Bipolar & the threat of Cancer on two fronts

As I sit here on the Friday before Christmas I am awaiting big news that cannot come soon enough for me.  You see I have had Colon Polyps in the past and some were just shy of full blown Type A Cancer.  And on this past Wednesday I went to the Ann Arbor VAMC and was given an Upper/Lower Endoscopy where they took no less than 13 Biopsies from my Stomach & my Colon.

And now I sit here with no real information days before Christmas knowing that I will at some point be told at the very least I likely need surgery on my stomach for a hole that appears to be causing issues.  And I know they will want to redo my fundoplication (I'm sure I misspelled that word) for my severe acid reflux.

I would rather spend Christmas with knowledge of what's to come than sit here with nothing and no real opportunity before the holiday to be sure of what they want to do to/for me.  My Bipolar is on overdrive as I struggle to not worry myself to death over this thing that happened just days before Christmas.

I think a lot of people often forget one important thing...

I was in the Prius on my way to Mickey D's at 0100 hours for something to fill my tummy and I began to think about something important at least to me... Most people around me often forget that this is the very first time in my entire life where I have only myself to depend including military time where someone was always there to watch over me.

I know it seem simple enough but when you aren't used to living on your own making decisions and your a Bipolar with major depressive states it can be very hard.  Luckily I don't struggle with finances that much anymore since I got my service-connection through the VA.  But there are decisions that I was always used to someone else telling me what to do, either a parent or spouse to make sure I wasn't going to far from safety.

And now I keep falling into deep depressions because I am completely alone, having to cut out most of my family with a few exceptions to protect myself from the way I was treated by those who allegedly loved me.  I probably need another round of ECT but I am not sure they will let me get another one with my other health issues that are going on at the moment from my liver, my kidneys and possibly my colon & esophagus ( the last two from issues in my 20's).

My therapist acts like she's about to dump my depressed butt because I know I don't seem to be trying anymore but I am.  I just can't keep doing things the way I have for so long and not run into issues at some point in my life.  Especially with the way things are currently going on.  

Hate, the mirror and my world imploding?

The other night I saw a special on Robin Williams and of course it was late in the evening.  Let's just say it set me off subconsciously and now here I am wide awake a few nights later wishing I could sleep, but I can't.

I also can't see my therapist for a few more weeks as that person took a well deserved vacation but it has left me with a void and I kind of saw it coming.  And now what the hell do I do.  Because as with my idol Robin Williams, I am bipolar, don't do well when I am all alone and when I look in the mirror lately I hate myself again.

I'm losing all the ground I have gained over the last few years or at least it feels that way.  Because of my emotional safety issues I am literally all alone, oh don't get me wrong I have a few people I grew up around but I cannot burden them with my pain.  Because as past experience has taught me all that does is push them away faster.

Or the inevitable happens, they make me promise something I cannot guarantee I won't break ever again.  Because like Robin there may come a point in my life where my world isn't what it once was and when that day comes I might finally succumb to my need for peace or at the very least peace in my mind.

They want a world where I live to a ripe old age but for me that means more mental pain and anguish.  More being treated like I am a lot younger than I actually am and most people cannot understand what that feels like for me.  Although I know from past experience often times its more about my perceptions of reality than the reality.

And I bear so much pain that most people could never every understand how much it hurts to see someone else in pain or rather to feel their emotional pain.  I don't often even know what it is but I know something is eating at them and now it's eating at me.  And with each new pain I take on just a little more of me is gone.

People everyday try to tell me that both is a gift. As in my living well past what doctors thought I would live to age-wise.  And my ability to feel what others are feeling emotionally even at times being able to tell when they are lying to me.  No one can understand how much that can hurt when those who are lying to me are those telling me they love me.

I am carrying a weight on my soul, my being that is so heavy that I want to tear my eyes out, drink myself to death, wish for my health to finally fulfill the doctors prophecy that I won't grow to be an old man.   Even going so far as to ignore doctors recommendations for diet, meds, etc...

I know some people out there can understand bits & pieces of what I am feeling but I am likely never going to meet someone else like me who can help me bear the weight in my lifetime and for that I am saddened.

Someone once reminded me...

A therapist once reminded me after I felt like I failed at attempting something while inpatient at my local VAMC for treatment that just because I faltered didn't mean I had actually failed like I was thinking.  Because at the time I was like many who believe that every misstep is a complete failure because we have no gray in between our black & white vision.

I know what it feels like to be making really positive strides in your life only to feel that misstep as a complete and utter falling down of sorts.  The emotional turmoil it can cause can feel totally overwhelming and devastating at times but it is what it is, only a misstep and not the actual end of the world.

Often people who are bipolar and some other mental health survivors take every falter as the end of the world.  Keep going and work through it no matter what your mind is telling you because if someone like me who suffers from PTSD/Bipolar/Borderline Personality Disorder/Major Clinical Depression and achieve two college degrees, nearly a bachelor degree as well.  I was also in 20+ years of suffering able to survive a cancer scare that did put me into a down spiral but guess what despite my own father in law firing me when I got out of the hospital I survived.

And you can too.

