Taking Care

            In the last week I have been on 8 planes, in 6 cities, been to 3 conferences and had 3 hotel rooms. I have been gone for a total of 9 days. I have collected at least twenty business cards and given away twice as many. I have met and presented to hundreds of people.

            I was worried about this trip. I knew that there would be lots of time change as I went back and forth between Seattle, Charlotte, Houston, and Boston. I knew that I would be overwhelmed with the knowledge that I would gain from these conferences and the people I would meet. I knew that I have been fragile lately and that the last two trips before this tour led me to take a little step backwards in my recovery from this winter’s eating disorder. I knew these things so this time I was ready.

            This time I packed four snacks for each of the nine days, and ate almost all of them, the only leftovers being there because I had other snacks instead. I watched myself and my energy level. I took breaks and I went for a run when I felt I needed a little time to myself. I learned that I could in fact do a conference tour without falling backwards on my recovery plan. I learned that I could do it as long as I took care of myself, and that taking care of myself was hard, but important.

            Missing sessions on PTSD in returning soldiers and the newest in scientific brain research was hard, but I knew that I had to stop and take care of my needs. I knew that I needed to step away from this thing I felt I had to do to take a moment to myself.

            It is hard for me not to do everything. I feel I have a duty to learn as much as I can and that I will be missing some important connections by not attending the nighttime movie or the afternoon snack break. I feel that mean voice of anger and sadness saying “you're not good enough” “you're not trying hard enough”. But this week I have found myself fighting back. Saying no.

            It is often hard to take breaks when you live with a chronic health condition. You find yourself blaming yourself when it’s your body that is unable to do more. I find that there is an added burden when it comes to brain disorders where the stigma kicks in and you begin to judge your character for something you have no control over.

            One session that I went to was by the author, Susan Rose Blauner in which she talked about the importance of taking care of yourself. She talked about being kind to ourselves and taking that time to pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you are doing a good job.

            So this is what I did. I realized that I didn’t feel as prepared for my early morning session the next day so I skipped out on a session that I would have enjoyed. I told myself that I would learn this some time in my life and perhaps meet the presenter later. I skipped the night time movie about returning soldiers knowing that my brain was full and my emotions where about ready to spill over and went for a run and a nice long sit in the window seat in my hotel room.

            It is so hard to take care of ourselves when we feel we that self-stigma creep in. But through hard work and time I was finally able to take care of myself, and though obvious I learned that by taking care of myself I was a better presenter, networker, and a stronger and happier me.

The pieces come back together...

This morning I returned from a weekend where eighteen family members (three adopted family members) came to one house to celebrate being together. We ate and ate, practiced some old family traditions (Scol!) and slept anywhere we could that wasn't too damp or lumpy (though this usually changes by morning). It was a beautifully sunny weekend and I felt so much love between all of us as we sat around the fire, enjoyed homemade pies or feasted on paella.

When I got home this afternoon I realized it was once again time to work on the book (which now has a publisher!!) so I left my bag by the door and got to work. I find it important to note that I travel around the country speaking publicly about my story. I share it all the time to audiences of 700+, but I haven't read it in a while. In a little over a year and a half in fact. And I will tell you what, it is hard.  Really really hard. And painful.

It is hard to remember, no, let me rephrase, it is hard to read your exact thoughts when you are dealing with the pain of suicidal ideation or the pain of losing friends because of your depression. It is one thing to work through it everyday, which I have gotten much better at doing, but another thing to return to your exact transcripts from the moment of pain.

I remember when we first started playing with thoughts about the book,  people would ask us why we would want to revisit so much pain. And I always knew why, I want to teach the people who don't understand and let the ones who do understand know that they are not alone. I knew it would be hard. But I suppose, after a year and a half of not reading it I forgot.

I suppose the thing I am here to say is, I am glad that I spent the weekend with my family. I'm glad that they could remind me of the happiness and joy in my life even when I'm forced to remember the pain. I'm glad to know that when I was in the most painful spots, those points in the book that made me start crying even  reading them today,  those moments when I never thought anything would ever get better, when I never thought I could enjoy another family event, I'm glad to remember and know that I can be happy. It is possible.

In years past I never thought I would be able to be happy again (happy happy, not manic). And I guess having been relatively stable for so long I must have eased into happiness, because today, having juxtaposed Kirkwood-stravaganza with the really difficult passages from the book I realize that I have the ability to be happy. It's not broken. And I think maybe that is what I'm here to tell you all. Eventually happiness comes back. When you get to the deepest most painful place, the place where people are telling you things will get better and you just want to spit in their face because you know it's a lie, listen.

It takes a long time for all the pieces to settle when your life has been a tornado, but eventually, just as everyone told me it would, it did all come back together. I am happy. I am whole.

The Courage to Change

It has been quite a while since I have posted anything on here so I must apologize.  With all the work we have been doing the blog has fallen a bit behind. I would also like to let you all know that I have been given the honor of creating and manning the brand new BringChange2Mind blog (http://bringchange2mind.wordpress.com/) so when I am not writing here, please check the BC2M blog to see if I am posting there. I will try my hardest to stay loyal to both.

