Crazy Bitch

This is something I haven’t generally been open about with most of my own people, let alone the general public, but I had mentioned it in a previous blog entry. It isn’t really related to my gender transition, and I try to stay on topic for the most part. It’s an issue in my life, and a lot of people’s lives though, so I’ll go off topic this once. I’m just talking about this as I experience it here. I’m not going to type out the DSM for you. You can read that yourself if you want “official” information.

I have Bipolar 2 disorder, which is basically “manic-depression” with less of the mania. I don’t remember exactly when I was diagnosed. In my early or middle twenties. Something like that. I was in the hospital (Laureate) for a few days in 2005 for the depression, in 2010 following my deliberate overdose, and more recently after the rape. Most of the time it isn’t so intense as to justify hospitalization, but it has been.

You can thank the media for me generally not talking about it. Bipolar is all the rage right now. When I was younger, it was Attention Deficit Disorder. Everyone was on Ritalin. Now it seems to be Bipolar. Every time someone does something fucked up like shooting strangers in a movie theater, you start hearing the term “bipolar” over and over in the news reports. This makes the stigma associated with the issue that much worse. If you tell someone you have it, sometimes they seem uncomfortable because it probably conjurs up memories of crazies in the news. It’s never occurred to me to go shoot a bunch of people in any state of mind. Maybe that dude didn’t shoot up a movie theater because he has a mood disorder. Maybe he just did it because he’s an asshole.

People also don’t always react in a positive manner. Tell someone you have Bipolar, or just about any psychiatric issue, and you’re put into the “crazy bitch” file and more or less written off as more trouble than you’re worth. Here is a video about stigma surrounding mental health issues.

It seems to add some intensity to my personality, but I’m loud and proud in general, so it’s hard to say. Most of the time my mood is reasonably close to normal. I do go through cycles from time to time though. I have depression spells more than mania spells. I’ll get depressed for no reason for several days and then get past it. When I do have manic spells, I have more energy than I want. My mind races somewhat. It’s hard to sleep and eat properly. I get a lot done during those times, but I’m also high strung, and tend to stress hard over stupid things I normally don’t care about.

Depression spells that pop up on their own are one thing, but the worst depression spells come right after manic spells. That’s what is happening as I write this (10-23-2012). Mildly irritable and manic for several days, then suddenly it’s like jumping off the north face of Mt Everest. It’s like an intense sadness with no cause. I can, and sometimes do, cry over the smallest things or over nothing at all. I’m not motivated to do much. I don’t really want to talk to anyone. I’ve been kind of mopey and sluggish most of the day. If I could sleep for 2 days, I would. My mind sort of wanders to depressing things. I have to shut some people out because they’re triggers of a sort. People who have a tendency to hurt my feelings and people who suck away all my energy with their bullshit drama.

During both of these times, I have to pay extra attention to my stress. I stick to low-intensity, relaxing things like reading books, watch movies with my Partner and our girls. Thankfully my work is pretty low stress, so I don’t struggle too much there.

Medication helps keep me level most of the time. Some people don’t believe in taking medication, usually new age types who don’t need medications. That’s great. Live in your tree hugging dirty hippie world if it makes you happy, but until you go through what I go through, your opinion is invalid. I make my medical decisions based on my own research and the advice of people who specialize in these fields, not idealism. If you don’t like medicine, don’t take it.

The most helpful thing is my support system. My Partner takes care of me emotionally. She has similar issues. I take care care of her emotionally. If some conversation I’m having via text messaging is stressing me out (pretty common), she knows when to make me shut it off for the day. Spending time with her and the girls always brings me joy. The close friends I have seem to understand. If I need to talk, my Partner and friends listen. If I need to be left alone for a little while, they understand. If I get overly stressed out over nothing, they understand and let it go without a great deal of judgement.

None of this makes me completely dysfunctional. I earn a living. I take care of my family. I live my life, and enjoy almost all of it. Knowing I’m not alone in the world makes all the difference.

Things Change

“I want to taste glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of nonfeeling, or stop questioning and criticizing life and take the easy way out. To learn and think: to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.” –Sylvia Plath

In some ways I guess I’m becoming more obnoxious and more militant about who I am and having the right to be who I am. I used to be a very reserved, even shy, individual. I missed out on a lot of life, good and bad things. I guess I wasn’t particularly proud of who I was as a person. I was watching myself do things almost as sort of a mildly uninterested outside observer. I was usually fairly numb. I didn’t allow myself to feel much of anything substantial, as I wasn’t “me,” so why bother?

Things have changed. Sometimes I feel like I wasted over 3 decades of my life. I don’t want to waste a 4th. With the physical and emotional changes that come with making good progress on my transition, I’ve gradually become considerably more comfortable with myself. Maybe I’m overcompensating somewhat. I want to experience life as much as I can, and I do. I feel everything very intensely or not at all. I prefer the former these days.

