phone to?"

It has been an emotionally taxing few days. To know that ONE doctor has the POWER to just take your strength, your structure, stability, and security away in the blink of an eye is debilitating. He has literally been taking my power on a string dangling it in front of my face. This is NOT okay.

So, I went back to the doctor yesterday to have my TB test read. They tell me, "the doctor isn't in today. You'll have to wait until he is here tomorrow to see what his decision is with the physical form."
What?
Yes, seriously.

And so, I wait.

I need this job. In so many ways, I do. Energy gods, please be with me.

Out of Control

I started my day feeling better than the last, thinking maybe I'd Uber or Lyft to make a few extra bucks in the afternoon to supplement getting fired last week from my job for the medical hospitalizations I had and missed shifts at work for. However, on the way to the Humane Society to get food and litter for the kittens I am fostering, my mood suddenly shifted.

I hear a song on the radio, he sings, "Dear Younger Me...."
Tears stream down my face....
My mind is wandering in a thousand different places....
The younger me was so hurt, had such a distorted view of what life could have been like. Now I struggle to gain control of my life. I'm sometimes stuck in that younger version and I fight to get to reality.

She's screaming, and she's throwing punches. Sometimes she doesn't even want to live. She is so broken. She feels so abandoned. So alone. So mistreated. So afraid. So lost.

And then there are these thoughts....
"I wonder if I drove into that pole and crashed my car if it'd cause enough damage to kill me?"
"But I don't want to just damage my car and live through that, that'd be awful."
and then...
"Oh, look. A bridge. I could get off at the next exit and pull over to the side so I could just jump off before a truck comes so they can run over me. That should do it."
"Your nieces, your nephew, your girlfriend, your family... there are people who care. Stop."
"Or you could just try the pills again and hope no one finds you and interrupts the process."
"Stop, Go home and take some medicine and just calm your thoughts down. It will pass."

Just taking notice to the 95 mph you're driving on Route 78 E with the tears streaming down your face and the song "Imagine" comes on the radio...
CHANGE THE F'ING SONG...
Yes, I have alters.
Will I ever get better?
I don't freaking know.
Am I upset that I've lost some of the most supportive people I've ever had in my life? Hell f'ing yes.
Is it out of my control? Yes, yes it is. Did I deserve it? No, no I didn't.

Did I make it home to take some PRN's and lay with my weighted blanket for 5 hours and sleep it off till the next time? YES, yes I did.
There are no guarantees with life. There never are. Mental illness is no easy feat. It was never claimed to be.

I don't understand why this keeps happening.
I wasn't medically cleared this last 30 day round for ECT due to my current back issues so I haven't had ECT for over a month now... so there is that... My psychiatrist mentioned TMS but I have Medicaid not Medicare so that is out... I have no income.. an apartment to pay for and all that goes with it, car insurance, a car payment, you know- all those grown up things.. I apparently can't handle a job and recovery from mental and physical illnesses at the same time...  it just doesn't work for me..

I want so badly to go out to the store and get tylenol for my tooth, but all my pills are locked up and it needs to stay that way... I already took all the over the counter pain pills I had out for the week... and now I'm screwed until Saturday when my girlfriend comes to give me more... This is the life I've created for myself... a 30 year old who has pills managed by her girlfriend because she can't stay safe otherwise... Right.

Is this life?

What is this?
Tell me again why I'm living this life? Is it really worth it?
It feels as if nothing is ever working out. Nothing. And no, I'm not trying to trying to think all black and white, but this is truly my life. So much has gone down the hole. What is recovery? What is  healing? Why can't I get there? I'm too aware and not able to manage things. I can't get out of this. Not alone. And I feel so stuck in it. This is bad.

I am Me

Acceptance of yourself is hard enough.  But it becomes even harder when you notice the people around you treating you differently because of your own differences. It shouldn’t be that way, but the reality is that people look and treat you differently because you are different. One minute I might be happy And I could be strolling down the street humming a song. A couple minutes later something may have triggered me and tears may be streaming down my face. Am I still a human being? Absolutely. But I have feelings and I am no different than you. I am still trying to succeed in life, I still have goals, and I still worked extremely hard to reach those goals and to succeed in life.

I have worked very hard to get to where I am today. I have a Masters degree and three certifications. Do I currently use them? No. Because right now I am working on my own health and that is what needs to come first right now. Excepting that was a hard feat for me but it is something that I have come to accept and something that I wish others would not look down on me for. It's something I need not look down on MYSELF for. Do I need help, do I need assistance? Yes. And is that a bad thing? No.  Does that make me less of a person? Does that make me any less important of a person? No. In my eyes it doesn’t. But in your eyes it might. And is that fair? No! It absolutely isn’t. But I’m going to keep living my life, and I’m going to try to ignore the perceptions of other people and the judgments that they placed against me. Because I’m going to keep singing my song regardless. This is my life and I’m doing what I need to do to take care of me.