And now a quick update... In the last month since I wrote I have been to St. Louis, Chicago, and New York, and been the team leader for two NAMI Walks, one in Seattle and the other in Portland. It has been an extremely inspiring, energizing, and exciting month as I made new friends (the Close/Pick family, Kitty and her mom, the Francolini family, and so many more), learned about new research and treatments, and met and listened to new and old heroes (Glenn Close, Jessie Close, Calen Pick, Kay Redfield Jamison, Marya Hornbacher, and Rosalyn Carter). If you don't know who some of these people are please look them up as they are all heroes in the mental health awareness (and women empowerment) world. I have had the honor of attending fabulous events in cities I had only dreamt about ten years ago. But it has not been all easy and joyous.

As I present and speak publicly about my illness and my (relative) stability I feel as if I need to always be happy, and if not, always act happy. I had gotten to the point where I found myself presenting a false image because I feared that if I let people know that I still get depressed sometimes, or still feel unsteady sometimes, they will feel there is no hope. I felt that if I am going around the country telling people that there is treatment and stability for people with mental illness, my hiccups in stability would prove this false. I have talked about this before in a past post so I won't go into it completely now other than I promised myself that I would always be completely honest, so, here it is...

The last month has been extremely hard as well. It has not only been the anniversary of my first hospitalization and the exhaustion of five national trips in one month followed by two 5K walks, but meeting so many people with one's same story is very difficult. Meeting so many people that share your story and hearing their struggles not only feels comforting as you are swiftly pulled from the aloneness of a diagnosis, but it also reminds you of all the pain you experienced. It reminds each individual of how lonely you really were and how different your life would have been had you just had this new friend(s) with you from the beginning. It is strangely validating, empowering, and comforting, and yet, it is often painful to meet people with such similar stories of agony, near suicide, self-harm, self-medication, etc., etc., etc. It is beautiful because everything is suddenly okay. You have found yourself on solid ground. But you can't hep but remember how terrifying it is to dangle from the cliff.

The last month has been more than exhilarating. It has reminded me of how much I love my family, how happy I am that I am alive, and how honored and lucky I am to have the opportunity and the health to do all the things that I do. It has once again reminded me why I need to continue to speak and share my story. People should not be alone in this fight. People should not have to feel pain when they finally find community years after their initial diagnosis. People should feel comforted, cared for, and loved from the very beginning. Feeling the ups and downs of this month has made that fact even more present in my mind. We need to change things now. We cannot let this continue to happen. We cannot let so many of our children end up on the streets, end up incarcerated, end up losing their lives by self-medicating. We cannot let a treatable enemy like suicide claim so many victims because they are alone and scared. We need to talk about this. We need to change things fast. Please help us change things by sharing stories, by letting people know that they are not alone. In my mind the biggest way to fight stigma is to talk. Share your truth. We need to remind the nation that 1 in 6 adults suffers from a mental illness by sharing real stories from the heart. Please have courage, for all of us.

Linea's Treatment Story

The first thing I like to say when I hear people struggling with a new diagnosis of anything is: "thank god you can now start figuring out a treatment to help you feel better/to help your life get put back together/to help you stop hurting so much". In my previous post I ended saying, "why do we love the diagnosis..." because we can finally start getting treatment. I have been reading a lot of bipolar memoirs lately (Kay Redfield Jamison' An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, Lizzie Simon's Detour: My Bipolar Road Trip in 4-D, and Marya Hornbacher's Madness: A Bipolar Life.) In each of these, and from many individuals I have spoken to personally, I hear the pain that accompanies the diagnosis. The questions of "Does this define me?" "Will this be forever?" "Where is the separation between my personality and the illness?" "Am I going to have to be on meds for the rest of my life?" These were the questions I had. These were the worries I had, but at the same time I felt the relief of "at least now we know what we're working with..."

So, let's now imagine the you have a diagnosis. You know that you are bipolar (or fill in the blank). You know that prozac/other medications do not work for you because they make you manic/etc. And now its time to figure out what does work. In order to give you an idea of the process from diagnosis to treatment I thought I would give you a little glimpse at my slow path towards treatment:

When I was first diagnosed I was in a hospital having willfully checked myself in after a near suicide attempt. I was at the point where I was having psychotic suicidal ruminations that lead me to have a one on one aid that watched my every move. In the hospital I was told that I was bipolar II. This seemed very strange to me having only repeatedly experienced extreme depths of depression. I thought, where are the manias, or hyper-manias? I knew however that there was something more, something deeper than just being sad. It was a constant sadness to my core, and I knew it was something that needed fixing, that needed soothing, before I did something drastic. So I drank, a lot, and I started cutting, and I smoked pot, and tried drugs I wouldn't have done had I not been trying my hardest to fight off the seductions of suicide. At the time, I assumed these were my treatments prior to the hospital. These proved inefficient when I found myself blindly checking myself in with those magic words, "I don't feel safe".

In the hospital I was very unresponsive to all types of treatment. I fell into such a dangerous place that extreme measures had to be taken. I could not be left alone for one second because they knew I was watching, searching, for anything I could get my hands on to end the pain. This is when they offered me two options. They said, "we can send you to the state institution where you can wait until you find the right drug, which may take several months, or you can try electro-convulsive therapy". Now at this point I was beyond any other options, and taking the extreme route seemed like the best idea. I told myself "well, ECT will either kill me or fix me" so I begged my parents for the treatment (they of course did not know this thought process at the time) but eventually, full of uncertainty and fear, agreed. I am not going to go into details at the moment about all my experiences with ECT right now. It is a very controversial thing and I want to make sure that I do it justice and help people truly understand more about it, so I am just going to tell you two things: it is much more humane now, (no more One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), and, it saved my life. After the first treatment the "thoughts", that urge to hunt down anything I could to kill myself with, were gone. Gone. I was still very veryvery depressed, but I eventually got to the point where I lost the constant eyes watching me and even got to shave my legs (a very big deal at the time).

