I think it would be cool to NOT have body dysmorphia. Right?

Episodes.

I was scrambling through my old blog today because I knew I had written a post about what it's like to be in different episodes, and thought I would share it here.


Something people don't understand is the control aspect of Bipolar. I hate when people say "stop being so negative, why are you so sad? Why can't you get over it? Why are you so angry/moody/etc?" It's not like most circumstances where you can just pick yourself and be happy again. Sometimes you just hurt, and you feel sick. Anger makes me feel nauseous, while happiness makes me feel jittery and out of control. These extremes are debilitating when dealing with people who don't understand the circumstances.


Although being bipolar has many many negative repercussions, there are also some positive qualities. Imagine being able to feel emotions with a greater threshold than anyone else. Yes, this means feeling anger, anxiety, and sadness more, but it also means feeling happier, extremely euphoric, etc. Feeling a wider range of emotions that most people will never get to experience is both thrilling and terrifying. You thrive off of emotions like one thrives off of mana. When you get creative, you really get creative. When you go running, you really go running; it's crazy because your mind and body will shut off until eventually you've completely strained your resources and collapse. Basically you do everything to the extreme. Nothing is mediocre. Oh, and you love more---seriously. You physically feel it. You actually feel your emotions.

Being in relationships is (was) hard. The inexplicable anger and frustration, sudden anxiety and sadness, and then instant euphoria and terrifying libido. All in one day? Every day? You better believe it. It's tiring to constantly feel everything at once; it's like having ten television sets turned in to different channels and trying to focus on only one sound. And I bet it's even more tiring having to deal with a partner who is constantly bouncing between depression and euphoria.

(Luckily I found an amazing guy who helps and understands what's going on with me; he knows my signs and how to keep me from spiraling).


In short, being moody and having a bad day is not being bipolar. Being scared of yourself is what it means to be manic depressive. It's being so terrified and uncertain about who you are and what you're capable of because of these emotions that are constantly in the way. A lot of relationships are ruined because of this, and it's hard to forgive yourself and feel like you deserve happiness. I guess I can't emphasize enough that it's scary--people don't seem to realize that being afraid of yourself exacerbates the whole emotionally challenged thing.  You feel constantly out-of-body, and being brought down to reality is hard.

In severe manic episodes, you feel drunk. Your judgment is terrible. AND GUESS WHAT. Mania sucks, and it's not an EXCUSE for shitty decisions, it's an EXPLANATION. I've made AWFUL decisions while manic, and the guilt I feel after is crippling. Times speeds up and I feel out of control, in both the best and the worst way. It's a drunken experience, and oftentimes leads to a hangover with severe repercussions.

In severe depressive episodes, everything is empty. It's not even about being sad. I feel nothing. Blank. My mind is a cavern of darkness and few things can pull me out. This is equally as terrifying, especially with my anxiety. Anything can trigger that shit.

There are some tips for those dealing with this: schedule, schedule, schedule. Form habits and stick with them. I am a routine person, I have my clear schedule and I fit very nicely into it. However, upon being thrown out of that regimen I go into sever anxiety and slowly spiral downward. I liked my schedule: wake up, exercise, eat breakfast, either work or school, practice, eat, relax, sleep. Unfortunately, going through a big life change kind of jumbled up my whole routine. Another tip: run or work out hard. Exercise is the best way to keep your mood stabilized. I'm so busy pushing my body to its full potential that I completely forget to think, and it's a really great feeling when you're so used to being trapped in your own mind.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone has different experiences with their episodes, but this is a tiny little snapshot of what it's like for me. 

Love you all. 

Fatigue

Oh—and I feel fatigue crawling through my veins,

it’s the sickness that comes only by unrequited love,

wishing and wanting, breaking and hoping;

tasting the scent of blood deep inside my mouth.

Faint! I feel devastated, my head is swarming

with moths

where there should be butterflies.

And oh—how I miss those sweet hours

of flyaway dreams!

No more monochromatic pictures inside my head,

no more composure; invasion of lusts

that can never be pacified

fill my head with sawdust and rust.

Please, come return my love,

be my anesthetic;

Bring my peaceful sleep!

I don't have to pretend to be happy.

I see a lot of people posting these positive, happy quotes about feeling blessed and not letting negative thoughts get to you. We've all seen the pins, the tumblr posts. They look something like this:

And you know, I tried. I pinned the posts, I followed the motivational Instagram pages. I believed (and desperately pursued) the idea that you could fake it 'til you make it. Happiness is just a state of mind that can be achieved once you block out all of the negative thoughts and feelings. Like a switch. 

