No Confidence

Sometimes I ooze confidence . I don't know why, it just happens. Other times I am so insecure it makes me physically sick. 

At the moment my confidence is at an all time low and I'm finding it hard to do stuff that I've done hundreds of times before, without it being a huge issue. Driving is a prime example. I've been driving for over twenty years. I've never had a major accident or got into any trouble yet every time I get in the car lately I feel anxious. Yesterday I sat in my car for two hours because someone had parked too close to me and I thought I couldn't get out. How ridiculous and what a waste of time. All I kept thinking was that I'd hit the car in front, I'd make an idiot of myself, I'd get my car stuck, I'd have a panic attack. The list of stupid reasons why I couldn't do it grew the more I thought about it.  Luckily the other car moved or I might have been there all night. I don't know what I would have done. It really makes me feel stupid as on a different day I would have just driven off without even thinking about it.

I'm trying so hard to carry on with normality. If I let these feelings get the better of me then I won't be able to function. I don't know if its a phase or wether I need my medication reviewed. Whatever it is its not normal. I feel panicky and shaky and am having the most bizarre thoughts. I've convinced myself that my front tooth is going to crack. Where that came from I don't know but I am terrified to look in the mirror.

I  feel sure that my flat is going to get burgled , so I really shouldn't leave it. I'm going to have another heart attack. I'm going to go blind. All the time thoughts that make me feel scared.

Work is a real nightmare. I am petrified that something is going to happen. It's turned from something I love doing into something I dread. I've probably hoisted thousands of people over the years but the thought of using the hoist now is so frightening. I've convinced myself that I can't do things that I know I can do. 

I'm having to use all my strength to keep going. It would be so easy to call in sick and just stay indoors. I probably would have done that a few months ago but I'm determined to try and work my way through it. I can't rely on anyone else to get by.

I've made an appointment with my care coordinator and will try to get to see my psychiatrist. That's all I can do.

We're all going to die one day

I've been thinking a lot about dying lately. In fact it's been on my mind almost constantly for the last 3 days. I am convinced I'm not going get much past sixty. It doesn't bother me. I want to die before I get too old. I don't want to get so I can't do things for myself. I don't want to end up on my own in some old people's home.

I feel sure that at some point in the not too distant future I'm going to lose it completely and not have the strength to get it back. Maybe if I go completely mental I won't even realise it and I'll be oblivious to it all but maybe I will realise and that really scares me. I've read that bipolar can get worse with age and that's something I really can't face. 

I know getting old is inevitable but it's creeping up fast and it's making me feel bad. 

This has been a stressful year so far and I'm paying the price physically as well as mentally. It's getting harder and harder to keep myself fit and when I look in the mirror I just want to cry. I've always taken pride in my appearance and I've always kept physically in shape and its hard to see changes that I can't do anything about or haven't got the energy to do anything about. I'm sure I'm not alone in how I feel but I can't help thinking that no one is going to want me in the state I'm in. I doubt anyone is going to find me attractive anymore. I really would rather be dead than stuck here on my own. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I'm just stating a fact.

Of course if I was with someone it would be easier to face. I always thought I'd still be married when I was old and that's one thing that really upsets me about splitting up. 

Dying doesn't scare me half as much as being old and lonely or old and ill.
I'm not thinking about death because I'm depressed. That's a different thing altogether. There have been times when I've not been well and death seems like the only option available or the only solution to all my problems. There have been times when I have felt dead inside but that's not how I feel now.
Right now I don't want to die, I'm just talking about the future and how I see things. I'm not really being morbid, well I don't think I am. Statistically I'm more likely to die younger so I might as well be prepared. 

Pretending

I spend a huge amount of my time pretending I'm fine when I'm not. I don't know if it would be classed as lying...though sometimes I admit I've told some real porkers! It's bloody hard work being me at times and sometimes I pretend I'm someone else.  If I acted out how I really felt on a daily basis then probably no one would ever talk to me again. I'm sure we all do it. We all put on different masks for different situations. Most people would describe me as a happy person. Someone at work commented that they've never seen someone smile so much. It's easier to smile and let people think you're ok than try and explain why you're not. People don't want to know anyway. I know people that always moan and come across as miserable and I avoid them like the plague. If I try to come across as happy then sometimes it rubs off and I actually start to feel happier. I don't want to be miserable and I don't want to be a negative person, which is why it's so hard sometimes. My mind is constantly battling to stay on top. It would be so easy to just say fuck it and give up. I think I'd easily turn into some kind of hermit. It's not that I don't enjoy anything. Of course I do . It's just that unfortunately my moods mean that I spend more time depressed than high. I don't want people to get fed up with me so I pretend to be happy.

