Chicken or Egg

Last night I managed to sleep from about 5:00am to 6:00am. Consequently nauseous when I got up. Fortunately the husband told me to stay home and rest today. In between the rather fitful bouts of sleep, I did some research on sleeplessness and bipolar. Although most researchers do link the two, there does not seem to be a consensus. Does the sleeplessness bring on the mood swings? Or is it the result of mood swings? As for me, I don't care which causes which at this point. I just want some normal sleeping patterns. I want to sleep the undrugged sleep of.... oh, of a cat for 8 hours a night.

It's Back

It has been a remarkable run. Almost 11 months of feeling good and normal. As anyone who has suffered from a mood disorder knows, that kind of break from the cycle is a gift. And use the gift I did. I accomplished long postponed goals and tasks both personally and professionally. I reconnected with friends. I worked through some personal demons (kind of). But my period of grace is over. The cycle has started again. I knew it would intellectually, but emotionally I hoped that maybe this time it wouldn’t.

It started like it usually does, with an interruption in my normal sleep cycle. Starting about a month ago, I stopped sleeping the night through. I had “middle insomnia”. I wake between 2:00 and 3:30am with a start, suddenly and violently wide awake. It takes at least an hour, often more to fall back asleep. Sometimes, I just give up and get up. Amazingly enough I was able to continue this for a whole month before the inevitable swing began. Not that I didn’t fight and claw at the edge to stay stable.

I am proud to say that I didn’t self medicate with alcohol having (finally) learned that simply speeds the cycle. I did try O.T.C. remedies. Nyquil was a friend for a while. Then Vicodin. Then the standby and usually the best solution, marijuana. But, once on the slippery slope of Bipolar depression, I know I just have to ride it out and hope that I will make it though again without invoking the Final Solution.

I wish I could, like Bronze John, be helped by medication and the medical community. However, being in the States and self-employed, self-insured, this is not an option. In fact, my insurance company specifically excludes any mental health care, this despite the law in Washington State which requires insurance to cover mental illness. So I must hide my illness like the dirty little secret it is, or I risk losing the lousy coverage I do have. I know that at some point in the next 4 to 6 months, I will probably be in a place where I should be closely monitored. I know that despite my best intentions of telling my husband what is going on, I will begin to hide my feelings. I will begin to plan and calculate and make preparations. And since at that point I will really want to die, I won’t want anyone to know lest they stop me.

I am afraid. I am at the top of the rollercoaster looking down the long drop and my safety bar is not in place. I know what is going to happen and I am powerless to stop it. I hate being out of control. I hate knowing my doom and having time to anticipate the pain and despair. Some part of my wants to give up now. Some part of me is tired of the inevitable fight.

Sorry about the bitch session. I know it is useless to feel sorry for myself. But right now I am in mourning for that which I will lose. I really did hope that it was over after such a long break and the realization that I was deluding myself has been rather devastating.

Business And A Birthday

So we finally decided to do it. Talked about it for a long, long time. Prepared for an equally extensive period. Now we are actually going to do it. Sugar Daddy and I are going to buy sad and depressed houses to fix up and sell. This is no Trading Spaces, slap a coat of paint and we are done, kind of venture. No, this is the gut the entire interior of a home and rebuild it. We have the experience. We even have the money. Now we just need the property.

I am hopeful on so many levels. First, this will give us the opportunity to bypass the customer. Not all customers are bad, but the women who spend 11 days agonizing over just the right shade of eggshell white paint drive me crazier. The men who look at laminate samples and begin to hyperventillate because there are too many choices make me sigh. People who want the start their remodel tomorrow but who cannot be bothered to chose materials for another 6 or 7 weeks drive me to drink. Ah, to bypass the customer. To look at Sugar Daddy and know that we can do what is impossible for so many, make a decision!

I also think this will be good for me mentally. When I need the time off because I just can't see the point in living and breathing at the moment, I will be able to take the mental health day, or week, or month.... When I am happy and full of energy, I can work 12 to 16 hour days, 7 days a week, without intruding on a customer's family time in the evenings and on weekends.

I can create. I love to create. I will build. I will mold spaces into functional and fun living areas.

We hope to purchase our first forclosure this Friday or next.

But first, a birthday on Saturday.

Breathing

It has been a long time. So long that I imagine that any and all who where reading my blatherings have long since ceased. So I shall continue in the manner I started, talking to myself.

