Like riding in a wagon over a sidewalk with some huge cracks in it

My mood used to be more like a roller coaster ride. You are up and down and no plateaus really, and it's fast. Now it is more like riding in a wagon over a sidewalk with some huge cracks in it. It's a smooth ride sometimes - I get the plateau, I like it. And then wham, you are going a little to fast over the too smooth sidewalk and you hit a huge crack. These days, it's like that. The problem is, when I hit a crack, I don't snap out of it as quickly as my doctor wants me to. She says I should snap out of it in a day. It takes more like 5. I would say in the past 2 weeks, I haven't been very even. I've been mostly a little low and then I had two days of up, probably thanks to an unauthorized experiment with my medication. Ah well, what can you do - I don't always listen perfectly.

In any event, I feel still on the low side today so I called my doctor back. It might be time to add another drug. She said we could try adding a third one once these two level out. I keep feeling frustrated with this whole thing because it has been 3 months and I am still not leveled out; but I have to at least admit that my mood is significantly better than it was 3 months ago. I have to just remember that.

Equalibrium

Finally. I feel even again. As of yesterday. It's been oh, coming up on 3 weeks or so since I felt level. Finally yesterday/today I feel level. My doctor uppped my Lamictal last Tuesday to 200 mg. It's taken since last Tuesday for it to kick in. The unfortunate side effect of upping the Lamictal appears to be that I once again can't sleep. I can fall asleep. But I can't stay asleep. I wake up in the middle of the night, around 3 a.m. and am up for 2 plus hours. The thing is - I don't feel hyper or manic during those two hours, I feel calm and fine, I'm just awake. It used to be that I woke up and felt all out of whack - like I wanted to get up and clean and exercise and tear the house apart and reorganize the closet. I don't feel that way.

I've taken sleeping medication on and off for a while to deal with this. But I don't want to have to do that. I don't want to take Lunesta every night - though it works very well, most nights. I am worried about getting hooked on it in my head. It's not addictive (cause you know I worry about anything that is - though I never did drugs, I did take over the counter things in a recreational manner (Benedryl and other assorted things (did you know that those sometimes kill your appetite - my mother told me that back in the day, people used to take antihistamines as diet pills - that is not a good thing to tell someone who feels they need to lose weight - I am digressing))). Even when something isn't addictive, I get worried about becoming psychologically addicted to it. Especially when it has to do with sleeping, or making me feel out of it.

It seems to me that I slept better before I went on bipolar medication. Hmm. Makes it awfully tempting to go back off. Just to sleep normally. This is like drinking - you stop and then you go - well gosh, it wasn't that bad. I mean, I didn't drink that much - I didn't wake up in my own vomit that many times. I didn't "forget" what happened on a given night that many times. You just start to forget.

I am afraid I may be forgetting how bad my mood swingyness was there at the end. I need to remember that, otherwise, one day, I'll just unilaterally decide to go off. I wonder if this is like drinking in another way. When it comes to drinking - if you go back out, as we say - you don't go back to the beginning, you don't even necessarily pick up where you left off - you are usually much worse because alcoholism progresses whether you drink or not. That's why so many people, when they go back out, find that they destroy their lives in a very short time - much quicker than the time before. Or they end up dead. I know a lot of people who died when they went back out.

I wonder if this is like that - where you stop taking meds and find yourself much worse off than before. With drinking, it isn't worth finding out.

The 10 (or is it 12?) days of blah

I have been feeling blah for 10 or 12 days now. Now that I figured out what it feels like to feel even and in the middle, I can tell when I'm off pretty easily. And I've been off. It sucks because I was feeling leveled out for like 9 days and then I went down. It's frustrating. I've also been having bad anxiety for over a week - though that seems to have dissipated some today. Probably due to my follow-up mammogram, which although everything was okay - at first they thought they found a lump in each breast. Are those appointments ever going to get easier or go well? Sheesh.

Anyway, I saw my psychiatrist yesterday and we upped the dose on one of the meds I am on (I'm on two). That should fix it/help, but every time we up the dose I swing the opposite direction. So we'll see what happens this time - it's only been a day. I do feel a bit better today, but probably not due to the medication. It takes about 3 days and then I go way the other way, hyper, excited, overly happy, super optimistic. And two days later I level out. This is annoying. I just want it to be right so that I can feel like the normal people feel every day. Ugh.

As if I don't feel guilty, as if I am unafraid

Hey folks, so I am going to try to track my leave here on the blog. I mean my "holiday." I am calling it a holiday like my colleagues in Europe cause it sounds better. So let's officially start today. We will see how long this lasts - meaning me keeping up with posting about what's going on.

Today I went shopping since this is after all about me enjoying myself. Frankly though, this holiday is pretty expensive, so I need to curb the shopping.

Also, I am doing a little AA thing on myself that we call acting as if. AA people always say, you have to act your way into right thinking (cause you can't think your way into it). In other words, if you change your behavior, your thinking will follow. And when you are struggling with something - AA people will tell you to act as if. If you don't have faith, act as if you do. If you don't want to do something, do it anyway and act as if you want to, etc. Act as if.

So, I am acting as if I don't feel guilty (cause I feel guilty as hell about this holiday), and I am acting as if I am not afraid of this mammogram (and we all know how I really feel).

I'm sorry for scaring anyone and I am definitely not joking about what I said in that last post - (I turned it back into a draft by the way because I definitely do not want to upset anyone) - meaning I definitely do not take it lightly. It's very scary, very - the whole experience is scary beyond anything I can describe, and I just need to be honest about where my head goes because AA tells me to be honest about what goes on in my head. And in this case, the reason is so I will be protected in case anything goes wrong. That's why I told my doctor that - because I need to be protected from myself and I can't guarantee how I would react. So I'm just being careful. But you can be sure that there are people who would protect me and support me. I didn't have that the last time really, but I do now.

I do take it very seriously - that's part of the reason I went on meds, cause my low got too low and it scared the shit out of me to feel like I had no control over myself.

On that note though - we upped the dose of both of my meds 9 days ago and I am happy to report that I had about 6 days in a row where I felt level, even, in the middle, like normal people. It was awesome. AWESOME. Yesterday I had so much anxiety though and then I crashed a little and was a little on the down side. I've had no upswing at all really. Regardless though - we may have to up them again, but the meds are working. I feel like a different person.