Well, why don't you just try harder not to focus on bad thoughts?

You shouldn't be unhappy, you have so many good things in your life.

It's selfish to be unhappy when you have so many things to be grateful for. 

Just do yoga!

This is what I have told myself. Whenever I felt down or empty I would beat myself immensely. I started feeling guilty for when I was inexplicably sad. Because, these beautiful people on the internet are all so happy with their lives! I should be too!

Fake it 'til you make it is the biggest lie regarding happiness that has ever been conceived. Of course people should strive to find the positives in life and work towards a better life; but honestly, I'm sick of plastered smiles when I don't feel like it. I'm happy when I'm happy, and I will no longer pretend to be when I'm not. It's a cyclical act that can't cure what's really going on in my brain. 

I don't need to pretend to be happy. I don't need to feel guilty when I'm suddenly empty. I can just be me, even the parts that are sad or hurt or lonely. I don't need to be another mindless pin on Pinterest. 

Introduction to Deanna :)

I first want to say that Becca's idea to start a blog is so so awesome. I know that these sort of things that bring awareness and support will be beneficial beyond measure, to the reciepient and the author.

My name is Deanna and I am so excited to be a contributor for Becca's blog. My whole life ever since I could remember, I knew I was different. I felt like I was this little stress machine. And while other kids were so care free, I was wrapped in my own ball of torment and turmoil. Back then though, I thought everyone felt this way. I thought everyone had the anxiety I did. So I just learned to mask it and carry on as if nothing was wrong.

I didn't know things were really wrong until I was the age of 19 (I will be 28 this October). A few years prior to being 19, I was being impulsive with my decisions and just being plain stupid. Not a typical teenage girl, but a girl who was losing her grip with reality and didn't know it yet. My crazed state took me as far as to a different country, where I made decisions that forever have impacted my life. And it wasn't till I was 19, all alone in this foreign country where I felt like I could fly. The feeling is intoxicating but slowly poisons you as well. I can remember the boundless energy, the weightloss from not feeling the need to eat, to days of no sleep, endless talking and pretty much thinking that I was supremely awesome. I think back on those moments and I am so grateful to be alive and that no serious harm came to me. Only bad decisions that maybe people judge me for but I know now what was going on. And that wasn't me. And never was.


So, it has taken me some getting used to, being bi polar that is. I am also a handful of other things but bi polar is the most prominent. I deal with it everyday, for the rest of my life. But now I don't think of it as a crutch. Now its something I am aware of, just like someone with anything else that they're born with. Sometimes, well maybe a lot of the times, I feel like people don't understand. How could I blame them though? You can't really understand unless you go through those things personally. So in the end, you just need to worry about you.

How could I be loved, if she can't love me?

Despite where I've been, I've never been shy on what has happened or what/how I have dealt with occurrences in my past and present. Yet, being open can be misinterpreted as playing the victim; wanting sympathy handed to me.  I have, and will, always tell my story in hopes that it will help someone conquer their fears and embrace their past. If it hadn't been for my past, I might not be the strong, determined woman I am now.

I have not quite been diagnosed with any one disorder for certain, except for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I say this because I was so highly medicated as a teenager, which created awful side effects and presented itself as a myriad of disorders.

To be able to understand where I have been and what I deal with, I first have to give a bit of background on myself, which might seem extensive (and I apologize in advance) but is the only way I can think that anyone can truly grasp my perspective.

As a young child, I can't remember any problems with my life until about 3rd or 4th grade. I was a happy camper, no big problems; I just didn't see my mother often and I didn't know my father, never met him. When I was about 9, I didn't clean my room to my mother's liking and she told me to pack my bags I was going to an orphanage because she didn't want me anymore. She didn't hold to that, but it was a dramatic turning point in my life, but I just didn't know it yet. She was on a plethora of medications, mostly narcotics, for a back problem that would eventually put her out of regular work for the rest of the time that I had known her. She became more aggressive and just plain fucking mean as the days passed. She started dating a man who gave me the creeps and told me he was moving in with us after her first surgery on her back, and I refused. She told me I had no fucking say and to just shut up.

