You Don't Understand!

My wonderful twelve year old son was trying to train our two rambunctious labs earlier in the week. It was entertaining to be a silent observer in his quest to educate these cuties at the same time to "down".  He has seen me train them one at a time, indoors, after being fed. However this is his time with them and I am only here to support his efforts and not to criticize. :) The dogs have very different temperaments and both are attention hogs! My son worked with them about five minutes and started getting frustrated. I suggested he stop training and resume after feeding them. My intelligent child blurted, "....You Don't Understand...." huh?

This reminded me of all the times my nuthouse patients have told me I don't understand.


Let me explain something about people who go into the psych field. This includes psychiatrists, therapists, counselors, nurses, psychologists. We go into it because we have experienced it. Personally or with family, we have been there. As in up close and personal. We have seen dysfunction. We have seen drug abuse. We want to study it to heal ourselves first. There are exceptions, few and far between.
Many of us are broken. Maybe most of us are. I may have a badge and a chart but it does not mean I have all the answers. It means at this moment I am functioning at a level where I can help you get out of your funk.

Patients teach me every day. How good I have it. How much better I truly have gotten. How stable I am. I am grateful not to be afflicted with a terminal illness. I am only bipolar. I am a stable bipolar person.

I understand how dark the darkness gets and my heart aches when I see the depressed patient lays in their room and doesn’t even open their curtains to let the sunshine in. I have been there, got the T-shirt to prove it.

Yes, I understand. I won't tell you my story if I'm your nurse someday. Feel confident that when I, any of us are caring for you, you are in good hands.

"Insane people always make sure that they are fine, it's the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy"

"Insane people always make sure that they are fine, it's the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy" ~ Nora Ephron

Interesting quote. With this idea in mind,
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse to death.
Talking about it, writing about it, thinking about it.
It remains a constant. It has become a taboo. My family
doesn't talk to me about IT for fear IT might come back.
I need to openly discuss my affliction. I can't get the words
out. The sentences do not form. My brain shuts down.

             s l u g g i sh

from my constant fear of rejection to being ashamed to alienate
yet someone else.I know I will somehow over come it.
Two years of therapy and I still can't get the words out.
All stuck in my throat.
            (((insane)))
is what I'll become if I don't let them free and out of me.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~ Albert Einstein

I was going to end today's thought here but after having coffee another thought entered my well caffeinated brain:
I am not miserable. You know, I have been stable for a while. Yes, I still THINK of performing delicate, fine lines of cuts on my skin. BUT I do not. I sit and meditate, granted it's on the bathroom floor sometimes, until the crazy thoughts pass but I don't leave reality. I no longer fantasize about leaving this world.

I am even going to venture to say that EVEN with this diagnosis of Bipolar Type Crazy, I am more sane now than some of the undiagnosed, addicted, truly insane, "professional", delusional nurses I have met in my many years of nursing. The path has been long. Medications have been tried, tossed, injected and rejected. However I have to say that stability is good.

With this I dust myself off and carry on with my thoughts of insanity and profess that today I am a little less insane than I was yesterday.

Starting from scratch

I'm standing outside having my coffee. This is becoming my daily routine. As I feel the fresh morning breeze on my face I wonder how I let it get to this point. I often wonder this. They say men think about sex every sixty seconds. Well I think about it, meaning my life, just as much. There was a plan, a schedule, a time line. Then my plan shattered and everything went so wrong. A few months ago, I was rushing to get the kids ready for school, myself ready for work, packing my lunch, stopping at the coffee shop, don't forget the laptop because homework needs to be turned in by five! I looked forward to talking to the boss, showing her how well I was doing, I wanted the director's position.

I'm suddenly paralyzed when I remember: Summer of 2006. July 19 to be exact. My life changed forever.

Currently, I am almost unemployed. Technically I have a job, I mean I work for a staffing firm that places nurses at facilities where they are needed. However I have this issue see, I declared my craziness "illness" after my diagnosis was made and after I was already a licenced nurse. Now I have to pay the consequence for a period of time. The punishment consequence is that anyone in the field will know I am crazy nuts bipolar.