The first day in nine days

Sorry that I keep going MIA. I just don't feel like writing I guess, or my thoughts have been too muddled to get anything out, and really, anything I have to say is boring anyway. That combined with the fact that I haven't been feeling great - mentally/emotionally, and as the date of my departure fast approaches, they are working me into the ground.

I have set a date - I am leaving early - not yet, but prior to August 1. I'm happy about it. The form is in. It is covered by FMLA and my short term disability. I should have gone a long time ago. But the guilt has prevented me. The thing is - I am the only one who feels like I don't deserve this time off. Everyone else thinks I deserve it. Even the people I work for have said that.

Though they seem to understand and not understand at the same time. Or maybe they just simply don't appreciate the seriousness of the situation - but that is partially because they don't know the details of what is going, nor do they need to. In any event, when I told them that I needed to leave early - the response was okay, but could you do 25 things first, this new project, finish those old three, wrap up these other six things... and I thought to myself - this is half of the reason I need out of here. I have the work load of two people and I can't get a break.

So, in preparation for my leave of absence, I will be working probably 12 hours a day until the day I leave and maybe some on the weekends also. I'm okay with it I guess.

Really my ability to handle it depends entirely on the day - or the hour sometimes. Today is the first day in nine that I have felt in the middle, even, dare I say, like a normal person. Last Thursday I went in the depressed direction and pretty low one day. And then on Tuesday-Thursday of this week I was the other way - hypomanic. Is the medication working? Why does this all seem so intolerable now? I still can't figure out what happened that I lost the ability to tolerate this fluctuation.

And then a funny thing happened Wednesday when I was hypomanic - I realized how much I love that feeling. It allowed me to be super productive, motivated, optimistic, happy, alive, mind racing, moving through tasks 1000 miles an hour, feeling like anything was possible, like I could do anything (sometimes the up is more of an agitated, angry, anxious feeling - not so great). I love it - the good kind of up. I love it almost as much as I love the numb feeling that I get from drinking. And it only really occurred to me yesterday, when briefly I had it and I realized how much I didn't really want to give it up. That up feeling - it's how I cope with the stress of my job. I get into the "zone" where I am able to work 14 hours a day 7 days a week for a few weeks on end. That's how I deal with it.

Thing is - work is that busy right now - with me trying to leave. But I can't get fully into the "zone" anymore.

So naturally what happened Wednesday is that I became obsessed with it. OBSESSED. The way a person becomes obsessed with the feeling they get from drinking in early sobriety. Where you think, I want it, I need it, I have to have it, I cannot live without it. It totally caught me off guard and surprised me that I would feel that way about the manic feeling. But why wouldn't I? Who wouldn't love that feeling? Plus, I am an avoider and it is a great distraction. I get numb when I get that way - numb to my other feelings that is. The obsession went so far that I started to think about the fact that even though I have told all these people I am on bipolar medication - I could simply stop taking it and just not tell anyone and continue to have my mood cycle the way it always has. Like every alcoholic I know sometimes thinks - but I could drink and no one would know. I won't of course stop taking it - I mean hell, I'm still waiting to see if it's going to work, I just thought about it. The up is really great - most of the time, though you don't always know what you are going to get. But the down - it's scary.

So what's going to happen now that I've lost my two favorite feelings in the world, and possibly my two best coping mechanisms?

The past nine days have been exhausting in some ways and almost intolerable. I am grateful for even one day of feeling "normal."

I'm trying but it isn't working

I'm trying to be okay until August 1st for my leave. Why? I don't know anymore. I'm trying but it isn't working.

I posted oh, almost two weeks ago about having lost control over my mood fluctuations. Okay maybe I never had total control over it - but in any event, what control I did have, I lost, suddenly. I actually scared myself. Anyway, I started taking bipolar medication going on 5 weeks ago now. I think it's working, but the truth is, I'm still having bad days when my mood is all over the place, out of my control and making me feel crazy. So I can't tell really. I had three days last week where I felt like wow - this is working. I think I feel like what a normal person feels like on a regular basis. Except that I don't have a normal to compare it to - but I thought that I felt something like normal.

That was Monday through Wednesday of last week. But since Thursday - I haven't felt great - up or down, crazy sort of, anxious, freaking out over things. And when I have days like that, days in a row, I think - why am I bothering to take this crap - it isn't working. I might as well stop taking it. I'm trying to hold out because I know that it takes a long time to build up to the right dose on one of the drugs - but my patience is wearing thin. But then again, if i stop taking it, then what happens - I just stay the same? I'd be in the same boat. Is it actually maybe a little bit better now than it was? It only feels like it some days. I've had 4 days in a row that haven't really been good. I can't tell if this is working and I am frustrated.

So I haven't felt like posting and I don't really have anything to post about.

I've needed to go out on my leave since the beginning of June. Actually make that since the beginning of February. Some people have been encouraging me to just go early - g0 now - and I think they are right, it's just that I haven't been able to get myself to out of feelings of guilt and other things. The thing is, there is no good time for me to go - there is always going to be more work, deadlines, projects that only I can do, supposedly, there is always going to be just one more thing. Are they going to let me go? I look at the calendar - the number of days left until August 1 - and think about the projects that need to be moved forward, concluded, shifted to someone else. August 1st would be tough, so why not go now? I know what to do, just go - but why can't I get myself to? It makes me feel like crying.

The truth is, I don't feel good about waiting. I don't feel good about going to work tomorrow.

Why now? As opposed to when?

I admit that things are not going well in terms of keeping it together at work. That would be an understatement. I guess I should say, things are not going well in terms of keeping it together just generally - work is just one thing that is being affected. My mental state is the other and that means everything is being affected.

I knew when I agreed to wait to take time off that it would not be easy. I did not realize just how not easy it would be. I should have known because I have needed time off since the very end of January. And I've now been waiting 5 months. This is no longer about needing to deal with the fact that I had breast cancer and how to live my life in spite of that.

I did not know that every unresolved issue that I have was going to be brought to my attention in the interim while I waited, that I would lose control over my mood swingy issues or rather that the illusion of control would be so suddenly removed, or that what once worked to numb me out (my job) would inexplicably stop working.