After the hospital I went back to my normal college kid life, still feeling slightly blue, but on the whole much better. It was at this point that I was prescribed my 5th or 6th pill, that miracle drug, Prozac. My first day with Prozac was amazing. Suddenly everything was so much better. I did a much better job at work, I got all my house work done, I went for a run...and then everything sped up. Suddenly I was spinning beyond control. No amount of running could help me. No amount of anything could help me. At first the high was addicting, I started drinking more, partying more, spending more, doing drugs I wouldn't do. I started cutting again. I was starting to have very strange, un-Linea, thoughts ("maybe I should jump off the roof" "I wonder if it would hurt if I chopped off one of my fingers...") I was not suicidal, just very very manic. The addictive beautiful high that I experienced in the beginning was gone. I was no longer super-woman, but a paranoid, anxious, agitated child. I was breaking things. I couldn't have a conversation because my thoughts were going to fast to spit out.

Knowing something was very wrong I finally called my doctor. He told me to stop taking the Prozac immediately and prescribed me some anti-anxiety pills. Still being very impulsive, and having increasingly scary thoughts I took one. Just to calm down. Just to make things stop. To keep myself from doing something stupid. Just to keep my mind from accidentally killing itself. And then I kept taking them. I think there was a point where I told myself "I need help. It's time to go to the hospital." And then I took them all. Thirty something pills. And then I walked over to school, turned in my homework, told my teachers I wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be at their classes, and nearly passed out waiting for an ex-boyfriend/best friend to get out of class and take me to the hospital. I knew who to go to. I knew who would take the best care of me. This was not a suicide attempt. I did not want to die. I just wanted the thoughts to stop. I wanted to keep myself from jumping off the roof or in front of a subway train.

After this incident my diagnosis changed. I was not bipolar II. I could not take certain pills. Out of the hospital I made a decision to take care of myself. I decided to get the treatment I needed and though I had a few bumps along the way, (trying to cope through bulimia), I eventually committed myself to finding, and following, a healthy treatment plan. This plan incorporated close work with doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists. It involved trust in my doctors to find a medication that made me well enough to try other treatment options. It involved asking for help when I needed it, telling the truth about my feelings, and knowing that hospitals are not shameful, but needed at times. It eventually involved a healthy change in lifestyle--no more drugs, alcohol, no more staying up all night, exercising, eating healthy, meditating, and a regular sleep cycle. I will go into my current treatments in a future post, but I felt it necessary to discuss the difficulty finding, getting, and sticking with healthy treatment. Had I not found the treatment I  have now I would be nowhere close to where I am today. I may not even be here at all. In conclusion, the diagnosis is indescribably painful, finding treatment seems impossibly hard, but with perseverance, a little bit of luck, good resources, self advocacy, and at times, pure trust that things will work out, people can find a better life and get the help they need and hopefully end those terrible statistics involving extremely high rates of homelessness, incarceration, and suicide for those struggling with a mental health conditions. Treatment works, and I will also give you some resources to find good treatment in my next post.

Just in case you missed it the first time...

My story continued...

To follow up from the last post I want to once again say that we are making February our "share your story month". Because of this it is probably appropriate that I continue to share my story in February not late January. After sharing my story last week I know many people are wondering where I am now, maybe not necessarily occupationally because you can follow that on our website, but emotionally.

So out of my commitment to be completely honest to my readers here is my story now, today, in all its emotionally exposed glory:


Yesterday I went to see my psychiatrist. I told him that I am feeling slightly moody and find myself creeping into these unintended, uncontrollable moments of frustration, hyperactivity, or utter exhaustion. We talked about the need to "tweak" my meds, and we talked about the likelihood of changing one out completely sometime in the near future.

Now, I have been stable for a long time, aside from a small yearly depression that comes around the anniversary of an overdose, a depression that lasted slightly longer this year, but was still completely manageable. I still consider myself stable. But I continue to have these little hiccups of symptoms. Moments where I would feel much better jumping on the bed for hours than I would trying to attempt even a partial night's sleep. Moments where I feel so exhausted after having lunch with someone that I come home and pass out in seconds. And worst of all, moments where I find myself furious over the thought of doing dishes (and I am not an angry person by any means).

I tend to freak out about such hiccups. I think, is it coming back?! Oh my god, what if I have mixed episodes again! I'll have to be locked up! All the work I'm doing will be ruined! And then I spin off into these worry tangents until I either hit a wall, cry hysterically, or slap some sense into myself and tell myself to knock it off! These are hiccups, nothing terrible is going to happen. I am not going to suddenly loose it with all the safety nets in place, and all the lessons I have learned.