After this first boyfriend moved in, I was emotionally neglected more and more every day. This boyfriend's son loved to beat me up, and it soon became a family pastime. Mom, boyfriend, boyfriend's son would all take turns. Then the boyfriend's son started to molest me, and I didn't say anything to anyone hoping I was just mistaken by what was going on; health class taught me differently my 5th grade year. Finally I started to protest when he was doing it in front of my mother and his father (mom's boyfriend), my mother would watch in a pill stupor and just laugh, then egg him on. They would just throw me down on the stairs and lay on top of me so I couldn't breathe, whip me with whatever item was closest and most painful, or just throw things at me repeatedly.

One of my birthdays, we headed down to South Carolina to enjoy the beach in the summer. I don't remember anything happy, it was all erased when I watched my mom's boyfriend beat her senseless and bloody, threatening to kill me if I called the cops. Mom and I packed up and left, the entire trip back to the DC metro area was filled with how fucking stupid I was and how this was all my fault. I was not the daughter anyone would want and I was so useless and I have ruined my mother's entire life. It was shortly after this that I started cutting myself.

I can't say why I started cutting, or why I didn't stop, but it gave me control. All the words of how ugly, stupid, useless I was or how no one would ever want me or love me because it was impossible was reflected on my skin. Perhaps it was one last ditch effort to get my mother's attention and affection.

When we moved several counties over into my grandparents' home at the end of my 7th grade year due to a classmate making death threats to me, I think that is truly when shit hit the fan. I don't know what happened, if my mom was jealous with my closeness with my grandparents who had me while she worked when I was younger, or who would listen to me and tell me stories; but I just lost myself completely down a deep black hole. I would then attempt suicide over 50 times in various ways, be hospitalized 24 times in mental health institutions, sever my relationships with friends and family who didn't want to hear me or couldn't understand me. The family part was the hardest, my mother is a fan-fucking-tastic manipulator, she can practically make you think the grass isn't green, if it benefits her somehow. The schools, the police officers, the friend's parents... they all refused to believe my stories of molestation and abusive turmoil that I had endured up to that point because my mother would have some fancy story on how I was unwell in the head. The police officers even told me, "She is your mother, she can beat you any way she wants as long as I don't see bruises right now and she says that it was an appropriate punishment" and "there's no physical proof of the molestation, so we can't do anything about it, plus your mom says you're lying." I felt more alone and more depressed than ever, leading to more therapists. I had one that told me, "How does it feel to know that you have ruined your mother's life and that you're a loser?" I no longer had faith in humanity or the justice system anymore. But I always ran back to my mother because I just longed for her approval and affection, hoping she'd give it to me one day.

I had ran away countless times, jumped out of (slow) moving cars, anything I could do to get away from the hatred she took out on me. A few days before Christmas of 2002, I had left home after her telling me she was taking away Christmas because I cut my hair and just being simply vile; I was scared of her, at any minute she could snap. I attempted to call my aunt, just to let her know I was alright but wasn't able to handle anymore of my mother. As I briskly walked across the 8 lane highway, at a stop light, the light turned green and a car going 20-30 miles over the speed limit (approx. 65-75 mph) struck me. I was catapulted into the air and onto the asphalt head, legs, head legs, etc. This is such a huge part of my PTSD, the trauma sank in much later. I tried to get up in the middle of the intersection while I was almost ran over by several cars. I faded in and out of consciousness and later awoke to see my mother and her crocodile tears telling multiple people of how I was out of control, etc. I had fractured the ball in my hip socket, tore my MCL and my PCL in my right knee, separated and shattered my pelvis, not to mention the extensive nerve damage the impact had on me. I was in a wheelchair on and off for a year, crutches for two, and nothing was ever repaired like it should have been. I was left with a pelvis that would constantly, and to this day, fracture from sitting down too hard in a chair or a knee that pops out of socket and needs to be shoved back in. Now my spine is deteriorating from all the harsh problems I've endured from the accident alone, and that does absolutely nothing for my self-worth or self-esteem.

As I got older, I found myself in bad situations and bad relationships. I was left to live on the streets, torn between the two people I truly have always called my parents (my maternal grandparents) and my mother. Living on the streets for years, I was raped 8 times by three men in a 6 month time span, and I just loathed myself that much more. I didn't feel like what I felt was depression, and in fact I still don't sometimes, because I was just in such a shitty situation.... wouldn't anyone feel this way?