I'm cracking. Under the weight of everything - my childhood, what happened to me, the stress of my job, my mood swingyness that is not worked out and feels intolerable. I'm just cracking under the weight of it. I have days, seriously, where I feel like I am going crazy. Where I feel like someone else.

And I don't understand why this is happening to me. Why now? Why at all? I was so good in a crisis situation and under pressure - I don't know what happened that I now can't keep it together, even in my own head, in the midst of what is seemingly a non-crisis. I don't know why I can't get my shit together and figure this out. All I know is that I need to go on leave. I need to go before I come completely undone. I need to go now - but I am having all kinds of guilt about it and feelings of not deserving it - feeling bad about it, worrying that they will be mad that I couldn't hold out (because I agreed to wait until August 1) or mad that I need more than 4 weeks. So I try to hold out and it becomes ever more intolerable. It's not good folks.

I don't know what to do.

The extremes of me

I have always lived in the extreme.

In terms of my thinking - it is very all or nothing, black and white. Things are or they aren't, the explanations are simple, not complicated. There is little room for interpretation. There is no in between, ever. It is either a success or a failure. It is only after having been in AA for a while that I have come to appreciate the varying shades of grey that is life sometimes and the fact that we do things for reasons that are complicated, that most things are complicated. That there are more than two sides to every story and that we may both be right.

And I also live in the extreme in terms of my mood, my emotions. I am up or I am down. Never in the middle, ever. It is only very recently that I have realized that I might not even know what in the middle is or what it feels like. I've been asking people to describe it to me - and what they describe is something I am utterly unfamiliar with.

If you've been reading this for any length of time, then you know how my mood sometimes changes on a dime. I don't always post about it, but I have. The way that I go from everything is wonderful to why am I alive at the drop of a hat. It is literally like flipping a switch. It is unpredictable and unexpected. The floor drops out from underneath me and I find myself in a place where I am unsure whether I can continue to live. And the next thing I know - everything is wonderful again.

When everything is wonderful - I feel great, I feel alive, I feel motivated, I am productive, energetic, I feel like I can do anything, sometimes I have a hard time sleeping, sometimes a hard time concentrating - I'm just trying to do too many things at once. Sometimes I can't shut my head off and it races like it is trying to do 25 things at once. And then on the flip side, I wonder why I am alive. I feel like nothing will ever be okay and that my life is pointless and everything is hopeless. I feel like I will not make it and like I cannot get myself out of it.

And so I go back and forth between these two extremes - sometimes it only takes 24 hours. I wake up with the everything is wonderful attitude and by the time I go to bed I am devastated and crying on the floor. Sometimes it is a 3 day cycle. Sometimes a few weeks. And I think I have had a few stretches that have been longer. It's hard to say really - I have been this way since I can remember so I would say since I was about 15. It is the only way I know how to live.

It has become predictable over the years, only in that I know that following an up will be a down, the down will involve something like a crash and that the higher the high, the lower the low.

I have resisted doing something about this until now. Just because. It's just the way that I am. Denial is a powerful thing.

Why now? Well, something changed. It happened just the way it did with drinking. I thought I had such great control over drinking (little did I know that exercising such extreme control over it is an alcoholic thing to do). And then one day, I just lost it- I lost the control that I had. It was gone, suddenly and without explanation I lost my ability to control how much I drank.

All these years I thought I had such excellent control over my mood - not that I had any control over it - but that I handled it well. Something happened and I don't know what, but my ability to handle it is gone. It has become intolerable. The up leaves me feeling totally out of control and so does the down. The up is too far up and the down has become dangerous. That's what has been going on these past several weeks that I have hardly posted. Emotional upheaval, realizations and trying to figure out what to do about it. What is the truth about this?

This may come as a surprise to the people who read this who know me. Because although they may know that I tend to fluctuate in terms of my emotions - I don't think anyone has ever been aware of just how extreme it really is sometimes. How extreme, or how dangerous. I have mostly lived alone for the past 10 years so no one really has a view into this part of me. No one is around to watch and because it changes so quickly and I don't always talk about it , in fact I talk about it very little, well, no one really knows what goes on with me.

Well, I was talking to someone about it, about my mood fluctuations, right in the midst of my apparent and sudden inability to deal with it - maybe being totally honest about it for the first time ever with anyone. I realized just how not normal it is - because see, I always thought that my up mood was the way that other people felt when they felt normal and happy - turns out it isn't. So to make a long story short, well, I am trying bipolar medication. My doctor says that what I describe is bipolar type II, but rapid or ultra ultra rapid cycling. I think I have always known this, but resisted being labeled. Probably because it is like being an alcoholic - it's a problem that does not go away, that only gets worse and that you have to do something about. And I can attest to the fact that yes, indeed, it has gotten worse over the years.

I did try 3 anti-depressants/anti-anxiety drugs in the past year for anxiety - two a year ago and one recently with the bipolar drug and I can't take them. We tried it originally because it was not obvious to the first doctor whether the up that I described was truly an up or just anxiety. Those drugs send me way up towards the manic side of things or make me borderline suicidal. My second doctor said yeah, those drugs do that to some bipolar people. So I can't take them.

And here's the thing - I said okay I'll try it - I think largely on the same theory that I went to AA on - sure I'll go to AA, I'll go to prove that I am not an alcoholic. Yeah, that wasn't what happened. So under that same theory, I said okay - thinking that the medication wouldn't work, I would be proven not to be bipolar and I could what? Go back to dealing with it cause it's the way I am and no medication can fix it? I don't know - I was too desperate to think that far ahead. Desperate. I was desperate for some relief from what was becoming dangerous and totally out of my control.

And shit people, the bipolar medication is working.

The truth about me

I remember when I first got sober, a friend said to me - you seem to be struggling with what is and isn't the truth about you. The question of course was whether I was or wasn't an alcoholic which ultimately does not initially depend on whether I believe it to be true. I either am or I am not and no amount of thinking I am not can make it so if I am. My sobriety obviously depends on me believing it, but that doesn't change the fact of it. I am either in acceptance or in denial. You still have the problem regardless, it's just that if it is true and you accept it, you get to do something about it - you get to be in the solution as we say. But you still have the problem regardless of denying it. Denying something doesn't make it go away. Really? Hmm.