And so I go through this, I have this constant conversation with myself every time a little bump comes about. But then my common sense kicks in and reminds me that:
1) every time I felt an episode coming in the past I told my doctors immediately
2) I have learned healthy, safe coping techniques if things do go wrong
3) I am aware of the most minute movements towards any episode
4) I have an amazing support network

When I go through these hiccups, these "tweaks" in my meds I am always scared to tell people. I travel the country telling people my story, telling them horrifying things but making them feel better by saying "but I'm stable now" at the end. And I am. Just maybe not perfect. And I fear telling people, "I'm great but I have been having issues with my meds", or "I'm wonderful, but have been having small worrisome mood swings lately", because I'm afraid they won't get it. I'm afraid they will still be afraid for me. So I often tell them I'm fine no matter what.

But that's not truly telling my story. That's not being authentically honest. So I have made a promise to myself, I will always tell people exactly how I really feel. And if they worry I will remind them of all the things I remind myself. I will tell them how I feel in order to show them that when you are bipolar you have small bumps sometimes, but they don't paralyze you. You have to keep going on with your life. And you can with all the safety nets in place.

So, here it is, here is me right now, at this moment:
I am Linea. I am bipolar and have been having small mood swings lately that are causing me to have to make small adjustments to my medications and it makes me anxious. However, I am completely fine. I am capable and happy doing all the work that I do because I know how to take care of myself. Things will not happen as they did in the past because I know how to handle my stress levels, how to keep myself from coping in unhealthy ways, and how to ask for help when I need it. I am stable. I have bumps. And it's okay.

My story

We (the momma and I) have decided to make February a month of sharing stories to fight stigma. So, along with our newly posted video on YouTube we are going to start sharing our stories and learnings on our blogs, starting conversations about it on our Facebook and Myspace sites, and commenting on it on our Twitter page. So, visit us, chat with us, and learn with us. And without further adieu, here is my story...

There was a moment in my life when I almost drowned.

Living in the largest dorm in the country with three best friends, experiencing my first serious college boyfriend, living the perfect life of a well-off artsy college kid, I couldn’t have dreamt of anything better. That is, until I turned my back to the ocean and was swiftly and dramatically pulled in by the undertow.

One moment I was there and one moment I wasn’t. It was as if I had suddenly had my brain replaced by someone weaker, angrier, sadder. I didn’t know where I was or what I had set out to do anymore. I couldn’t understand what went wrong. I couldn’t understand why I was suddenly seeing pools of blood every time I closed my eyes.

It was a dramatic and intense case of depression. I stopped eating. I broke up with the man who was, at that time, the love of my life. I stopped leaving my room. I stopped all contact with the world, and whether I pretended I was there or not, my eyes were empty.

This went on for several weeks. Floating around Chicago, the city that I had worked so hard to get to. To me this went on for a lifetime. I floated out to sea.

Then my boyfriend, who was now just a friend-friend, called my parents. He called, and just as swiftly as I was pulled under, I was pulled out.

Completely.

My dad arrived from Seattle no less then ten hours after he was called. My life, my room, and my thoughts were packed up and shipped out. Flown back to Seattle and, in my mind, never to return.

Nothing could have been more painful. Nothing could have been more dramatic to me at that point and place in my life. Nineteen years old and suddenly I was forced to leave my friends, my life, my freedom and everything that I had built within the last two years of hard-earned independence.

I arrived home tired, cold, and wet, water still in my lungs.

The next couple of years moved from an undertow to a tsunami. My mind moved quickly from a simple depression to a devastating suicidal obsession. Looking back I am amazed I am even here to tell my story.

In the next year and a half I spent time in hospitals for suicide prevention and for overdose recovery. I spent time in apartments, manic and drugged and depressed and dangerous. I spent so many hours feeling completely out of control of my mind and so many hours trying to fight against it with every form of self-medication and self-harm I could find that I am amazed I have the ability to form thoughts or press my fingers to these keys.

It took me a long time to come to terms with what was happening. After having a “wait and see” diagnosis of bipolar disorder II at nineteen I spent many, many months fighting the label and implications before I finally received my final, “for sure” diagnosis of plain old bipolar I. My months and years of fighting only made things worse and it took me a long time before I realized that if I was good to myself and my body, my bipolar would be good to me. Who knew stimulants could make you manic or alcohol could make you devastatingly depressed!

Once I finally gave in and decided to change my life things began to turn around again. Though it took lots of self-care and finding the right doctors, counselors, and meds, my stability allowed me to live the life I had always dreamed of living. My stability was more then just taking care of myself and finding the right help however, it was also my amazing luck to have the opportunities and support network I do. It was this fact that inspired me to begin to make a difference in the mental health world.

Having spent time in the worst psych units with the saddest cases I realized that things must change. I realized that people need to talk about these things. People needed to be able to talk about their thoughts, lives, and feelings. We need to be able to share our stories.

So…here I am today, graduating, speaking at conferences, in classrooms and auditoriums, writing and collaborating with mental health and education professionals, working with amazing mental health organizations, writing a book. Through my experiences I have realized that I needed to make a difference, and through my opportunities I have hopefully begun to do so. I am so excited and pleased that I have the opportunity to make the differences that I am seeing.

Today I have found my way back to dry land where I can finally stand on firm ground, and it is here that I will help others do the same.

(This picture was taken when I was 20. I look a little different now that I finally take showers and have let my natural hair color grow back.)

love and conversation

I believe that I have already spoken about the difficulty and fear that can encompass romantic relationships when someone sees themselves as unstable, depressed, or "mentally ill", so I won't try to go too far into that direction. (If I have not gone enough into it please let me know in a comment so that I can be sure to write my next blog on the topic.) What I think is important to talk about is my current relationship and the interaction it has with my current diagnosis.