I've decided that I'm way too negative lately. I've been trying to think positive thoughts and do you know what? It's really helping to lift my mood. I've been trying to think about the good things in my life in the hope that I can bury the negatives. Every time I think of something bad I try to think of something good to balance it out. It's not easy but it seems to work. There's always someone worse off. 

I don't know who wrote this but I can so identify with it. Whoever wrote it is so talented. 

This mask I wear,

She serves me well,

She hides my pain,

So they can’t tell.

They see her smile,

Never my tears,

She shows no sorrow,

She fights all my fears.

They believe she is me,

If only they knew,

That she is my mask,

My saviour too.

My scars she hides,

Behind laughter and lies,

She says that she’s fine,

But slowly she dies....

Bad news......again

Sometimes I think to myself, surely that's it for the bad news? Surely nothing else bad can happen in such a short space of time? Wishful thinking. This time I get a phone call to say my son is in prison. I'm in shock. I shouldn't be but I am. He's in prison for four months. That's it, that's all I know. 

If I think about it , I shouldn't be that surprised. He even told me a few months ago that he wanted to go to prison. He thought it would "sort him out" . He thought it would force him to get off the drugs.... a type of enforced rehab. Now we're going to find out.

I don't know what to think. I don't know a thing about prison. 

I don't even know what he's done. I don't know wether to cry, feel sorry for him or be cross with him. Probably a bit of everything. I can't get the thought of him miles away, alone and scared, and it's breaking my heart.

There's absolutely nothing I can do this time. Maybe it's for the best. All I can do is try to get on with things without letting it affect me and be there when he gets out. Trouble is I can't just forget it. It's there in the back of my mind. I want to run away. I want someone else to step into my shoes and sort it all out. I've had enough.

Can't Switch My Brain Off!

Can't switch my brain off!

It's not necessarily a bad thing because I'm actually in a good mood. It's just that my mind is so full of everything and anything I think I'm going to be wide awake all night. I have had a great day today and by rights I should be knackered. I really should try and do something calming like have a bath or listen to some quiet music but I can't , well I don't want to. I love this feeling. I rarely feel really happy so I'm not going to let it pass too quickly. Of course I know I'm probably going to get hypomanic but I really need it. I'll just have to be wary that it doesn't get out of hand. I need to do so much and this will give me the edge I need. I'm writing lists for everything...don't want to miss anything out. I get so much more done when I'm in this mood. I need to do stuff that ordinarily seems tedious and boring. I need to catch up with people I haven't seen for a while, buy a new car ( been meaning to for months), sort out my finances, start painting again....another thing I've been wanting to do for about a million years, sort stuff out for a boot sale, read the book I've had for months, do some research for work and loads more. The only reason I'm sitting down to write this is because its 3 o'clock in the morning and there's no one to talk to. That's another thing , I need to make some phone calls , you know the ones you have to make but mostly can't be arsed. I'm in the mood to chat. I need to find someone to talk to. I sure I can find someone online who wants to chat. Oh how I love the Internet :-) 

I need to make the most of this. What goes up always comes down so I need to do as much as I can before it passes. I'm always good at multi tasking when I'm a bit high so I want to fit in as much as possible. I can do in a day what normally takes me a week. I really could do with sex too ! Might need to call on a friend :-) 

I  should try to get some sleep but I'm not tired anyway. I'm up and down out of the chair like a yo-yo . Lol, I reckon I've got ants in my pants! 

One thing I have learned is that if I act quickly enough,  I can have some control over this. If I don't sleep tomorrow night either,  then I have to take some sleeping pills. If not I know I'll just get more and more hyper and end up doing stupid things like spending loads of money on crap. Trouble is I don't want to calm myself down just yet. I'm enjoying things I don't usually enjoy so much. I'm loving driving at the moment. I know I'm probably going a bit faster than normal but at least I feel confident. That's what I relish....feeling confident. 

I just need to stay focused and mindful of how I'm feeling. 