I'm thinking of this only because I am having a similar internal struggle but it is a different question. I ultimately obviously did finally concede to the fact that I do in fact belong in AA. I eventually achieved that acceptance over what turned out to very definitely be the truth about me. But it wasn't easy necessarily to get there. It took a while.

And I remember my friend saying to me that it is like a weight lifting off of you when you finally concede it and surrender yourself to the truth - you feel like - what a relief to know what is wrong with me and that there is something I can do about it. At least you know there is a solution and you don't have to live the way you were living anymore.

This thing that I am having an internal conflict over - it is a question of what is the truth and a matter of accepting it. And it is or it isn't the truth. I either am or I'm not. It is or it isn't a problem, regardless of my denying it.

Have I? Run out of options?

Sorry again for not posting more regularly. I've been going through a bit of emotional upheaval and just haven't been able to post in the midst of it. (But I will post about it soon). It's just that sometimes, everything comes to a head all at once. And I do mean literally, every, last, little thing. All. At. Once. And I am in agony. It is the agony of running out of options. It is the jumping off point as we say in AA - it is the moment when you surrender, finally, completely and entirely. Why? Because you have run out of options. Have I? Run out of options?

The only solace is the fact that the most progress, spiritual and otherwise, follows on the heels of excruciating pain. I know because this has been my experience in sobriety. The greatest progress comes from the greatest pain.

At the AA meeting tonight, someone said something that stuck in my head. Well two things. That the fundamental point of Step 1 is to turn around and face it. That you have to walk into it, directly. And that you have to surrender to have any hope of grace.

Face it. Walk into it. If you are looking for me, I'm headed in that direction.

From sad, to fine, to devastated, to happy, to sad, to fine

I'm back.

As I said, I had a horrible week. I can't really put my finger on why, or tell you what was wrong about it even. It just wasn't good, in any way. Well, one thing did happen on Monday that I can't blog about, which threw me for a bit of an emotional loop (which may still be having an impact on me). But I was on a roller coaster ride anyway it seemed - the week before this week also. In two weeks I have gone from sad, to fine, to devastated, to happy, to sad, to fine, to not okay, to okay, to so so, back to fine, devastated, fine, hopeless, okay, all mixed up with some anxiety, a little OCD and a serious inability to concentrate on anything at all. I've been on this day or two day turn around of my emotions. It's exhausting actually. It's sometimes a bit difficult to live like this. At least this week it has been.

It's not uncommon for my mood to cycle like this, I've blogged about it and how I've never gotten to the bottom of it really - it just seemed, I don't know, not right this week, maybe more uncomfortable to sit through, pretty bad I guess. Then again, from my own perspective, it's hard to judge because how would I know really - it's just what I'm used to. I've been this way since I can remember. Is it bad, I don't know? Is it out of the ordinary, I don't know? If you asked the person I've been talking to on instant message all week, she would probably say, uh, yeah, bad.

I don't think it really normally cycles quite this fast - I just feel all out of whack - I still feel out of whack. Sometimes my mood is pretty even (for a few weeks or maybe a few months at a time). So it can be very confusing. When it' s all out of whack I start to get worried and think I need to do something about it. When it's relatively stable I don't think I need to. The bad part doesn't last, but neither does the good part. I've never gotten to the bottom of it - I've always just dealt with it. I tried Lexapro briefly a year ago and although it was good for a few weeks, I got really depressed on it so I freaked out and then gave up trying to do something about it. It's easy to talk myself out of exploring whether I might be able to not feel this way, because well, when I feel good, I feel really pretty good.

And work didn't go well this week. And I can't put my finger on what wasn't going right there either. I was busy, but not that busy. I felt extremely busy for a day or two in the past two weeks, but things are manageable. I just don't know what is wrong. Projects were not going well, they were taking too long....

But on a positive note, I am doing a good job of setting boundaries at work. And, I went and walked on the treadmill tonight when I got home. That's the first time I've exercised in 4 months.

Slip, slip, slipping away

I'm slipping into a depression - well, or what "depression" looks like for me - it may not fit the technical definition of the word. I can tell that's where I'm headed. I can't remember the last time this happened. See, it's been a while and I've been pretty stable lately. I'd have to look back through the blog to figure out the last time that I plummeted. Except this time it feels more like a slow descent where as it usually feels like the bottom falls out, suddenly and without warning. And you might think I could put the brakes on then, you know, because it's like I'm watching this happen from outside of myself in slow motion, but I don't feel like it. I'd rather just ride the elevator down and then watch myself sit there. I have no motivation. I can't concentrate at work. I have to bill hours - I have to catch back up - I have two months to hit hours, and every day I just pray that I wake up late. I try to wake up late. It doesn't work, but I try.

What I really want right now is to take what we program people call the geographic cure. I want to up and move and be someone else, somewhere else. Except that I have no illusions about that, I know it doesn't work, but that's what I want to do. I'm not going to, but I want to. I want to badly. I'm somewhat of an escape artist when it comes to feeling things. I'm an avoider.

I have one observation to make at the moment before I try to go to sleep and stay asleep for as long as possible. I'm unhappy. Well, no shit. But I mean, I don't think I've really been happy, ever, and not since I got here to Chicago, that's for sure. But I know it isn't the fact that I'm here. It's just me. It's me and I don't feel like changing so I'm stuck. A friend reminded me the other day of one of his favorite things to remind me 0f - "happiness is not a destination," he tells me. And I always say, "yeah, but I just know I'll be happy when I get there."

What is scary about it

It does actually scare me sometimes, this type of a mood fluctuation. Because it seems so extreme, and it happens so fast. And maybe part of the reason I don't always talk about it is because it changes, before I even have a chance to. I can literally go from fine, to not fine, to fine in a four to five day period. And the fine is pretty much fine, but the not fine is, well, dangerous in some ways. And then sometimes I have longer periods of fine or longer periods of not fine, but if the not fine period is long, it's not so extreme. I've never really gotten to the bottom of this - it's just the way I've always been. Sort of on a roller coaster ride that is unpredictable and exhausting. And my perception of reality is heavily affected by it - the extent to which my life is amazing or unbearable. People will mention frequently that perhaps I should take medication, which I have tried before, it's just that I haven't found a doctor really willing to work with me to figure it out. It's not really depression, it's not really bipolar, it's not just anxiety - it's just some weird combination of things. I don't seem to fit any definitions, but it isn't normal either. Or at least, I don't think it is, but then again, I don't have anything to compare it to. Sometimes I wish I knew what a "normal" person feels like.