I am dating and living with an amazing boy, I mean man, who I have been with for quite a while now. I feel we have an amazingly healthy relationship and that is why I feel comfortable sharing this for the blogosphere and for readers hoping to learn or hear more about how to make a relationship work when someone is feeling unstable, etc. My boy, J, is an amazingly stabilizing force. One that I often find myself feeling I couldn't live without. And it is exactly this worry that I think it is important to be aware of. Whenever I have this specific worry I always find it is my own fear of my diagnosis, my being bipolar, that leads me to feeling I can't do without him. I find myself thinking I can't do without someone that I could see being a care taker. It is when I get to these points however, that, though I would not want to be without him, I must always remind myself that I would do fine without him. (But that is once again going back to relationships, mental health conditions, and autonomy.)

I have been thinking a lot about the equality of our relationship. Something that I feel is crucial for all my relationships, romantic or otherwise. I have been thinking a lot about how amazing he is at taking care of me. He does the dishes when I am overly busy with school/conferences/etc. He reminds me to pay the bills when I am too focused on my travels to realize the date. "Oh yeah, it is a new month, maybe I should pay rent..." He seems so often to be the stabilizing force in my own life and in our relationship.

Lately, however he has been extremely busy with his own crazy schedule and has been working hard simply to keep his own head above water. This has led me to make the decision that while he has helped me hold things together when my life lost control, I should help him when he is trying to keep his together. So last night we had a wonderful conversation. I asked him, "what can I do for you?", knowing that he is the very opposite of me in his busy and emotional states--while I can become clingy and needy, he tends to want more of his own space.

The question led us into a wonderful conversation about our own needs, once again helping me realize the importance of being two independent beings within an equal relationship. Though he may hold me up at times when I am feeling unstable and needy, I know that I can do the same for him when things change. I also know that when I am feeling too depressed to help him and he is feeling too busy to help me that we will both chip in to help each other, even if it just means leaning on one another without doing anything else. I know that I can do my best to support him in these busy times, but I also know that he would completely understand if I was to say I can't based on my own emotional struggles. The importance and strength of our relationship all lies in an honest conversation.

For now, thanks to our conversation, my path is relatively easy. When asked what I can do to help he simply said, "keep your stuff picked up, do the dishes, and rub my back". That should be easy enough to handle, and if its not, I know he'll understand simply because we were open enough to talk about it.

The picture was a gift from J for my birthday. Visit his blog here.

decided to give myself a break

now the next question is, what should I do first?
a bath? a book? yoga? meditation?
what about yoga, bath/book, meditation.
sometimes its good to let yourself just be...

Grieving the diagnosis

(I have no idea who did this art, but if anyone knows please let me know so I can give them the credit they deserve for such an awesome piece of work!)

My it has been a long time since I wrote a post. With school ending, the holidays, and a trip to Chicago I've been a little distracted as of late. However, its back to work, ultimately leading me back to blogland.

As I have somewhat discussed in previous posts, the last few months have been rather difficult for me. As my psychiatrist explained, I am a rather "hard patient" because my "life isn't all that stable" at the moment. But I wonder, now that I have what I believe to be a rather stable life, how is my life not stable? Now, I understand that I am in a strange sort of limbo being a new college grad without a job, (or at least a job that makes enough money to live an "adult life"), and I know that I do a ton of traveling doing speaking engagements, (and as many people explain, jet-lag is hard if you're bipolar), but I feel that I manage my "unstable life" rather well. Or at least most of the time. Until I hit three solid months of depression, having been completely emotionally stable prior to my normal yearly late October relapse, (this yearly relapse is due to a mix between solemn and painful mental health related anniversaries and changes in weather), but this year it just kept going due to a few major added stressors (such as impending graduation and the fear of finding health insurance).

But all of this I believe has been addressed in past postings, so what I really wanted to talk about is grief. In these past four months I have been trying my damnedest to be healthy and stay well. I made sure that I was not only continuing to take my meds, but I was also maintaining healthy habits such as exercising (yoga and running), meditating, and additional stress relieving activities like my new found hobby: knitting. I have tried to be patient and kind to myself and have worked with my psychiatrist to increase and adjust medications to help me get over this bump. But as I found myself continuing to move deeper or simply stay in the "pits of despair" I found myself moving into the same mind-frame that I experienced when I was first diagnosed with bipolar. I found myself feeling, to put it simply, angsty. I found that I was reverting to the teenage-angst felt when life just doesn't seem fair. When you realize, why me? And why now? I found myself getting angry at whoever or whatever has done this to me. And though I continually feel that my bipolar is part of me, though not all of me, and that I wouldn't want to get rid of it, I simply wanted it to go away, if not for even a little while.

So I suppose my question to the world is, and specifically to anyone suffering from a chronic condition or disease (and I don't really consider bipolar a disease), do you ever get over this grief completely? Do you ever just cope and come to terms with the fact that you may continually have dips in your health, even if they continue to become increasingly easier?

I know that for me they have become easier, this is by far better than my initial diagnosis, but it is still terribly frustrating sometimes to know that I may have this occur again and again. All I know is that I will get through this and it will continue to get better, but somedays, on my most 13-year old angst ridden days, I can only continue to say, this sucks.

why so hard?