There are times when I've started feeling way out of control. I usually have reasonable insight into my moods but I can't always deal with it. If I'm not sleeping and my spending is going haywire and I know I'm doing it but can't stop then things are not right and I'm heading for a major upset. When I look back some things just seem dead funny...of course it's not but if you don't see the funny side, what's the point? I can't change the past but I have learned from it. When I was at my worst I spent thousands of pounds on eBay in a very short time. It kept me occupied and it was fun bidding on stuff and winning. One night I decided I needed a cardigan. I ended up with eighteen, lol, one in every colour you could think of. Of course I didn't need them but at the time thought they were essential. Cardigans?..in the middle of summer! I've had collections of all sorts of useless things.90 necklaces ,  24 roll on deodorants, 36 pairs of leggings, 15 fish ornaments...crazy!  Even the postman started making comments. I've even bought the same thing three or four times without realising.   I still have phases but I've made sure I can't get to my money as easily. There are some great advantages to being a bit high but without care things can turn into obsessions. I definitely take more risks when I'm like that. I'm surprised I haven't ended up in a ditch in the middle of the night. Driving around at full speed in my pyjamas, with the music at full volume is not something I normally do. It scares me now,  but not at the time. 

What I'd hate is to lose that sense of excitement completely. I don't want to be so drugged up that I lose my personality. Bipolar or not, I'm still a bit scatty and that's how I want to stay.  

Thankfully I'm not that bad at the moment and I'm going to do the sensible thing and take some sleeping tablets tomorrow night ....well, maybe. 

So £550 to stop my son from being evicted. Something I could have done without but something I had no choice but to pay. If I think about it I might as well have flushed my money down the toilet along with the thousands of pounds I've already given him over the years. Every time I help out I want to believe things will be different but deep down I know I'm just prolonging the inevitable. Nothing will ever change until he makes the decision to stop using drugs. It doesn't matter what I do, making the decision to stop is something only he can do. 

Maybe the thought of being homeless again will scare him into doing something. Maybe I should have let him become homeless. I can only do what I think is right at the time . When you've got your only child begging for your help its impossible to ignore. Maybe if I'd have been tougher from the start he wouldn't rely on me so much. The trouble is he knows that whatever mess he gets into I'm going to bail him out. If I could go back in time I would try to be tougher. 

I've decided to give him an ultimatum this time. I've told him he's got a month to sort the flat out and start getting proper help or I will walk away and disown him like his Dad has already done. He says he's going to do something this time and I said I mean it this time. I don't know if I can see it through but I can't let him keep relying on me. I don't think he believes I mean it either. In the next month I'll try and do everything I can to help. I'll help clean the flat. I'll help him sort his finances and I'll  go to any appointments if he wants. Once the month is up I'm going to walk away. It will be up to him then. 

When he was little I used to look at him and almost burst with pride at how amazing he was. I want to be able to do that again one day but most of all I want him to have pride in himself. 

I feel so much better now that I'm back at work. I feel like I have a purpose again. I feel like a "proper" person. I'm loving it, doing something I enjoy and being paid for it...can't be bad! 

The best thing about this new job is that nobody, except for my manager knows anything about me. They have to judge me as I am now. Nothing is clouded by my past. They're not looking for problems like they did at the last place. 

So everything is perfect and everything is fine...I wish. As happy as I am I still find it difficult to cope with it all. It's a constant juggling act to manage being bipolar and getting on with an ordinary life. I'm managing really well but it's tough.  I try not to be negative but I can't help worrying. I'm always wary when things seem too good to be true. 

I just can't quite believe that something so good could happen to me. Maybe I've conditioned myself into always expecting the worst....that way whatever happens its not such a shock. I know I'm constantly contradicting myself . Last night in bed all I kept thinking was what if someone falls over when I'm treating them. This morning I was grinning from ear to ear just at the thought of going to work. 

Sometimes I do wonder what on earth it's all about. I'm sure we just make things much more complicated  in life than it needs to be. I suppose that's what humans do. When it comes down to basics all you really need is a roof over your head and food.....and money and clothes and friends and work and ........and........ and.....Lol,  oh well. 

I try to take one day at a time but the trouble with me is as soon as I've got through one I'm worrying about the next. I had a great day today so by rights I should be relaxing and enjoying it but oh no I'm worrying about what might go wrong tomorrow .....what if I don't get up in the morning? What if I'm late for work? What if the car breaks down? What if I don't hear from my friend? What if...... Then when there's nothing left to worry about tomorrow I start worrying about the weekend and the following week. Before I know it I'm worrying about my holiday, which is not for three months. Then I'm worrying about the future and what will happen when I get old. I wish I could just take a chill pill and forget it all. Of course I already take chill pills! God knows what I'd be like if I didn't. Maybe I need to try and fill my time up more. I think I have to face facts that relaxing  is not something I can do. 

It's funny. I just read this back and realised I've pretty much repeated myself from a previous blog. Must be true then....either that or I'm going insane !