Two days ago, I would have said yes, absolutely, I'll take something, anything actually, cause I'm desperate not to feel this way and that could be sobriety threatening if I don't get some relief. And now two days later - I'm not back to perfectly fine, but I feel better enough that it seems unnecessary to start this whole trying to find a drug that works mess over again. It's hard for me to convince myself to do it during a time when I actually feel okay. I'm just torn over it I guess. I just don't know. Because it will go away, it's just a matter of waiting it out - it's just sometimes, like earlier today, I can't see that it will end. And then the end is in sight and then I lose sight of it again. But it comes eventually - eventually I don't feel so hopeless or lost or damaged. I don't know what to do about it.

Whenever I come out of the really low of the low (and I don't really know how far out of it or in it I am at the moment) - it almost feels like I was a different person when I felt that way. It just feels like I was someone else - because that just isn't me. Except that it is. And I always think wow - well thank God I didn't do anything stupid. Thank God in a moment of utter desperation I didn't do anything stupid. It's not that I would try to hurt myself, because I wouldn't, it's just that it feels like my sobriety is in danger in these situations because the desperation is incredibly powerful. The things that I feel, when I feel them with such intensity - the pain, it feels impossible to live through and the feeling of needing relief overwhelms everything. And the thing is, there are only so many ways of escaping.

I am an escape artist, a relief seeker. I don't like to feel anything. My favorite feeling, is to feel nothing. I find myself in these moments, of such intense pain, and I panic because I don't have a way out. My options are limited. I don't have anything to take the edge off of the feeling. So what is it going to be? How painful is it? And how long can I stand it? What am I going to give up in exchange for a little relief? For a little temporary oblivion? My sobriety? Am I that desperate? It starts to feel so unbearable that something has to give. And I know lots and lots of people who give up their sobriety because they cannot wait the feeling out. Unfortunately, I know quite a few people who have given up more than their sobriety, they have given up their lives. A permanent solution to a temporary problem, as we say. I think that's why a lot of people don't make it through early sobriety, because you have to be able to sit through it, and for someone who doesn't like to feel anything, that's incredibly hard to do. For me, when I stopped drinking, I went from feeling nothing, and not even knowing it, to feeling everything and not knowing what any of it was. It's not so much that I think about drinking these days when I feel bad - I don't really, except on a rare occasion, because well, I have too much AA in my head to really entertain it for more than a second or two. I'm just reminded how much I loved that "feeling." That feeling you get when you drink enough. The numbness, the nothingness, the oblivion, the feeling of not caring about anything. I am in love with that feeling.

One thing that has helped me a lot that I got from AA, is the ability to sit in something - to sit in the middle of something that feels terrible, to live through it, to wait it out, to not give into it. But I suppose based on the past few days, sometimes I am still not so great at it. Because even though I know it passes, it doesn't feel like it when you are in it. It is very hard to remember that in the moment. I always want to change the name of this blog, but then again, it seems appropriate. So if I can just manage to sit here in this for 22 more days, I will have been sober for two years. But that's another post.

Remind me how I got here again?

This is one of those times, where the bottom just kind of falls out. I'm going along and I'm fine, work is fine, things are fine, everything is fine - or at least, that is what I tell people. Everything is always fine. I am the one who is always fine. It's never really fine. I mean, I felt good in October, but was I really okay? Or was it some kind of cover up? Was I fooling myself, or was I actually fine? I don't even know. I just say that I'm fine because it is easier than telling the truth when I'm not fine. Like these past few days I guess I ventured a little too far into honesty, and kind of freaked people out - and I didn't mean to - it's just sometimes I wish I could tell the truth about how I feel. But I guess if you read these posts recently, well, okay, I can see how it sounds. It's just how I feel, I feel depressed and unhappy, and more so than normal - and I am struggling to figure certain things out, and it's the holidays and my anniversaries and there are times when I think - can't I write it here, how I feel, even if it's crazy and weird and totally irrational and fucked up, or just plain wrong? Can't I just feel how I feel here, or do I have to pretend like everywhere else in my life? I guess it doesn't really matter. The bottom got a little loose a couple of weeks ago, and then it suddenly, without warning, just fell out.

My tendency is to never really talk about not being okay. My tendency is to isolate myself and just deal with whatever I'm dealing with because I sometimes find it difficult to manage peoples' reactions to me, because usually if someone is trying to offer support to me, it's in some really fucked up all about them kind of way. I am used to dealing with things alone, so that's kind of what I do. It takes me feeling pretty bad, to actually say so, and even then, it's not because I actually believe that people will be supportive, and it certainly isn't to draw attention to myself, because I'd much rather go unnoticed. I just don't really know what support looks like actually - I've never had that. Not from parents or anything. I don't know how to ask for or receive help, how to not be okay, how to be honest about it. When I called my mother and told her I had breast cancer - she went hysterical. She was freaking out and crying and I was sitting there on the phone saying, it's going to be okay, everything will be fine. And I remember thinking, wait a second, this is backwards here.

And I think to some people, I just sound like I'm complaining. Oh poor me - isn't my life so terrible. I don't mean for it to sound that way. It isn't about being ungrateful, because of course I am. I am not ungrateful, I am just unhappy. I know that objectively my life looks great. Yes, it is true, I have a fabulous job - I work with great people, I love the work I do, I work for the nicest person on the plant, I have great opportunities ahead of me there, I don't have to worry about money, I live in a nice condo and have a nice office, I drive a nice car, I can afford to pay ridiculous amounts of money to park it at my office so that I never have to go out in bad weather, I have nice furniture and nice things. I know that I am fortunate, and that I also worked really hard for everything I have. But you dress it up nice, and it's still the same unhappiness. I've never been able to be happy. Not for any significant length of time anyway.