So, I had this paper that I was supposed to write. It was a simple paper, four to six pages synthesizing my biggest ideas throughout college and talking about my favorite classes. I was supposed to simply write about the ideas that snowballed in my mind. The ideas that connected with thoughts in other classes and the way they changed the way I understood the world. Normally, this assignment would thrill me. I love thinking about thinking. I love when my ideas connect and snowball ultimately making my world shatter through the realization that everything I thought I knew was actually wrong, or at least completely different than I ever thought. But this time, given that I have a lot of other stressors on my plate, things like a looming college graduation, a non-existent post-grad job, and the fact that the paper came at the anniversary of a very painful past experience, (a near death by overdose), it was nearly impossible to finish. It has actually taken me about a month over the due date to complete. And last night, finally, I turned it in.

So, why was it so hard, I ask myself. Aside from the obvious previously mentioned items, I realized that it forced me to look at a part of my life in a different angle. I found it strange that I can write a memoir about my experiences with bipolar, and travel the country sharing my story, but I couldn't seem to write a simple paper about my college career. The thing that I realized though, is that I have not had your average college career. Throughout my time in college I have been diagnosed with bipolar, been hospitalized two times, came extremely close to losing my life several times, and been through innumerable amount of ups and downs, round abouts, and zigzags through the world of mental illness, self-medication, and that continuous search for stability. It was through all of this that I had one goal: to just finish school. So it was through all of this that my biggest ideas formed. Through all of these things I was attempting to write papers, read, grasp big ideas. In the end my experience with bipolar and my experience as an undergrad became completely intertwined.

In realizing all of this I finally just realized that there was still healing to do. I still had to come to terms with a lot of trauma and pain that I thought I had already coped with. It is through these tasks, seemingly menial papers, that we originally assume to be easy that each of us must realize that there is always another level. There is always a deeper level to which we can explore ourselves and our lives. Always more to the story that we originally thought. Though the paper was extremely difficult and painful I came to realize that I needed to go to that painful level to truly come to terms with my college experiences. I needed sludge through the painful moments in my life one more time so that next time it might be a little easier. Sometimes we find ourselves asking, why is this so hard?! It's because we need to confront it, to push ourselves to the next level, and to realize that everything isn't as it seems.

little things

On Friday I was forced to think about my future as I met with my college advisor regarding my upcoming graduation. Still being in a somewhat sensitive state I became extremely, overwhelmingly anxious. It was at that point that I remembered the importance of family (whoever that may be: friends, community, etc.) and support when it comes to stress, and especially when it comes to complications pertaining to one's mental illness. So, I went to my sister's house because I know that she (almost) always makes me feel better with her "get mad not sad" attitude that is so opposite of mine. (To learn more about my this, read my mom's blog entry, "Where's Sister"). I think the thing that made me feel the best however, was also the fact that we made cookies with my twenty-one month old nephew. It was in the moment when I looked at his flour and oatmeal covered head that I began to feel better. As he "helped" stir the flour, sugar, salt, and oatmeal by putting it all over his high-chair, body, face, and the floor I couldn't help but smile. His flour covered body was a reminder of the little things in life that are important. Just watching his mischievous little face and observing him as he tested us with his toddler-ness was a reminder that sometimes it helps to focus on the little moments, (and in his case, the little things). When I'm at my worst, I often find that the only way to get by is by focusing on the small moments in each day, each hour, each minute. In doing this I can get out of my head and remember that the earth is still spinning, and that joyful, (and even hilarious), things are still happening.

My Bipolar Checklist

This is something I wrote a long time ago after my first panic attack in months. Thought it might be something useful to share...

Okay Linea. Here we are. Here we are again. You on the bathroom floor. Your boyfriend tired and worried. Your mind numb. Now, given that this hasn’t happened in months and months we must figure out where this came from. It’s time to use the skills that you have gained in this "vast journey" of yours.

     First. Your “Am I Depressed” checklist:

     Within the last week have you been staring a lot? Been unable to read/clean/get important things done? Have you been drinking alone? Do you spend hours sitting at the computer doing nothing? Have you been unable to cry? Do you have a need to harm yourself?

     No.

     Second, “Am I manic?”

Within the last few days have you been pacing, shaking, or cleaning excessively? Do you have a lot of repetitious thoughts, words, or phrases? Have you started the mantra of “I need, I need, I need…”? Has there been excessive spending, partying, anything?

No.

Third, in general, have you:

     Had an upset stomach?

     Been throwing up?

     Been cutting?

     Been eating excessively?

     Been drinking excessively?

No. No. No. No. No. 
Everything checks out fine. 

This is not a bipolar episode. I often find myself checking these lists daily. If it is none of the above then I know that I am simply having the same normal feelings of pain that every other person on earth experiences. If it is none of the above then I simply need to see where the pain is coming from and then just breathe it out. Just sit with it knowing that I have been through worse. I can get through this.

Advice from Dr. Manhattan...

Given that I have been continuously trying to calm down through my techniques of self-care (yoga, lake-sitting, etc.), I am frustrated that I still find myself freaking out about my future. I find that I build up so much worry and anxiety that everything seems to spin around me making it impossible to even grasp onto a calming impulse.