Life has been good, very good. Early winter was tough, but not as tough as it has been, certainly not with the severity of last year. No voices. No suicidally black depressions. Not too many crippling depressed days. Mostly I felt this strange feeling. Actually it was a lack of feeling. A huge weight gone from my heart and mind. I finally realized it was feeling good. I understand that some people feel like that all the time. That must be incredible. No wonder most people do not understand, and are not drawn to suicide. When I feel like this, I don't want to die. Very groovy.

So much to update on. I think I will update in bits and pieces.

Sugar Daddy (the man formally, and still, known as my husband) and I have been doing great. Lots of talking. Lots of affection and intimacy. Lots of all that other good stuff. Little to say because good news doesn't always make interesting news. We have started talking about the "B" word. This is unfair I know. When we got together I was completely against the idea of having any babies. But now, when I feel good, the idea has it's appeal. More later.

Lost a friend. This was sad, and I probably should have seen it coming, but I was blind. My next door neighbor, who had been such a rock and friend, got drunk and propositioned me. I, of course declined. Not only am I totally faithful to Sugar Daddy, but if I was going to stray, next door neighbor guy would never come close to making the list. I told Sugar Daddy and we decided to let it go. After all next door neighbor was drunk and had been a good friend. But next door neighbor decided he needed (his word) to pursue this feeling. Sugar Daddy and I finally had to tell his to buzz off and never return. Very sad. But a good lesson learned. Never trust single men to be friends. That should be obvious I know, but sometimes I can be so naive.

Gained an old friend back. This is fantastic. Best friend from high-school. We drifted apart and now have gotten back together. Assuredly more later.

Now, back to taxes. It can't all be fun and games.

Banishment, Now This Will Only Hurt A Little

I sit in my office, the converted garage. The Boy is soon home from work, and I cannot be present. The Boy my husband are working on having a civil relationship. Mainly this means that The Boy pretends to be human and I disappear from the house during waking hours so that my husband can try to communicate the nuances of social niceties to him (so instead of grunting, try saying "Hi").

This results in banishment. My banishment. I am only slightly resentful.

But, the summer is beautiful, the hallucinations are few, the voices are gone. and life is OK if not good. And it really seems to be working. The Boy has become more human over the last week or so. Only 49 more weeks to go.....

Sorry that the posting has been few and far between. The more "normal" I feel, the less compulsion I have to whine to the world at large about my life. And god, does it ever feel good to feel good. I wish it would last more than a few weeks or months. Right now my only complaint is allergies and severe insomnia (still). I haven't slept the night through since October. Up between 2:00am and 3:30am for 1 to 3 hours. I feel too tired to do anything, but too awake to sleep. I hate taking narcotics or soporifics. See, there I go whining again....

Still Alive

To any of those out there who are still checking my blog despite my long absence, I apologize for said long absence.

But it has been a relatively good thing. I have been feeling... normal. Lots of energy, clarity of thought, normal swing of emotions, objectivity (or a sort) about things going on around me as well as a marked decline in any interest in self-medicating with copious quantities of alcohol or Other. Consequently I have been trying to catch up on all the duties I have neglected for the past 8 months or so. Paperwork, here I come.

I have refinanced the house, prepared (mostly) the business tax return for last year (you know, the one due on March 15) and sorted and filed 15 months worth of personal receipts. Finishing paperwork always feels like a Herculean accomplishment after it has been neglected for so long.

The Boy has been visiting with his mother for the last week, and will be gone for another week. This has given me a much needed respite. I hope this time apart allows all the parties involved to gain a little perspective. I think we need to fundamentally change our methods of communication. I believe we have gotten into bad habits of talking. We are so on guard against what the other may say that even the friendly volleys we exchange are tense, and every phrase is over-examined for any meaning that may be derogatory. Thus it is easy for "Hi, how ya doing?" to be construed as an attack. Well, maybe not easy, but it certainly does not stop The Boy from seeing it as an attack.

I hope to change that when he returns home next week. I hope we can get things back to the way they were. He can be a charming teenager when he chooses, and the rest of the time he is a less than charming teen.

I have arranged with a girlfriend for lodging if things get bad. I told my husband that I would spend a few days with her if it looked like things weren't getting any better. I hope this allows the boys some time to interact one on one without the evil step-mom being in the way. I hope that this wide-angle, shotgun buckshot approach can work. More later.