I know that material things won't make me happy - and that's not what it's about. I am not trying to fill holes with material things. It's just that my life looks nice, so people always say - we can't understand why you would be so unhappy. I don't understand it either really. It's an inside thing - and lately I just feel like all of the effort I have put into changing myself on the inside has been for nothing, because here we are, having the same old conversation about the same old unhappiness. And lately I feel really angry with my parents, because we got screwed basically, my brother and I. I feel like I have been ruined by my childhood, like it has damaged me and so far, I have been unable to undo the damage. It just feels like I've suffered, more than people should suffer. When I found out I had breast cancer - that was my first thought - haven't I suffered enough already? What the hell did I do to deserve this kind of suffering?

I don't know how I got here. Here, right now, to this moment, where it all feels so fucked up and pointless. Where it feels ruined and like things can never be undone. Like things will never be okay, or right, or the way that I want them to be, or good even. It all seems so complicated.

And thank you to Aurelia for sending some folks my way and for your comments and support. You all seem like such nice and caring people and I am glad to have found all of you and your blogs. I am always astounded when people actually show up for other people and offer support because it seems so unexpected to me, and it's just not what I am used to. I don't know quite what to do with it. But it is good to know that I am not all alone out here.

Even on my worst day

I imagine how this blog is starting to sound. One minute everything is great - I'm happy, content, at peace, grateful, life is good, it couldn't be better. The next minute - I sound like I am complaining - I'm devastated, life is miserable and what is this thing called happiness that I can't seem to find? Then it's great again, my job is great, things couldn't be better, I have acceptance, I wouldn't change anything. Then I'm crying on the floor again about why I'm not happy. Are you picking up on the pattern here? My therapist actually suggested that I track this for a while, and that I try to pay more attention to what sends me spiraling downward rather than just acting surprised when I find myself there. Except that it isn't like a downward spiral, it's more like I teleport there. It's like flipping a switch.

I don't have the faintest idea how it happens. One minute I am one way and the next minute I'm not that way anymore. Nothing triggers it really. I guess I'm just used to it. I've cycled through this up and down every few days since I can remember - at least since I was 15. Sometimes the cycle is more than a few days - and it's never extreme - I just hover around the middle. Slightly better than normal, slightly worse, slightly better, slightly worse. Okay, maybe saying that I am devastated on the floor sounds more extreme than slightly - but I don't go very far into depression and I've never been manic. Although one could make a definite argument for depression. Anyway, I'm having a hard time sorting this one out. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the more I work the AA program the better I feel - and though I shouldn't say this - it's like a drug - work the program better, feel better. Which makes me wonder if at least half of feeling bad, if not more, isn't really depression, but instead, just untreated alcoholism

So anyway, today is a good day. If I had to really rate the day, I would say it is a "good day plus." It's not a "plus plus" because I am staying up too late and I have to work all weekend, but it's definitely one plus for being better than average. And I'm talking about the way I feel - I feel good - it's not just that my day was good. Today is one of those days when I feel overwhelmed with gratitude, happy (wait, did I just admit to feeling happy?), content, at peace with the state of things, accepting of the things that have happened to me, my faith is strong and I love AA. I know how it must sound - like I can't make my mind up. Am I grateful or not, happy or not, do I believe in AA or not? Of course I do.

I just have bad days sometimes - I have days where I slip into old ways of thinking and old ways of behaving, where my thoughts and actions are fear based and where I lose sight of the purpose, and can't pick out the details, where I lose myself in the future instead of staying present in the moment. I slip into the me of my former life, like slipping on a different pair of clothes. I just lose perspective sometimes. But even on my worst day, my most negative, and unhappy and miserable day - what I really believe is this - that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life. That it saved my life and changed my life and I had nothing to do with it. I have nothing but humility about it. Even on my worst day I am grateful beyond words and I believe deep down to the very core of me that the program works, that miracles will happen right in front of you, and that your life really does become infinitely more amazing than you could have imagined. Even on my worst day I know that I have happiness - it may not look the way I wanted it to or be what I want it to be - but it is there. Even on my worst day, I still believe that anything is possible and that things really will be okay in the end - even if okay doesn't look the way I want it to. Even on those days, I have unshakable faith. And I know that I'm lucky, even on those days - I don't have to be sober, I don't have to go to AA meetings, I don't have to carry the message - I get to. It is a gift.

Congratulations to A. on 30 days sober. You continue to inspire and amaze me.

At least I am predictable

At least I know that when I feel as good as I did the past few days, that I am going to crash eventually. It's inevitable and predictable, although I never know exactly when it's coming. It's inevitable because this way that I feel - it isn't real - it isn't sustainable. It lasts for maybe a few days and then I cry on my floor, like last night, while I talk to my higher power about what isn't fair and that I do have things to be angry about. And there are simply things that I can't get over. I can only pretend to - for days at a time.

I was talking to my therapist today about just exactly how I see my life. We concluded that I see it as neither good or bad - but that I am just indifferent about it. It's fine I guess - it's okay - I am neither happy nor unhappy. I know it isn't bad - because I objectively know that. I know how other people perceive my life. I just can't for the life of me seem to see it the way that other people do - at least not with consistency.

The expression - you can't see the forest for the trees - I seem to have the opposite problem. The trees are like a blur - the finer details of my life - and if I could see those - if I could pick those out - delineate the edges - I might find things to be happy about. You know - being present in the moment and enjoying the moment - those are details in which I find happiness. But all I see is the forest - all I see is the whole - and on the whole my life is not what I want it to be. It is true that today, right now, my life is fine, my day was fine, there is little about the present moment that I would change. But beyond the day, in the greater scheme of things - nothing is what I want it to be.

Just an update

I feel a bit better than I did the other day - quite a bit actually. I didn't work at all this weekend, which was good. It really allowed me to reconnect with reality (i.e., my feelings) - and granted it didn't feel great the entire time, but it's good to feel human and now I feel better. I don't enjoy those times of feeling numb the way I used to. I always think it is appealing, but I didn't really enjoy it. It's kind of scary actually to just be able to turn everything off like that. Anyway, it's going to be another couple of weeks of working crazy hours - but I think I can handle it. I just feel a little better about it in general. I feel more serenity than I have over the past couple of weeks about it. I'm not really sure why, I just feel differently about it - it's all in perspective I guess.