Last night I had a conversation about the human ability to forget what is important and distance ourselves from the very things that keep us alive. I find that I am constantly thinking about what to do with my future, or how to be more accomplished, or how to do things better and more efficiently, but I forget what I really am, or what life is really about. I am constantly trying to be "good-enough" when I don't even know what that means or what that entails.

And then I remembered reading the Alan Moore's Watchmen and I thought about Dr. Manhattan. Dr. Manhattan is this brilliant scientist who became stuck in an "Intrinsic Field subtractor" where he was disintegrated, allowing him to return as a super-human being. Manhattan eventually becomes so disconnected from earth and human beings that he decides to live on Mars where he can find more meaning in the movements and developments of the lifeless planet. Eventually however, after speaking to his ex-girlfriend about the amazing fact that she exists in the first place, he changes his mind and decides human life is a miracle after all.

He tells her that he has discovered a "Thermodynamic miracle", in the fact that, "in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds against countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that precise daughter...until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged, to distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold..."

And I realize what I should always remember: the mere fact that we are alive in the first place is worth everything. That makes us good enough. The fact that we are alive is so amazing that we don't need to do anything or be anything to make us any more important than we already are.

So thanks Dr. Manhattan. I need to keep remembering that.

Time to Breathe

Being that I am getting closer and closer to the end of this six year bachelors degree I am suddenly having that future focused, world ending, life-crisis that every college grad eventually feels. Well, that most every grad feels. I tell myself, if I would have been working harder towards a specific goal, i.e. grad school, I wouldn't be feeling like this. Or I say, if I would have chosen a degree that fed right into a job I wouldn't be feeling like this. But then I say, how? How could I have done these things when life is so unpredictable? When and how could I have chosen a degree and grad program that would have included several hospitalizations, a diagnoses, and what seems like millions of medication changes? How could I have planned for this? And though I may talk some sense into myself at this point, the cycle continues going round and round: panic, intellectualizing, sense, relief, panic...

So, in a time when I am feeling more overwhelmed then usual, (though I am almost always usually feeling overwhelmed,) I find myself having to be extra good to myself, both mind and body. When I present around the country people always ask what I do to help myself stay stable in times like this, so in order to truly explain I will just give you a run down of my day today...

I woke up and made myself breakfast. Having recently bought some new cookbooks that focus on the importance of healthy food to our mind and body's overall health, I took extra time preparing a breakfast that was nutritious with all the vitamins and minerals my body needs. Being a vegetarian, and a person easily susceptible to all sorts of colds, viruses, etc., I find it especially important to get a healthy diet.

After breakfast, (and a bit of light reading,) I stretched and did some strength training exercises. I find that even if I do a very minimal amount of exercise, my body and mind feel so much better throughout the day. I feel best if I do between twenty minutes to an hour and a half of good cardio, stretches, and other exercises. I prefer running, yoga, pilates, and a little weight lifting. If I am feeling depressed running is better, but if I am feeling manic yoga and stretching is best.

After I exercised I did a small meditation. I try to do a little meditating each day because I feel it helps me refocus and organize my brain. I feel that by allowing my thoughts to calm and settle I can find relief from stress, worry, anxiety, agitation, and lots of other emotions that I can't manage if I continue to multi-task at break-neck speed. Though it is sometimes difficult to meditate, I find that it is very important to my wellbeing and I find that the more I do it, the more I begin to feel it in the rest of my life.

The last thing that I do is to allow myself breaks throughout my work. Because I always have a million things going on I try to allow myself small breaks and small rewards to make the work easier and more manageable. When I have a chance to do work outside (or in a different atmosphere then I would usually work in, such as a coffee shop,) I try to take the opportunity. Though I may feel like I work slower, I find that it is important for me to have a change of environment. Today, for instance, I worked by the lake. I also like to give myself small breaks from really difficult work by allowing myself to do things I normally wouldn't do, like watch a little television or buy dinner out.

Well, these are some of the things that I have been working on that I thought could be both beneficial for me to remember and useful for others to see. I will continue to work on these and hope that others might integrate them into there own lifestyles. And as that terrible cliche goes, I need to "stop and..." well, you know...

Baby Love

Creation and the Lamictal High

Sleepwalkers

-Barbara Einzig-

The moon rises, a vengeance on anguish,

on my own arrogant privacy.

The hands of sleepwalkers,

of their own accord, rise, follow.

The ponderability of daily fatigue-

on wings consciousness runs wild,

transparent creations are flying,

they've heard the reflection of the moon.

It flickers cold, stingy,

not promising anything,

draws out of me distant art,

demands my agreement.

Can the torture and charm of its omens

be fought down, overcome,

can I make out of moonlight

a heavy, tangible object?

Having taken my pills, (a very high dosage of Lamictal, trileptal, and a normal dose of bcp,) and settled myself down to bed, I did the things I normally try to do to calm myself down after another day of breathing, I meditated and read a poem. This day was especially difficult because I was attempting to recover from a horrible cold, and I was also extremely worn down after having been at school for like 12 hours. So, as I was meditating my mind wasn't really slowing down, but instead fluttering more and more. When I finally stopped after about twenty minutes I realized that I should have taken my medicine until after the meditation process because I was really loopy and felt as though I had just had a night of heavy drinking. It was in this mix of exhaustion, frustration, and lack of mind coordination that I began having an amazing drive towards creativity and some form of inspiration. This however was not working out because I could hardly pull myself out of bed let alone make sense, so I went on with the night process and opened my current poetry book to a random page where I found none other then Ms. Einzig's Sleepwalkers.

