Coming to Terms...

only have about an hour of quiet left before John comes home and fills the house with his loud voice and exuberance. I'm not upset, and I actually miss him when he's not here. It's just nice, after spending every other day surrounded by people who need something from me to be home, even when I know I should be doing something else, and just take the time to blog and to read a book and to lay in the sun when I should be mowing the lawn or cleaning.

I was diagnosed bi-polar about 3 weeks ago. I know that the diagnosis doesn't change who I am and it doesn't change what I have always dealt with. Realistically, it should be a good thing, putting a name to the disorder that I know has always made it harder for me to function than the other "normal" people around me, and maybe gives me insight into what I do and why I have done it. I started a medication that the doctor says will take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to really kick in, and says in that time I should be aware of increased irritation and feelings of isolation, or disconnection, and a possible increase in clumsiness or lack of awareness of my surroundings or space.

My mind is jumping all over the place, now that I'm sitting down to write about it. I've wanted to write about it for weeks, but how to do it? What to say about something that comes with such stigma? Should I keep it a secret? Should I be embarrassed? Why should it be different with my diagnosis than with John's? See, I have spent the last 4 years of my life fighting this disease for John. I have cried for lack of understanding him or his motivators, railed against his former inability to take his medication or manage his disease (managing is still a point of contention in this house) and sobbed when I finally realized that his disease is something I can't fix. He has a disease that literally EATS HOLES IN HIS BRAIN if it's not managed. EATS HOLES.

Brain damage evidence in bipolar patients

brain damage from bipolar disorder

That's scary to me, like really, truly scary. And then I think of some of the people that I KNOW are bi-polar, and I feel like they were much more reasonable and rational and functional when I met them years ago, and I have watched them deteriorate without medication over the years.

And then I think of me.

I was diagnosed as ADD when I was very young. And in High School I wasn't on ADD meds, I was depressed. So they put me on anti-depressants. As I was talking to the psychiatrist, it occurs to me that for someone with a fairly vivid memory for people and conversations, I cannot remember when events happened or recall large blocks of time from adolescence or earlier. I remember periods of time when I was on anti-depressants when I didn't sleep, when I worked 3 jobs, when I became obsessed with one thing or another: sex, reading, writing, blogging, crafting, drinking.... I think about all that and then the brain damage research and think "My god, what if in High School I was actually presenting with bipolar disorder and I've now gone 17 years without medication... what must my brain look like?" I start thinking about my inability to remember a schedule, the fact that I lose my keys several times a day, the way I have to put everything in the same pockets of my purse every time and put my purse in the same place every time or I will misplace everything and freak out while trying to find it... I think about the holes that might be in my brain and the diagnosis i just got and I am so terrified that I can't breathe.

This diagnosis is, in reality, just a beginning to help me be more functional, less crippled by anxiety, able to enjoy the wonderful life that sometimes I know I have. But it feels like a death sentence. My disease can't be fixed. My disease can't be cured. It could be possible that my disease will make it impossible for me to think about having children, something I have always wanted so very desperately. One night, in the middle of a fight with John, it came out that the real issue we were fighting about was that he is in pain every day and I can't fix it, can't make it better, and that sometimes I need him to be okay and he's not. That was the day I admitted I hated his disease, and admitted that I couldn't fix it, couldn't fix him, couldn't make this better. I have been telling him for years that if a diabetic were to say "I am embarrassed to be diabetic and so I will not take my insulin" or if a heart patient were to say "I am ashamed that I had a heart attack and so I will not take this heart medication", everyone from the doctor to the next door neighbor would tell that person they are foolish, that the medication is there for a reason, that they should take it and not think twice. I have been telling John and my other bipolar friends for years this very same thing, that there is no shame in taking medication to make yourself better, and that the meds are there to make sure life can be lived and enjoyed. And then it comes to me and I am full of shame and I am full of pride. "I have been coping for this long" I think to myself, "why do I need to take expensive medication to do the same thing my coping mechanisms and systems do? I can live a normal life." I become a hypocrite of the worst order. I tell my husband and other people that there is no shame in medication while I run scared from seeking actual treatment because I suspect this makes me weak or less than capable, or that people will see me and instantly, every bad thing anyone has ever said or thought about me becomes true: I am crazy. "Everyone around me is crazy, it's all relative" I tell myself. "Look at how many accomplished and artistic people with beautiful minds are bipolar" I tell myself. "Look at John, you love him to distraction and he drives you crazy, and you are better equipped to handle rapid change and HE is coping with this" I tell myself. In the end, the arguments and logic don't matter.

I have a few statements that I keep returning to until I train myself to be otherwise:

I have bipolar, and that means I am sick. If I am sick, it means that both John and I are sick. If both John and I are sick, we will not be able to survive, to function, to thrive. If both John and I are sick, it means that our marriage will fail and we will collapse all we have built.

If both John and I are sick, we can never, ever, have children.

If I am bipolar, I am somehow less than I have been, less than I am. If I am bipolar, I am not the capable woman I have been fighting with all my guts and spunk and terror to be, I am an imposter. If I have bipolar, I cannot ever be normal.

These things are not true, my head knows that. My head knows that I need to take my medication, even though it makes me snap at John, and the last few days it has made me not want to talk to Courtney or Chase, and it has made John and I have stupid fights where he doesn't sleep next to me, and it has made me clumsy enough to fall off a friend's porch in her patio chair directly into her rosebush and completely destroy it, and it has made me drop a gallon of milk at work and knock my knee and shin so hard on a rock in the lake that I will have bruises for a few weeks.

I hate my diagnosis, and I feel like it was so life changing, and I haven't really come to terms with it or what it means for me or how I will be perceived when I tell other people.

I don't know, how should I feel about this? I'm lucky in that I have for support a mother-in-law who comes over at a moment's notice when something is wrong who has now devoted most of her spare time to helping people with bipolar learn to function. I have great resources in John's family, and I am hoping that my family will also be accepting, if I can ever get ahold of them. It's been 3 weeks and I still haven't been able to tell them because I can't get any of them on the phone and it's not really something you put in a text or email. "So, hi, you know how I told you I went to a psychiatrist and I got a diagnosis and I left you a message to tell you I wanted to talk to you? Well, I still haven't been able to actually get in touch with you, so just wanted to let you know I'm bipolar." That, somehow, seems like such a flippant way to handle it, but I don't know. Maybe I should just send an email and be done with it. How personal.

All I know is that the sun is shining and I can't remember anything today, and I don't want to be around people because this morning I realized I have like 3 friends I could call when I have a morning free and two of them were busy ignoring my phone calls and one was just plain busy and instead of having a healthy normal person reaction of "oh well, I get time to myself, YAY!" I was all "nobody likes me, I'm going to sit here on this couch for the next 3 hours and see if anyone calls me back and if no one does I'm going to get really pouty and crappy and take myself to breakfast and whine."

So, that's what has been up with me.