I have decided to do an experiment with my higher power. My sponsor is currently engaging in such an experiment so I am going to do this on the theory - what have I got to lose? This is the same theory on which I got sober. The same theory on which I started praying to a higher power. The same theory on which I have tried anything in this program. I actually think it might already have worked - but I was going to give it 30 days of trying it. So I guess I will see if it's different in 29 more days. I'll report back on that one.

My mind is pretty clear surprisingly - I don't have much to say. I feel calm, content, connected to my higher power. No complaints really. I was thinking about progress today, about how it happens for me. When I change - it isn't subtle. It doesn't happen slowly over time. It isn't a gradual process. It isn't like I try and try to stop engaging in character defects and slowly my behavior improves. Instead I just keep blatantly doing the same stupid shit over and over again, and then one day I just wake up and I don't do it anymore. I literally just wake up a different person. It's like I just feel different - something is different and I can't always put my finger on it. It just feels like what once was a character defect is gone - it just vanishes - poof - it's like magic. I know I've posted about this phenomenon before. It's step 6 and 7. Became entirely ready to have God remove all our defects of character, and humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.

I think this is what happens at the exact moment that you become entirely ready and then asked to be freed. Poof.

Two days ago, I had just such a moment. I woke up different.

Mid-day blogging

I have this project I could be working on - but I can't seem to wrap my mind around it. It's complicated and I've been avoiding it. I just cleaned my whole office. I am actually really pretty busy, but I can't get the partner that I work for to pay any attention to me, which means the pile of questions that I have for him is lingering on the floor and I've got some time on my hands. Which is actually unusual. I wish there were a little more consistency. The past two days I worked until 8 p.m. (and I got here at 7:45 a.m. - long day), today I am cleaning my office and blogging. Hmm. Just watch, every thing will come undone thirty minutes before I need to leave early (5:45) to go to my favorite AA meeting.

Maybe the contents of my head are distracting me today. I have definitely had a hard time concentrating. So, I am going to vent. I thought, for a split second this morning, about taking public transportation. Then I drove. I really have a complex about this. I have way over analyzed it. I mean - it's hard to argue that I should be taking public transportation when I have calculated and re-calculated and determined that I only save $14-20 per week by not driving (it's a complicated analysis with several assumptions). I guess I didn't factor gas into it though. Hmm. Maybe worthy of a re-calculation. Except that you know I will keep driving and feeling lame about it.

My sponsor is pissing me off. She has actually succeeded in making me feel really bad about expressing stress and anxiety about my upcoming mammogram. She told me I am stuck in self-centered fear and that I should not be calling up people to talk about it - I should be calling up people and only asking questions about them. Now, I get the value of helping other people to get outside of yourself and to get relief from self-centered fear - however, we aren't talking about the kind of self-centered fear that makes you worry about what will happen if you can't save 100K for a down payment and what if you don't get the project you want to do at work, and what if no one ever wants to date you again (yes, these are some of the things I worry about when I lose perspective). We are talking about life and death, this is serious, I don't want to die young of cancer, a miserable and horrible painful death. I want to live, desperately. I'm terrified and she seems to think I shouldn't be expressing that. Well I disagree with her. You can bet I won't bother calling her to tell her I'm worried about it. That's not good - that I feel like I now can't tell my sponsor absolutely anything. She really did make me feel bad about it.

On a related note - please be careful what you say and think before you speak - remember you don't always know who you are talking to, or what their life experiences have been. There is a reason I don't like to share about certain things at AA meetings - like the fear and anxiety that I have about this mammogram. I like to deal with things myself - which I know isn't the best way - but I don't always deal well with people's responses/reactions or advice. Telling me to just not worry about it is a ridiculous and impossible solution. This girl said to me - well, we are all going to die eventually anyway. I thought, you stupid and incredibly insensitive bitch.

This morning I called someone an asshole while driving - so much for remembering to bless the person. He honked at me for not accelerating fast enough for him through the light. He deserved it. I told someone else (in my head of course) that they had a really stupid looking car. It's true though - he had a really stupid looking car.

My nephew and sister-in-law are coming home from Germany for a visit and I am so excited - I can't wait. I saw them in June when I went to Germany. This is my nephew (on my brother's and sister-in-law's blog). He is so cute. I can't wait to kiss his feet again and make him giggle. I've already bought him a whole bag of clothes and I am going to go buy him more, just because. I asked my brother if it was okay - cause I don't know if it bothers them that I like to buy him clothes and donate to his college fund - he told me it's fine as long as it doesn't require an extra suitcase to get back to Germany. Ha ha ha. I can't wait! I suppose I could ship things to him instead.

I have these lunch plans tomorrow that I am nervous about. It's so ridiculous. This isn't a date - but I've never met the guy and he is not an AAer. I guess since I stopped drinking, I stopped hanging out with "normal" people. Rarely do I find myself in social situations that aren't sober social situations or I am at least always with sober people. It isn't that I can't handle such situations or don't enjoy them (well, sometimes I don't, it depends), it's just that I can't remember the last time I had a conversation with a guy that wasn't program (and wasn't also an asshole actually) and didn't know the truth about me. I mean - there is a certain level of comfort when I am surrounded by other AA people that I don't find as much when I am with non-AA people and having to hide that part of myself. What makes this extra ridiculous is that this is not a date, and I've already spent way too much time thinking about what to wear. I need to wear flat shoes so I am not too tall (cause I'm pretty tall)...I mean seriously - I don't need to impress this guy. I'm just volunteering to help people through his organization. (Okay, I have a secret hidden agenda - I am at least hoping to expand the social circle of people that I hang around by participating in events etc. I need to do something besides work and go to AA meetings).

I tried Zoloft and had to go off of it a week after starting. I was so tired I couldn't function. Not to mention that I actually felt a lot worse on it. It brought me relief from all of the anxiety I feel, but quickly sent me into a depression. How can it be that I am more depressed on an anti-depressant? I think there is some merit to the argument that I am mildly bipolar, even though I don't ever reach the level of a true manic episode. Two nights ago I was hysterical, crying on my bedroom floor, writing that last post, begging God to help me - but last night when I got home from work, I thought - my life is great, everything is great - woohoo - things couldn't be better. Watch, tomorrow I will be devastated again. I've been seeking relief from this up and down and up and down and up and down - but I've always been this way. I'm used to it, but tired of it, but medication isn't working for me.