I have invested way too much  since I started treatment at the age of 13 and being at the age of 30, it’s hard to look back and realize just how much of my life has been lost to mental illness. I am working on taking my life back and having control of the things that I can control. And letting go of the things that I cannot control. And the fact that people treat me differently, the fact that I’ve lost so many friends due to the fact that I have mental illness, that is out of my control And that is something I am trying to learn to let go of.

So here I am, singing my song, and living my life, because that is what I need to do for me. And if that’s not OK with you, I am not sorry because this is my life. And I am going to live it, for me.

I didn’t ask for this...

I didn’t ask for mental illness. I didn’t ask for the injustices that were done against me to be done. The mental health illnesses that have been created have been intensified due to the injustices that have multiplied over the years. The things that I go through on a daily basis I have tried over and over again to talk about freely and advocate for myself to help others understand. I am constantly judged for these things and looked down upon. My hope is that one day others can speak about their experiences openly and not be judged And that people can live their lives freely, experience their hurts, go through their falls, and not be looked down upon for it. Yes, I have my faults, and I didn’t ask for the majority of them.

6 Months of ME

It took me a good 10 minutes to figure out what to name this entry.

Do I name this blog "success"? Do I name this "recovery"? Health? Steps in the "right" direction?

It's hard to determine if I'm having success. If this is true recovery. If I'm really healthy. If I'm headed in the "right" direction. But then I tell myself, struggling with mental health leads you on a road of a life long term of recovery. Am I healthy? I'm healthier. I choose healthier coping, yes. Do I fall? Yes. We all do. And if we lie to ourselves that we don't than we're in denial. No one is perfect. We all have our demons we may give in to, the things we're trying to stay away from and may do from time to time. If we can choose healthy things in their place we can rightly reward ourselves and agree that "yes" we are taking care or ourselves and may be headed in the "right" direction, wherever that be leading us.

From the age of 9 I started hurting myself. It's safe to say that much younger than that I was fighting a demon darker than I knew how to handle.

By the age of 13 I had my first hospitalization and suicide attempt. I really don't know statistics from there on out, but I do know that from September 2016-September 2017, there were 6 attempts alone.

In the last 6 months, AS OF TODAY, there have been 0 attempts.

0. Zero.

I have not been in a hospital for 7 months and 23 days.

I may not have it "all" together. I may not have the "picture perfect life." 

I may go to to therapy every week, the psychiatrist every month, and have an intensive case manager that comes to my house a couple times a month....

But this has been 6 months of me, living, breathing, no attempts, in MY community OUT of a hospital...

When you've spent more days than not in a hospital from 13-29 years of age, this is kind of a win. So I'm not sorry to write a post about it. This is kind of important. And if it's not to you, well then, I'm sorry you took the time to read it.

since my last attempt

since my last psychiatric hospitalization

The storm will NOT defeat me

“The storm is out there and every one of us must eventually face the storm. When the storm comes, pray that it will shake you to your roots and break you wide-open. Being broken open by the storm is your only hope. When you are broken open you get to discover for the first time what is inside you. Some people never get to see what is inside them; what beauty, what strength, what truth and love. They were never broken open by the storm. So, don't run from your pain — run into your pain. Let life's storm shatter you.” 
― Bryant McGill

I read this quote on someones wall tonight and it really had me thinking.
WOW. Yes, and sometimes seeing such beauty, seeing any amount of strength, it scares us. What is the "truth?" And love? Are we capable of such a thing? Someone to love us? I mean, sure. but to love ourselves? How dare we. To think that these things are inside of us is such a scary thing. It's a new concept after the storm has wiped us down for so long and tried to take away all of those things and mask what was good.

It's the rewiring of the pathways and living out of lives and believing that there IS goodness in us, in our TRUE and GOOD selves AFTER the storm that is sometimes JUST as HARD as the actual storm itself.
YES, there... 
And why?
Because we still have all these painful memories we're finally feeling strong enough to process, so there's that.
I have PTSD from multiple sexual traumas, from childhood, a few times in my teenage years, and at 19 and 23. The pay back for that is not the discussion here, it is part of the big storm I am referencing.

We're trying to function in life, but we don't believe in ourselves, so when we have setbacks, we're extra hard on ourselves and can't find the good in ourselves quite yet because that rewiring of the pathways hasn't been successful yet.

And to even begin to structure our days, to find a way out of this antagonizing pain we have lived in our whole lives. How do we ever get out of such a rut? 
We work as hard as we can, we get up each day. We challenge ourselves. And damnit, we fight. Because we are warriors. 

Not every day is a good day. But I'll tell you right now, March 6, 2018, age 30 is better than March 6, 2017, age 29. And I'll take that as a win. I am out of the hospital for 7 months and 17 days and on March 12th I'll have gone 6 months with NO suicide attempts. (From just Aug 2016-Sep 2017 resulted in 6 attempts, I call the last 6 months a win. Will not even go IN to what my first hospitalization at age 13-the last 16 years have looked like.)

Like I said, not every day is a good day. It can't be. Or you wouldn't appreciate the good days. I'm doing better than I ever have, for what that's worth, I'll take it. Somehow, someday, I'll be on top.