Now, I don't know if I was just really loopy and read it one way and can never read it differently again, but all I can think about is creativity and inspiration, and how they always seem to come when I can't handle them, or can't do much of anything with them. I read it thinking "can I make out of moonlight a heavy, tangible object?" I was thinking why, why does creativity come when you don't want it? When all you want to do is go to sleep after a really freaking long day, or when all you are allowed to do is the never ending pile of work before you? I feel like it goes by the same rules as finding a lover: people whine and complain and go out to bars trying to pick someone up, but everybody knows that as soon as you stop looking you'll find them. Bam. Here's the perfect man you've been looking for. I suppose I could go even further and say that when I really didn't want a boyfriend I happened to realize that the man of my dreams was not only interested in me, but also moving half way across the country from me. But we all know how that ended up, Happily Ever After. (Thanks Josh.) So now maybe me and my creativity/inspiration will settle our differences and produce beautiful little creations. And maybe next time I will leave my computer next to my pillow to write that great poem, or play, or ideal piece of literature that I have been harboring deep down in some cavernous hole in my psyche only to be exposed through meditation and lots and lots of lamictal. I'll let you know what happens.

in honor of mr valentine, or i suppose, my joshua

This is something I wrote two years ago:

A couple cuddling on the couch, warm coffees in hand, are being intellectual, talking about things that aren’t really intellectually challenging but have a moderately impressive use of vocabulary. Another couple is doing that thing in the beginning of a relentless relationship when everything about your partner is overwhelmingly interesting. I sit here on a dirty couch wondering why all the lampshades are crooked. I sit and wonder about the use of vintage furniture and interchangeable art in the creation of the persona that is Gourmand. It’s February 14^th and somehow my relationship status has become more important than my impending piano concert. I am thinking less of Barber and more of boys. Less of Mozart more of men. It is time to live in music again and forget the urges of comfort. It is time to grow back into myself and understand reliability.

Today I sit alone in my living room listening to Beethoven's 7th Symphony, eating chocolate lava cake and drinking a glass of 1% milk. I sit here and wait for my amazing boyfriend to come home from work and think about the changes in my life since I found him, or even since we have been living here in Seattle. I think about the small things, the move to 1% milk as a compromise, and the larger things, like my ability to be happy alone. I sit here now waiting for him to get off work and for the first time in a while, or I suppose ever, that I feel okay being alone on Valentines Day. I find it interesting that even last year, when he had to work and I also spent the day alone, I felt alone and sad.

Why do we make it so important to find someone? To not be alone? I suppose that the reason I am okay being alone this year is the fact that I know he will come home to me just like every other night. But I think I have just been thinking and coming to terms with my understanding and thoughts on loneliness. In the past, when I was having constant struggles with my emotions, moods, and stability, I felt like I deserved to be alone. I thought that I would just drive someone crazy, or make them run screaming thinking that I am crazy. I used to search and search for comfort thinking that if I just had a boyfriend, if I just had someone to hold me and hold my hand when I fall apart, life would be better. But I also knew that I had that with my last amazing boyfriend Charlie, but for some reason my mind drove him away too, (or I did, he wasn't the one to leave.) I always had this conflict in my head over feeling needy and wanting to be taken care of and yet being scared and traumatized by my own patterns.

But now here I am sitting in our beautiful apartment, living a great life. And the best part is that I realized that I can handle life without him. I know that if I didn't have him I would be okay today, on a day where we are all supposed to be in love, or as most think, get laid. I would be perfectly fine and strong and happy. But it is through all of this that makes me know that he makes it even better. In my realizing that I don't need him I always realize how much I want him. And how amazing it is to have a relationship in which we are each our own completely independent selves who choose to be together.

sometimes i feel...

like i'm tank girl, jet girl, and sub girl all in the same bathtub; all of my personalities encompassed in one expanse of bubbles and water.

an attempt to reconnect

I have been feeling extremely overwhelmed lately. I find it funny that I always wonder where the stress or anxiety comes from, when all I have to do is consult anyone I know. I have the ability to tell myself that I am not doing enough or that I am not working hard enough when I am in fact doing a million things. I think it is my natural process and patterns that leads me to detach my mind from my bodies physical and mental activities. I think I have just been doing so many things for so long that whenever I am doing one less activity than normal I see my life as slow or see myself as lazy when I'm still maintaining the same pace and attempting to uphold the same standards.

In light of all this I am always and still attempting to let myself slow down. I am currently only taking ten credits, working on one and soon two articles for peer reviewed educational journals, rewriting and organizing things to send to an agent in New York, adding new sections to the already 400 page unpublished book, writing poetry, writing a piece about the human spirit and people's ability to recover from tragic life events, attempting to exercise, attempting to have a social life, attempting to spend time with family, and attempting to spend more than an hour a day with my boyfriend (even though we live in the same house.) When I actually write this all down I realize how much I am doing, but I also realize all the things I am not doing that I want to do. The things that are important for my soul, and the things I keep telling people I do to calm down. These are things that I keep trying to do, but never manage to make a daily part of my life. These are my goals for the month:

run at least four times a week, floss daily, meditate at least every other day, play the piano at least twice a week, cook good healthy meals at least three nights a week.

We'll see how I do, but at least for now it's in writing.