I came very close to ending my life when I deliberately overdosed in the summer of 2010. I think that’s when I realized I needed to either really live or quit wasting my time and give it a better shot. Now I do what I want. I run my own business. I feel no obligation to “mainstream.” I have kinky sex. I fuck like a wild animal. Sometimes I drink a little too much or do too many drugs. I don’t apologize for it. I’m responsible. I’m an adult. I’m very open about all of that. I owe no apologizes for simply living my life. How conventional or unconventional things are is of very little concern to me. I’m emotional. I’m very compassionate and very passionate. I’m very loving, and also very bitchy. I can tell you I love you and say fuck you in one sentence, and mean it. If people don’t like this new loud and proud me, that’s fine. They can stay away, and some do.

Most of the time, this is a good thing. My relationship with my partner is very loving and we’re still very affectionate, almost like teenagers at times. We laugh a lot, and we laugh hard. We have deep and intense conversations. The sex is never boring. In fact, it’s pretty mind-blowing. My close friends seem to love me more than ever before. When I socialize, we have great fun. When I feel antisocial, I shut myself off, but I’m usually not miserable during these times. It may be that I’m feeling a bit misanthropic, or it may be that I just need time to myself to achieve a sense of calm and take a break from the chaos I seem to attract, but I enjoy every minute of being with my newly acquired family, doing the work that I do, getting a little alone time for gaming and writing, whatever.

Sometimes all this feeling and desire to feel can be a bad thing. I get overly attached to the wrong people. My heart is easy to break, and when that happens I express all those feelings all at once. Sometimes this can cost me a friend. I developed romantic feelings for a friend recently. I love those protective women, and that’s how she was. She took great care of me when it was needed, especially after I was raped last December. And I felt everything from that experience too. Too intensely as usual. I went kind of crazy for a while. Partied to much, let my emotions run completely wild, barely slept because I had nightmares if I did, freaked out for no real reason. She dealt with that very well as a friend. I finally began to calm down somewhat when I got together with Trisha, but those feelings continued to develop. We started fighting all the time when we talked. Now we don’t really talk anymore at all. We never hang out. And it kind of breaks my heart. I lost a pretty great friend. Maybe I wouldn’t have if I maintained a greater level of sanity. Then again, maybe it was doomed regardless. Who can say?

I’m also bipolar. I was diagnosed in 2002 or something like that, maybe a little before. I don’t talk about this very often (really not at all with most people). This is why I go through depression spells from time to time. I take medication for this, but I’m sure it contributes some to the intensity with which I experience life. Sometimes, like at the current time, I just lie low and enjoy my home life. I have to in order to achieve some sort of psychological balance. Feeling everything all the time takes a lot of energy, especially when some these things are negative in any way. Sometimes I don’t have that much energy. I get worn out and rest with my family and my electronic entertainment.

It’s all worth it though. I wouldn’t want it any other way. As much as some of the bad things like rape, or to a lesser extent, failed friendships, may suck, the good things outnumber the bad. I have a lot of people who love me. Feeling that the majority of the time is what makes everything I’m doing worth it. I’ll do what I need to do to maintain some balance, but I’m going to live my life at full intensity. I’m going to enjoy the happy times and cry during the bad times for the rest of my life because I don’t want to be numb and bored when it ends.

Since I've Been Gone

I know I haven’t blogged in quite a while. Life has been busier than normal. I haven’t had a lot of time or motivation for writing.

My Partner found a lump in my left breast in early September. That means I had to have a mammogram. Welcome to womanhood. With estrogen comes an increased risk of breast cancer. It’s always a good idea to examine your breasts periodically, or have someone else do it. I do not have health insurance, as my business is a one woman operation. No employers. No employees. I went to Planned Parenthood to have them look at it. I think a lot of people don’t realize they do cancer screenings and such. It isn’t a free abortion store. They provide other health care services. The doctor gave me a prescription for the mammogram along with a coupon from Project Woman so it would be free. You actually need a prescription for that, like you would for pain medication or hormones.

The mammogram happened about a week later, and I had to wait close to another week for the results. The process itself is rather uncomfortable. Basically what they do is squish your tits with a machine and take an x-ray. My breasts are pretty small, so it was that much more difficult. Thankfully, the results came up negative for cancer. It was benign calcium deposits. They’re harmless and require no further action other than getting another mammogram in 6 months.

Family life and work have also taken up a lot of my time. Since I work from home and set my own hours, I walk the kids to school in the morning, and back home in the afternoon. The school is one block from the house, so no need to drive them. Most nights I cook for them and my Partner. That’s probably my favorite thing to do for them. We eat healthy food. I never thought I’d become as domestic as I have, but I enjoy it.

I also went through a depression spell recently. I have bipolar 2, and go through cycles sometimes. I take medication for this, but of course no medication is perfect. I’m usually not that open about this, but it is a part of who I am. Most of the time I feel just fine, but occasionally I do get depressed despite the fact that my life is great. Thankfully I have a great support system. My Partner has similar issues, and is very understanding. She listens if I need to talk, holds me, and generally sort of pampers me. We’ll just hang out around the house and play video games or watch movies. This cheers me up some, or at the very least, makes the depression much more tolerable. However negative my mood might be, I know I’m loved. That makes all the difference.

Hopefully, at this point, I’ll blog a bit more frequently. Life got more chaotic than normal for a while there. With help from my Partner and a few great friends, I got through it. I’m lucky in a way. Not everyone has a social support system like mine.