Damn, it's only 1:30. I thought surely I'd been blogging long enough that it would be 2 by now. I wonder if there are cookies left over upstairs from the partners meeting. I don't really want to go check though and be seen sneaking cookies by anyone coming out of the meeting.

Okay, well, I've run out of random things to say. I will add a little gratitude though. I am grateful that I am healthy (as far as I know). I am grateful that the sun is shining in Chicago today. I am grateful that I get to share some time with my nephew - who reminds me what it is like to be present in the moment. I am grateful that my favorite meeting is tonight. I am grateful to be sober. I am grateful for all of the people I have connected with through blogs!

Between depression, anxiety and motivation

So my sponsor and I agreed to lay off on the 90 meetings in 90 days. It was causing me a lot of stress because of my job. Between my job, going to a therapist, going to a psychiatrist, going to the dentist, doctor's appointments - it's just really hard for me to go to a meeting every day. Basically I had decided to space out appointments with a therapist - because if I go to a meeting and to the therapist in one day, I lose 2.5 hours of my day (that valuable billable time), and I just can't do it - I just end up working even later than I already do. It seems like it might make sense to go to fewer meetings and more therapy appointments. It's about balance right? Can you guess what has happened since my sponsor and I talked about not doing the 90 in 90? I haven't been to a meeting since Wednesday. Now granted that's only 3 days without a meeting, but still. For the first 9 days of my commitment to do this 90 in 90 I went to 10 meetings - then between days 10 and 15 I only went to 1. Frankly I am extremely disappointed in myself.

I felt really good during that 9 day period, and now I don't. I'm full of excuses for not going - I have two friends in town this weekend. This is a bad excuse because they totally don't care and would have had no problem with me going to meetings. I am basically just really disappointed in myself.

On a related note, I started taking Zoloft on Tuesday and immediately couldn't sleep. On this drug I am tired from about 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., then wake up around 10:30, finally fall asleep, wake up at 1:30, wake up at 5:30 and then at 6:30 I when it is time to get up, I feel like I could sleep all day. I basically feel like I didn't sleep at all because the sleep I do get is not restful. I am frustrated enough with this that I feel like giving up. Both times that I have gone on a drug I felt pretty good when I went on it - anxious yes, but not depressed. I am trying these things for anxiety, not depression. The first time I ended up paranoid and depressed - this time, well, we'll see.

The problem is, I'm torn because I actually do feel anxiety relief. Even today, only 5 days later, I do feel noticeably less anxious. My doctor told me I would be able to tell on about day 5. The only way I can describe it is to say that the things that bother me are still there, they just don't bother me. It is nice not to feel anxious all the time, however, I feel like I'm just trading one problem for another. For some reason, for me, when the anxiety goes, so does the motivation. Is that normal? Already I feel myself not caring about things. My house is completely trashed right now, and all I want to do tomorrow after my friends leave, is lay on my couch and sleep as much as possible. So what if there is enough dust and cat hair under the dresser to knit my cat a sweater, I just don't care. So what if I'm behind at work, I just don't care. So what if I have errands to run, I just don't care. So what if I hate my life, I am unmotivated to change it.

Isn't there some kind of happy medium between depression, anxiety and motivation? I can't find it.

Return to, uh, "normal"

I went off of Lexapro. This little experiment was admittedly short lived - only 5 weeks long, but it was the right choice. Last week it was down hill fast - by Friday, I was well on my way to not caring if I lived anymore. I wouldn't say that I was suicidal, but I was headed in a very depressing direction. I've posted lately about feeling depressed, unmotivated, lethargic, apathetic, blah - well, unfortunately, this was attributable to the Lexapro. My psychiatrist was on vacation, the new one I am trying to see apparently wrote my phone number down wrong and couldn't call me back - so, rather than initiate a psychiatric emergency, I made the decision to stop myself. My brother thought I might need to taper off of it - as did my sponsor, since most people do or you can have flu like symptoms, but I of course decided to just quit - no tapering, and risk the side effects. I wanted it out of my body so bad that I literally couldn't stand the thought of taking even a couple more.

So, day three, no Lexapro, and guess what? No side effects. No nothing. I slept better, I can go to the bathroom again, thank God (yes, unfortunately, I am the queen of uncommon side effects - apparently Lexapro makes me unable to go to the bathroom, and every doctor I told this too just looked at me funny), and, I am happy to report, my motivation has returned. Could it be that this is already out of my system? Yesterday I felt great - went to two AA meetings, went shopping, did laundry, went to work, cleaned - I did more this weekend than I did the entire 5 weeks I was on that stuff. Tonight I left work at 7, made dinner, emptied and loaded the dishwasher, played the piano, soaked my feet, packed food for tomorrow - all in an hour and a half.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It's hard to say. Frankly, I feel just like I used to. This morning I was crying in my office, right now I feel fine. Tomorrow morning I will probably wake up feeling great and believing anything is possible, and by the time I go to bed tomorrow, I'll probably be devastated and crying on the closet floor. More than dreading the return of the anxiety I have lived with my whole life, I am dreading this return of my crazy and sort of unpredictable and very rapid mood fluctuations. Up and down and up and down. I do feel some amount of anxiety actually, but I only felt relief from that for about a week and a half on Lexapro and then slowly but surely it crept back in. I actually can't tell what my level of anxiety is at the moment. Is it better or worse - the same - I feel like this whole experience has confused me and I'm not sure anymore how to label it.

Even though I feel some amount of something - sadness, mixed with anxiety, a little fear, fear is always in there, no matter what else is going on - I feel like I have a better handle on all of this at the moment. I am not opposed to trying another drug, but for now I think I am going to sit tight and just let myself level out a bit and see just how level, or not so level normal actually is. I suspect it will be what it has always been, which is not very level. At any rate, I feel renewed motivation to figure out how to deal with this stuff - so at least that's a start. I know that I can't return to feeling the way I was feeling before I went on Lexapro, or at least I don't want to return to that - which means, something has to change. I have to change something.