I fell for the wrong man, and immediately thought I needed to marry him. He was abusive and lazy and finally after years of being with him, and living on the streets, I left to be on my own. I ended up getting pregnant (after thinking I wasn't able to have children) and was with a man who wouldn't let me eat, took all of my cash, beat me trying to give me a miscarriage... Finally, I had to crawl back to my mother. She took all of my money and controlled everything I did and ate and who my friends were.. despite that I was 21. This continued on through another abusive relationship where I ended up in the hospital with a sprained neck, wrist and knee. We finally moved to Utah, I thought "gee this will be it, a fresh new start with my mom." I was never more wrong. I was controlled even more, abused even more and I was so broken and destroyed I hated myself I didn't think I was a good enough mother for my daughter. I wanted to kill myself so my daughter didn't have to deal with my crying every night any more. Again, who wouldn't hate life if they were in my shoes right? Everyone said "well, just get out of the situation!" But I had no idea where to go with no friends, no money, a toddler and no home, thousands of miles away from the home I knew so well, Virginia.

One day I finally had enough I decided to try and talk to my mother instead of letting her verbally attack me in front of my daughter. I started walking away from the conversation and she kept talking while she was in the bathroom, I came back and asked her what she said and she said, "Never mind just forget it leave me alone." Knowing her,if I had, she would have thrown a fit saying I walked away from the conversation so I stayed asking her to talk to me, she came out and I wouldn't move until she agreed to talk to me she raised her arms to hit me, my daughter right next to me so I pushed her instinctively... she started beating me until I was black, blue, swollen and bloody. I was able to push her off of me once, and I punched her with my non dominant hand to get her to stop. My daughter was still next to me.. she pushed her.. The police said I was at fault when they finally came because of the fact that I didn't walk away, even though I was the one injured and she wasn't. I started it according to them, and my daughter was fine to stay with her. She has since convinced my family to have nothing to do with me (and always has).

I have gone from that, and living on the streets trying to make something of my life, to now and living in my very first 2 bedroom apartment, going back to college, working full time at a steady job I've had for a year and a half, I finally own my own things, have my own money... but I'm still so sad without my family. I still think, I can't be depressed, this is normal to be sad.. I struggle, I know it's part the PTSD, too. The flashbacks and the anxiety and fear, from everything.

The days that are the hardest are when I need a friend or a family member and I have no one, or when I need a "mom day" to myself to just recoup, or a babysitter, or just company. It's just nice sometimes to not feel alone. It's hard to get over depression when the wounds are still fresh and you're still so alone.

Untitled.

This is a poem I wrote when I was in the calm of the storm--able to view the bedlam of my emotions all at once. I guess this poem has two meanings to me, both concerning my life being diagnosed with bipolar disorder: One is about the repercussions of my relationship failures that I experienced throughout a lot of my life. I was so hungry for love and attention, but when reality caught up with me I realized I was just a siren chained to the rocks, beckoning others on with my beauty. My other meaning has to do with how bipolar disorder makes me feel so much--intoxicated even--and although it gives me "powers", all I want is to breathe it out, to rid myself of the air of insanity. All I want is freedom from the illness that brings me so much unquenchable desires.

Soooo yeah. 

Waiting for sleep, I shut my eyes tightly to keep

the starry tears from floating away into the night,

upward into the darkness that envelops my restless senses.

I inhale, breathing in the crispness of my curse--

a method of the soul; a rich intake of

unquenchable wishes and miraculous destiny.

I drink it in, filled again with passions beyond fathom;

lustful and desirable like a Siren chained to her sins,

I exhale love-songs to enchant and ensnare, crooning to the heart,

beckoning to go into arms that will never hold requited love.

But like the falling sun I must return my splendor--gone is the starlight

dazzling ‘cross my face;

gone are the sprinkles of moonlight behind my eyes,

I am nothing—an empty shell with thistled and empty arms,

a heart that howls with unbridled passion.

I inhale, and the intoxication becomes me,

laced with the drunkenness of mania I stumble down the stairs

into madness.

Darkness.

I only wish to leave you,

forget you,

encounter dreams in which your presence is absent.

I yearn to be free from the 

 too-much

too-often,

and too-alive.

The truth of my existence.

I no longer miss the curves of desire that wrap around my naked being,

the ache of others to have my eyes sadistically turn them away.

I wish nothing more but to return to a clearer haven,

to flee from the horrors of my desolated caverns.

I must depart from the dreadful smile that shadows my every touch,

the one that captivates the world  but drives its owner mad,

for I know she will never let go.

I will begin a canvas with a softer stroke, a clearer

brush to dress the wounds. A portrait still untouched by darkness.

I have this journey in my hands—a palette with paint not yet muddled and torn by my own disaster.

And for the last time, I exhale you.

Do any of you guys have creative outlets? I LOVE writing, playing music, and drawing/painting. What do you guys enjoy doing?