 No one wants to hire crazy. It's a liability to have crazy taking care of people. Crazy shouldn't pass meds. Crazy cannot be stable. Regardless of how stable Crazy is. I see myself becoming bitter about this.

This Crazy has been stable enough to pass for strange or maybe even weird.

Regardless of how unstable I am, I have always known this; I have never and will never cause harm to another person or animal, ever. Crazy or sane. Ever.

A facility took a chance on hiring me for a shift not so long ago. Wouldn't you know it. The receptionist was the receptionist at the nut house where I was two years ago and she remembered me. It wasn't long before the rest of the staff knew about my stay at the funny farm.

What are my options? Move to another town maybe no one will recognize me? I still have to take my stained license with me. Drop my Nurse title and become something else...maybe a...a...ummm I have no idea!

According to my plan, I should be done with grad school by now opening up a practice. Instead I'm starting from scratch. It is REFRESHING. How many people get a do over?

Little punching seizures

I ran out of my crazy meds on Thursday. Actually, It's just Paxil, an antidepressant. I've been on it for many, many years. My shrink has told me not to let it run out because it can cause seizures to just go cold turkey off these kind of medications. Ya ok, I know this cuz I done time as a psyc nurse, I read all the info on Paxil and wrote more than my share of papers on SSRI's when I was going to grad school.

Do you think this Bipolar Nurse  listens? Well ya. Most of the time.

The shrink tells me that Paxil is one of the toughes SSRI's to come off of and I need to be weaned if "we" want to try something else. No, I don't want to come off of it. It has been the only one that has kinda sort of kept me out of the grips of depression, along with mood stabilizers to stabilize my stable instability.

There was a day not too long ago I was taking serious meds we give our seriously mentally ill patients. Medications (all at one time, as in scheduled) like Geodon, Seroquel, Klonopin, Lithium, Depakote trazadone and other scary sounding meds.
Anyway, when I have stopped taking Paxil in the past for more that a couple of days I get little shocks. I can't describe them. It's almost like my vision jumps to one side, my body punches me back a couple of seconds, all while sitting completely still. I don't lose consciousness and I realize it's happening and what's going on around me. I'm calling them my punching seizures. i really don't know if they really are the start of a seizure because I've never had one. I do notice they come easier and faster each time I don't refill my meds. Oh and the nausea, the only nausea that's acceptable is one that comes on after too much drinking.

My meds as of yesterday are on auto refill. I give in.

Oh and also, it's a lie. Having mental illness is nothing like having high blood pressure or diabetes. Yes, you take medication for the rest of your life. There has to be lifestyle changes for these such as rest, exercise and even proper diet. That's where the comparison ends.
The difference is that when you tell someone that you are affected (should I say infested?) with mental illness the words UNSTABLE are stamped on your forehead. The stigma lives on. Within the professional community as well. Invisible obstacles are placed where there were none before.

I have tried to "learn life" after coming back from my crazy (a severly manic episode) but have found it difficult without admitting that I am/have been crazy. I still feel a little weird or maybe think everyone can "see" that I am just a little off, not right. Meds make me feel dim, stupid, for sure forgetful and tired.

This is where I'm going with this. I warn you it may get dark before it gets brighter. It's not going to be easy.

I'm Perfect

In every way, I'm perfect. Perfection is defined by me.
I cannot make mistakes. Mistakes terrify me. The world may implode
may I ever make a mistake. Of course I won't because I am Perfect. My sister
would always tell me so. Little Ms. Perfect, she would call me. I think she
was jealous, still is if you ask me.

If someone, ever points out that I could be mistaken, incomplete or short on details
I become very. very upset. Poised. But upset. My head silently blows into a million pieces.
My heart pounds out of every artery. I smile. I ask "really? " I blink quickly to pull back my tears
of anger. My thoughts of my shattered mind race. How is this possible, how could I have let this slip, why didn't I prepare. I feel the need to scream, go into a violent rage, instead I stand there staring blankly, with a stupid grin. Then I shut down.

Taking the the perceived criticism. I should have done it better. I failed. My perfection is flawed.
My frosting is cracked. My botox needs renewing. My polish is chipped. I have a cavity.