Another day, another chance to shine. Or not to shine. I guess it all just depends. I realize more and more every day just how short, precious and fleeting life is. As I approach my thirtieth birthday I spend more and more time thinking not about the things I have accomplished, but about where I am in this life to launch myself from and where I am going to go. Do I have anywhere to go? Am I trapped by debt and student loans? What about bills and the price of living? All so much. I went to school for 4 years to get a degree I will be paying for for the rest of my life. More than anything I want to go back to school and get my Master's in Public Health in Epidemiology. Then I wouldn't have to worry about money, well after student loans, and I could travel the world and find a job anywhere. If I could do anything that's what I would do, but I'm stuck. I can't afford to work and go to school or take out more student loans on top of all my other bills. I have to take the GRE as well before I can even apply. It's been years since I was exposed to this math back in high school. It's tedious and time consuming and I get frustrated and never even start studying.
I feel stuck, isolated and alone. I don't really have any friends, the ones I had I have pushed away - mostly for good reason. I cant take any more unnecessary drama or lying in my life. Some people just need to go no matter who they are. Of course in the end I end up not having anyone to turn to except myself. I have my parents and my brother of course, but there is only so much you can talk to family about. My husband has been my best friend from the moment we met, but even with him for some reason things don't work how they are supposed to. I cant open up and I feel isolated. I want to talk but I can't because either my head cant stop spinning or I know the response I'm going to get - the same as always, sympathy without understanding. I mean how can I expect more from someone who will never understand what it feels like to live with my brain and the chaos that it brings with every waking moment? It's hard to explain to him and even harder for him to underatand. When I feel that fire burning inside, when that anger begins to blind me and take over or when the mania starts to set in I can feel it coming but I don't know how to stop it. I've been trying for so long. Worse than that, it's like I can see a car crash happening with no control over the outcome. My husband used to be able to tell when I was acting like this and he would act preemptively to keep me grounded. He was my lighting rod. Lately though things have changed, mostly because of me.
My husband now will mostly take a step back and let me deal with what I have to deal with. He will see it coming in my eyes and hear it in my tone and either let me have space to implode or give me something to chill me out and hopefully prevent a meltdown. It's not like how he used to come hold me until I stopped shaking, how he would lie in bed with me and hold me while he whispered in my ear until I fell asleep or relaxed completely. It was an amazing thing to have, and it always made me feel like I had someone who understood me and would be there to help me when I needed it most. Because of all I have done though things have begun to change. It's different now. It is as if I have pushed him away through all my manic episodes and attacks of frustration and anger that his only goal now is to make it out the other side alive. I can't really blame him though, I know I can be crazy and irrational, I hate that about myself. I really do. I think in the process of being me and trying to make it through and survive to the next battle I have left myself alone to face the future.
I'm not sure what I feel more guilty about, being a person I hate or making people hate me. Well maybe not hate me, but hate the person I can be. I know I have been mean and cruel unintentionally and it kills me. Especially knowing I do it all the time to the person I love. I don't deserve for him to still be with me, but he is. These feelings have pushed us farther apart as well, we don't talk or share like we used to. We don't tell each other what the other is thinking. It's like walking on eggshells all the time, trying to always do the right thing. Maybe it's all me and how I am perceiving everything? How am I supposed to know, and what am I supposed to do?
Being bi-polar my life is constantly up and down and always has been; even in the best of times I feel the tug of the depression and the mania, sometimes together. Recently they have begun changing all my medications again, this time for my liver and kidney function, but it's like starting all over again learning how to control who I am and how I feel. A lot of people don't understand bi-polar, it's pretty simple - being bi-polar means feeling every emotion on the spectrum to every degree at some point, combined and singularly, so that control feels like an illusion and life feels like a cage with steel bars. The worst part is knowing that you are the cause of all of this, and then the blame and guilt set in. I see myself as the bad guy, as the one causing all of this. Which leads to depression and closing myself of from those I really need. I stop talking because I feel like either no one cares or they are tired of listening. I don't like feeling like a bother, which is just about always. I see myself as a bad person even though I do good things and can help people, I will always feel that the harm I have caused outweighs the good. I feel like I am standing alone on a street corner waiting; waiting for direction, waiting for hope, waiting for inspiration ...waiting for a sign that I am worth it after all. I've left myself standing here alone, no one around to help hold my hand or guide me. Is this the way it's supposed to be? I'm not sure, I've never gotten this right before. Standing here which way do I go? How do I know the right way? Will I ever know? All I can do right now is try to ground myself as much as I can and mindfully press forward toward the next goal I can see, taking it one small step forward at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment