Waking up at 6 something PM...

Nothing like staying up after being up too long the night before then going to bed at say 11pm and not waking up the following day at say 6:44pm.  The problem then becomes can you go to sleep that night or are you going to lay down tossing and turning for hours.  Likely no matter how positively I think about it I am going to toss and turn all night unable to fall asleep.

It was hard to want to get up while I was having a dream where for once I was doing something right in my life, if only in my dreams.  I was successfully dodging my Bipolar and serving my country in the Army again.  My brothers were there and we were getting along and I wasn't acting all crazy like making up excuses for my behavior.

I hated lying to so many people to cover the fact I didn't know what was happening to me inside.  I worked hard to drink and cover up my reasons for outbursts followed by remorseful tears.  I even lied about things that happened in my life because back then you didn't tell people you were having mental health issues.

After I had made a poor attempt to slash my wrists they put me in the hospital and made my coworkers watch me, literally. They were in the room where I was lying in a bed crying when I wasn't sleeping for nearly a week.  Everytime I rolled over they were sitting looking at me and want to guess what happened next, I started crying again.

When I was discharged from the hospital they sent me back to work with a house arrest kind of punishment, that's right punishment.  I could go to work, stay at the barracks and if I was lucky go back to work after hours to give me something to do after all back then there was no game systems to play and the only TV was either in German or military services channel.

But when I went to go back to work hardly anyone would work with me because they were afraid of me.  Afraid of me!  Like I was going to try again and take them with me, I had no interest in taking anyone out except me.  Within a month or so I attempted yet again only this time I overdosed on alcohol and pills.

Ended up sleeping for a week in ICU and when I woke up the same shrink they sent me to after the attempt before who had only told me to stop drinking walked in and offered me nothing more than a "Happy Divorce" while I was still strapped into the bed.  He had also mentioned that they took my clearance so I wouldn't be doing my job till I passed another set of checks which would likely take years, after all they didn't like people like me back then because I was showing signs of weakness.

Which brings me back to the dream that naturally I didn't want to wake up from...

The sleep deprived and a constant ringing from no one

This time of the year my sleep is off and on at best, at worst I don't sleep for days, sometimes weeks at a time.  Last night I was trying to sleep and someone from the Grand Rapids, MI area kept calling me repeatedly refusing to leave a message for the second day in a row only this time it seemed like they were calling every hour for three or four hours.

Even going so far as using a different number on the second day but still it kept ringing in my ears to the point where every time I came out of REM sleep my mind wondered who it was and what the hell was so important they had to keep trying my number over and over.  By 11pm I was now wide awake and thinking about the number(s) which when I searched online found nothing to tell me who it was other than it was a landline. 

If for some reason it's a creditor they aren't going to warm themselves to the idea of me paying them when they keep calling me like that.  I don't like my sleep disturbed because as a Bipolar with Sleep Apnea, sleep is a hard thing to come by at times.  And lately with other things going on I don't need the aggravation this is causing me. 

And what is with the no longer being able to legitimately search for phone number information without someone trying to get their hand in my pocket?  Why must we pay for information for businesses that are harassing us when we go to find out who they are in order to stop them from going that far?  With phone calls refusing to even leave a message when they insist on calling hour after hour into the early evening?

Asking for help

Growing up I wasn’t likely to ask for help of any kind, I mean who was I supposed to ask?  My parents who often treated me like their free therapist complaining about one another way too often when I was alone with them.  My siblings who acted like I was just another burden laid upon them by my immature parents so I wouldn’t presumably get into trouble. 

My sister was consumed with doing anything but being around me and my brother is well for lack of a better term, my tormentor.  His job was to act like my father and when I didn’t comply with whatever it was he wanted, he would take it out on me physically.  Of course he wouldn’t allow me to be beaten upon by others around us except him.  While older friends of mine were actually my protectors they wouldn’t allow my brother to beat upon me.

But then again hanging out with older people seriously messed up my emotional growth because I would go between being older and being my age at strange points in time they would even collide.  Nothing like having a serious crush on someone who was flirting with you to watch you turn beat red only to watch them actually fall in love with someone else and break your heart.

I think you can begin to see why I call this blog incoherent focus right?  Because I can’t focus and my mind wanders too easily and I ask for help only when I am afraid to extremes.  Because often growing up asking for help would lead to ridicule, to further torment and in some cases even my own teachers leading the treatment.  My senior year a “cousin” who was in my class gave me a nickname I hated and before the end of the year even used it in class when talking to me, he was a nice guy but that part made me dislike him so much.

To this day asking for help scares the living hell out of me to the point I would rather grasp a big bottle of something and never have to do that again.  I know that is no solution but when I was watching Sandra Bullock today in 28 days, brought this topic up yet again.  And as all Bipolar’s know full well any trigger is a trigger that makes my mind go pop...I know this is counterproductive but, “Can someone please make it stop!”

It is funny how one night of no sleep...

Can create an avalanche effect inside of me, I am tired but can't sleep.
I see my therapist who triggers me unintentionally by asking the simplest of questions at the end of our session.
I go for nights without real sleep that I so badly need despite having taken my medication.
I dream of things from my past that haunt me to this day. 
Mixed into those dreams are people from my past some of whom I could only wish to go a day without thinking about them.
My guilt feels so overwhelming at these points in time because the lack of sleep causing my mind to drift into the dark abyss of my depression causing me to wish for the one thing I fear may never come, the end of me.
Those I no longer want to think about are in my mind because they died before it was their time all the while I was begging for it to be my time to go, for decades since I buried brothers my age in the Army.