The last few days have given me a bit of a reality check. When everything is going well , even though I can't forget it completely, I can put the fact that I have bipolar on the back burner. It's not something you can just forget but it is manageable and not so all consuming when things are just plodding along. There always seems to be something though . 

I changed one of my medications after my heart attack because its really not good for the heart. My new medication was fine to start but then it started making me twitch...bloody hell . I can put up with a lot of things but having a non stop twitchy leg is enough to drive anyone crazy. Besides it made me look and feel like a freak too. In my wisdom I decided to just stop the tablets. That was great for a while . The twitching stopped and I felt ok. That's when I get complaisant and think I can cope without meds. Of course it then always turns to shit. I took a complete nosedive and ended up a snivelling wreck. I put myself back on the tabs and within three or four days I feel fine again. I find it frightening and very frustrating that I can't manage without one tiny little pill.I'll have to see if my psychiatrist can change it for something less twitchy....that's when the fun will start. They don't seem to realise that some of the side effects actually make things worse. If I end up not sleeping properly because I'm twitching , it's going to have a knock on effect. It seems pretty basic to me. 

I've seen a few psychiatrists in my time. I'd like to think they know what they're doing but I'm sure a few are more batty than I am! Take the last woman I saw. For a start she looked like she'd been  shoved through a hedge backwards. She seemed more nervous than I did and couldn't give me eye contact. She then wrote a report that was utter crap. When I get one like that I just pretend everything is ok. They normally try to mess about with my meds and bleat on about recognising the signs of relapse. I just smile sweetly , refuse any changes and hope my regular psychiatrist is back the next time. Of course if I'm feeling really bad it's not so easy. I suppose they can only go by what you tell them.

I like my usual psychiatrist. He listens to what I say. He still likes to try and muck about with my medication but he will be reasonable. I don't know what it is about psychiatrists and medication. They seem obsessed.

I guess I'd be in a real mess without help. 

I consider myself one of the lucky ones with the help I get now. Once I was properly diagnosed I was assigned a care-coordinator . The first guy I had was amazing. He pretty much saved my life. He taught me how to manage my illness. He taught me everything I needed to know about being bipolar and he helped me get a life back. 

I am lucky to have good healthcare but the reality is that when it boils down to it I have to take responsibility for myself and that's hard. No different to anyone else I suppose. 

What do I do? 
So I haven't seen or heard from my son for over two weeks. I've tried ringing him but his phone is either off or no answer. It's nothing unusual. If I don't keep in touch I doubt I'd ever see him. I'm sure he doesn't mean it. I suppose he's not even with it half the time. 

I try my best to do what I can but its a bit like banging your head against a brick wall. 

I know he's got a hard life but it hurts when I get pushed out. I know I haven't always been the best Mum in the world but I've always been there if I can. 

He's not a bad person. He just took the wrong path and now he's paying for it. It's not for me to say how he lives his life. I just wish he was happy. I know he's not. I can see it in his eyes. 

If I just turn up on his doorstep I know he won't let me in and I know it's because of the state of the place. 

When he first moved into his flat with his girlfriend I really thought it would turn their lives around and give them the motivation to get on in life. They'd been homeless for six months and had been staying in a caravan in someone's garden. They had no water or electric and only a few clothes in carrier bags. I used to let them come to mine for a bath. I never realised how bad it was for them. I don't know what I thought they were doing. The flat needed everything when they moved in. I spent a small fortune getting them the essentials....cooker, washing machine, carpets, bedding.....well everything. It looked lovely and I thought things would just get better. I thought he was off the drugs and I thought he was settled. 

It didn't take long....only a few months for the place to become a complete shit hole. Sounds harsh but that's the only way I can describe it. I don't know why they choose to live like that. It's not really my business so I can't say much. I have tried to help them sort it a few times but it just ends up the same. It's hard to describe .  It's just a filthy, smelly, mess. I would love to take my mum and dad to visit but I'd be too ashamed. 

I know he's ashamed too, which is why he wont let me in unless he knows I'm coming so he can clear up a bit. He was always a bit like me when he was younger, clean, tidy and maybe a bit obsessed with having things just right. I guess that being apathetic is one of the side effects of using heroin.

He never looks well. He's so skinny and pale. He's only 27 and should be in his prime but looks like he's got the whole world on his shoulders. It breaks my heart. 

So now I get a phone call on a Friday night just as I'm about to go out of the door telling me he's going to be evicted next week. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I don't know where this has come from and I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to make it right. He's virtually pleading with me to help but I really don't have a clue. I need to think about it. This always happens. He gets himself into shit and expects me to pick up the pieces. I'll have to try and do something , I am his Mum.