Sex

I've been blessed with great sex for the past few days. Hooray for me! My husband has been acting the big stud, and I am quite convinced. Of course it helps that The Boy has been working and we have had some uninterrupted hours in which to play. Gotta love adult play time.

I did not get very into sex until I was with the man who is now my husband. We started our relationship kind of as a one night stand of exceptional and prolonged activity. Then I came back for more, and more. My first marriage was on the rocks after my ex's disclosure of pedophilia, so I never even felt guilty about carrying on an affair. So gentlepeople (and those not so gentle) it does go to show you that fantastic sex and extramarital affairs can lead to committed relationships.

Of course, after the initial explosion of constant, wanton sex, we did slow down. Once the kids moved in with us it got even more rare. But it was always good. For a while I was on Paxil for depression. This was before my pdoc figured out that I was bipolar. For those who are not familiar, treatment with SSRI anti-depressants and no mood stabilizer for someone with bipolar disorder can push said patient into rapid-cycling. Lucky me. So now, instead of a fairly predictable cycle of depression and mania, I have these very unpredictable and mixed episodes. So much fun. But back to the sex.....

On Paxil I was completely without sex drive. I remember breaking down and crying one day and explaining to my husband that I understood if he needed to pursue a sexual relationship outside of our marriage because I was completely incapable of fulfilling his needs. He just held me quietly for a moment before he kissed me tenderly and assured me that he had no problem waiting until I was ready. And eventually, after stopping the Paxil (and suffering a week of hellish withdrawal) we had a marathon weekend of sex, as my sex drive came back with a vengeance.

So sex has been on again, off again with us mostly because of my bipolar disorder. When I am down I have very little sex drive. But when I am manic I am insatiable, and crazy. But you can't have it all.

Right now, I am un-medicated and the sex has been fantastic. Well, not completely un-medicated. The Herb has been my friend, keeps the highs and the lows away much more effectively than lithium ever did. Lets me sleep too. Without any medication I lay awake, sometimes all night long. I have gone for months without sleeping the night through. I have gone for several weeks several time without any sleep. That is a very surreal experience. But I am getting off topic yet again...

But wait... so much writing.... not enough activity....

The Conversation

Had a talk with My Friend And Neighbor Next Door (Foliwoman allow me to use your fantastic method of initializing people's names) MFANND. Over a couple of margaritas for me and rum and cokes for him, the discussion became animated. I do love a good debate.

He took the position that there is a life after this one, and that influences his decision to live a good life. Naturally, I had to take the opposite view that there is nothing after this life. I live a good life because I want to, because I choose to and because it makes me feel go to do so. As the discussion continued MFANND get agitated and even upset that I did not believe in any afterlife or god. He suddenly stopped and said "Now, I know why you want to die.... you have no hope."

Well, OK, maybe that is true. I suppose one reason that religion is so successful in all it's permeations is that it is intolerable for most of us to believe that this is all there is. We need a reason to do good. We need to believe that all of the evil in the world, children dying, rape, murder and injustice will somehow be atoned for in some glorious and happy afterlife where the good will be rewarded and evil punished. It is appealing. But just because we wish it to be so, does not make it so. Religion was created by man as a way to control other men. You will behave because the god(s) are watching. Even if you get away with evil in this world, god will get you in the next because god sees all. How appealing. How controlling. A perfect social engineering solution. Never to be proven, or more importantly, disproved.

But, does not believing in god and the afterlife cause one to have a surfeit of hope? Is that why I place such a small value on my life? Is that why suicide is constantly on my mind as an acceptable and normal solution? Hmmmmmmmm, something to think about.

One Week To Go

I gave my husband a deadline a month an a half ago. If things do not improve with The Boy, I am moving out. Not in a separation prior to divorce moving out. No this was to be a refuge, a home away from home. I needed a place I could go when I just couldn't handle The Boy anymore.

I know, I know, it is a bad thing. I am weak. But in my defense, at the time I felt very unstable mentally. I have always struggled with my mental illness and had gotten to the point, yet again, where suicide was looking oh so inviting. I thought that maybe a place of refuge would help me avoid that particular low spot in my life. Needless to say, and yet I say it anyway, my husband was not in favor of the idea.

So it is one week to go. Things are looking up. The Boy is becoming more like a human being and less like an angry orc. He really is a fantastic human being when he chooses to be. I guess he is really a fine orc as well, if you like the orc thing. Me, I'm not really into the orc thing. I prefer cats. Much more cuddly.