The ultimate sacrifice for love

We all know what they call the ultimate sacrifice for love but in the moment could you do it knowing what it would cost you in the end?  Can you let family go to save them from you and your mental health issues to keep from hurting them any further?  Can you walk away from your kids with little to no contact in order to keep you from making their lives a living hell while you fight off rage, cycles and manic behavior?

I did it and it cost me more than most would willingly give up who don't have my issues.  I couldn't deal with family who did not care about my feelings, my wants or needs.  That put me in the backseat because I was what they considered inferior but didn't completely cut me off because after all they likely would need me for something later, like paint a house, fix their car, move their furniture, babysit my own kids even though they didn't trust me when they were first born.

I will go through the rest of my life likely very alone because I wasn't there for those who needed me and cut off others who kept hurting me when I begged them to stop.  I will not see my kids marry, have kids of their own because I am the "lazy Dad" who didn't take care of them, wouldn't just give them money without even getting information about where they were going and whom they would be going with once I had some money.  No one ever wanted to tell them the truth that their Dad was considered nearly legally crazy and was barely able to take care of himself let alone care for them.

So I ask again.

"Could you make the ultimate sacrifice for love knowing what it would cost you?"

I saw, I flirted, I drooled

I know it's likely this person who was in my eyes beautiful and I loved her long flowing hair was just flirting to sell me a satellite dish package but I was intrigued by her.  She kept flirting with her hair and as I tried to ignore it I wasn't able too.

I kept flirting even when she noticed my ring on my left hand which looks like a wedding band and yet I caught myself saying aloud to her as I took it off..."I bought it for my other hand but it wouldn't fit over the knuckle, I'm not married" handing it to her to look at.

I admit it I was smitten but that's about it, that lust filled in heat mind was working on overdrive because she was giving me the one thing I cannot resist in a woman.  She was flirting and presenting me with something that no matter what I did I couldn't avoid.

I am one of those sick bastards who are lonely enough to post in the missed connection section on Cragislist knowing full well she's not likely to answer.  At most I will likely get a response from some spammer or her bf telling me to take the posting down immediately.

Medication, sex drive and sleep

Ever wake up wound up like a top because you were dreaming for an hour or so that kept spinning round and round till you woke  up.  Then you realize that at some point your body decided it is truly in need of the one thing as a Bipolar you often don't get, sex.  I know this can of course fluctuate depending on your looks, area of opportunity, gender preferences, and willing partners of course even in a manic state we would never take by force something someone is not truly willing to give us on their own no matter what.

And for some of us there is a particular part of our preferred sexual partners that shall we say really turns us on.  Same as for most men or women just sometimes this particular part of my turn on's can get out of hand and often affects a great deal of my social anxiety.  I find it particularly hard to be around those who have this particular trait when I am or even when I am not what a former partner used to call "in heat."

I often cannot stop from staring almost like a crazy person without even realizing a lot of times I am doing it.  And because of this I find myself hiding in my home acting like a mole or hermit wishing I was blinded so I cannot even see it anymore.  And when you even dream about it and try to ignore it but seemingly cannot there isn't enough medication to eliminate this trait that I have no idea is part of my mental disorders or something I grew up to with.  Although I do have a past where women when I was very young would often tease me with this particular part of themselves as if my turning three shades of red were hilarious.

Which leads to my other issue that suddenly I hit a certain age and was no longer as cute apparently which led to my being the guy most women were immune to my charms anymore.

Someday, maybe

Someday, maybe I might actually become more accepting of myself and less worried about what others think of me.  It drives me crazy when someone stares because they don't like the way I let my beard grow out or my Veteran hat.  I keep hearing from those who care to "Just ignore them" but if I could do that I wouldn't be the overly sensitive idiot I am today.

I stare in the mirror and want to shave it off but something is telling me inside that I should leave it alone to become my own man.  I know what it looks like but I can't shave it off and show my baby face anymore.  I want so badly to be treated for my real age and life experiences but I am often wrote off as some blow hard who knows only what he has seen on TV.  But I am 48 in two weeks and I lived in the 70's and 80's I know what I saw, what I experienced and shouldn't be penalized simply because I look younger than I am.

Too many people judge me based upon what they see and my immature nature which is often attributed to my hanging with older people when I was so young.  And the seemingly inability of my family to at times allow me to grow up and be an adult along side of them.  I know for many I am a constant reminder of what they lost when their fathers, my grandfathers passed away within my first two years of life.

I feel at times as if that is the reason why I was so often the butt of the jokes at holiday gatherings or the one they chose to torment on overnight stays at grandma's.  I only wish that someday before they or I pass on I hear an apology that I know isn't coming anytime soon. 

I remember now why I hate people

I was at city hall today to file the paperwork for my tax exemption from the state and while I was standing there I was reminded why I hate most people, especially in public places.

I could hear people in line to pay their water bills, taxes what have you giggling and chatting about well me.  The way I was dressed, the way my facial hair looked, etc...

I took the paperwork home and when I brought it back even a city employee was doing it right next to me.  As if I am too stupid to realize what they were doing while standing right next to me.  I mean at one time or another we have all done it right?  That thing with your eyes to someone else while the person you are doing it about stands right next to you.

That doesn't make it right.

And when a person of another skin tone does it I am completely offended because after all if I even thought of something about them they took wrong it is immediately because I am a racist.  But when they do it they are just doing what comes naturally and let me tell you that when this person was doing it I wanted to scream at her, "What the f#@k do you think you are doing?"

By the time I got to the mall for my last errand I was listening to the wrong song on my headphones while standing in the mental health book aisle and practically in tears.  A grown fricking man nearly in tears at the mall can you imagine that?

I wanted to scream, shout to the moon...Get me off this damn ride!