I may have finally found the end of my road

As this week draws to a close I am yet one step closer to the possible end of my road as recently I went into the hospital for shortness of breath and lightheaded and found out that my kidney's are struggling along though sadly my heart appears unwillingly to give up just yet.  I have acquired an extra beat like so many men in my family have but still....

The VA wasn't thrilled that I hadn't gone to Urgent Care but as anyone within the VA system knows if you have a mental health background you are likely to be treated like you are having a mental health issue and less like a medical one.  I didn't want another trip to the mental ward because they acted prematurely to "air on the side of caution".  I didn't need to be on suicide watch I really wasn't feeling well but likely would have been treated differently had I gone there instead of showing up at a therapy group like I chose to do.

So I spent the night in a local hospital on oxygen with an IV in my arm to rehydrate me but it looks like this might not be helping as my body is expressing fluids faster than I appear to be able to drink them in.  They even took me off several of my blood pressure meds to help me along at least temporarily but they didn't sound too happy when they called the next day and I was experiencing similar symptoms still.  Reiterating the medications to stop taking although I had followed their medical advice and stopped them as requested.

So here I sit, Bike in the driveway unable to feel well enough to get my so needed therapy for fear I might become too dizzy to drive causing bodily harm to me or someone else.

48, finally completely living on my own

So I recently turned 48, an age that many doctors from my mid to late 20's never ever thought I would actually see in my lifetime.  I had many health issues and my mental health being what it was and often still is there was no likelihood I would even have seen 40.  And here I am at 48 not really making major health strides but I am breathing, living on my own without any parental backing this time.

That backing this is big for me and they didn't cut me off as most would have presumed but rather I went into the VAMC for treatment and came out kicking mentally ready to try to cut the apron strings.  To be free of the manipulation from my Mom and no family telling me how I don't know what I am doing anymore.  I actually only really interact with one relative who is near my age and was my uncle's son on my mother's side of the family and that is only through Facebook, he never insulted me or made fun of me incessantly.

I got out of the VA and worked for a while through Voc Rehab and that was a struggle living in a new HUD apartment complex for Veterans here in Michigan.  I lost the job after a few months, just couldn't mentally keep struggling along.  As it turned out it was likely the best thing that couldn't have happened a few months later I was finally service-connected.  I used the back pay for a car and a house and for over a year I am living on my own (with rather intense therapy at the VA) but I am making my own decisions for the very first time in over 20 years by myself.  Fail or Pass they are mine and mine alone.

For a Bipolar with Borderline Personality Disorder/PTSD (non-combat) with a major depressive past including several serious failed attempts at harming myself.  And here I am, on my own THRIVING at least most of the time.

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?

I'm tired, alone and seeking acceptance in all the wrong places

Yet another week of going out in public and hoping, praying almost for some kind of acceptance with some form of desperation and in all the wrong places.  Trying to find acceptance in a building full of dysfunctional people is never a good thing and yet there I was again feeling alone and hoping for acceptance at every turn.  Never going to happen.

Instead, I feel like an outsider hoping for someone who can understand me is willing to translate to those who have no freaking clue what is come out of me.  My words seem a garbled mess in a world full of clear cut communications.

My manic mind flowing in all directions begging me to either shut it off or go along hoping for the best.  The best never seems to come along but the words come out in spits and sputs.

Foul stench of poetry and short stories wreaking havoc on my own mind as they drag the truth out of me that no one seems to hear or comprehend except of course for a finite chosen few.  The barren soul whisking away the bitter ends of my candle burning at both ends with no end in sight.

Imagine being a nearly 50 year old male and still emotionally feeling like I am a 20 something.  My face plays along not looking my age but nearly 20 years younger and frustrating me even more.  No matter how old I get I still am left wishing for peace that at this point appears to be not coming anytime soon to my manic mind.

Please don't say, "Happy Memorial Day" to a Veteran

For many years I cringe when Memorial Day comes because for me and many like me there is no such thing as “Happy Memorial Day.”  We remember the many who were our brothers and sisters who paid the ultimate  sacrifice serving our country in the military.

I still remember names scrolling down my TV screen in 1991 while sitting with friends who kept reminding me of what I had at home.  Trying to get me to let go of the idea of going back into the military that no longer even wanted me around because of my mental illness that they said didn’t actually exist when they discharged me.

And since my discharge it has been a dangerous thing for people to say that to me because I never know how my mind will respond.  I might attempt to fend it off but during the night I cannot keep the nightmares from taking over and creating a brain full of chaos in my mind during the day.  Sometimes I am not even aware it starts but I sure know when it hits the tearing up button all too well.  Every little heartbreaking memory hits me at once.

This can leave me for days if not weeks of tear filled days and nights I trying to stay awake for fear I will have memories that will only keep this going longer.  I cannot easily bare the chaos as easily as I was mentally able to when I was a younger man.  My body responds by higher blood pressures, fatigue draining me all day long till the dark of night comes to beckon me again to make another choice I don’t want to make.

Please keep this in mind when you decide to say to any Veteran, “Happy Memorial Day.”

Just don't do it

Don't even attempt to ask me to be happy that I am almost 50 years old this year.  I live with a demon inside my head that is manipulative, controlling and feels like a freaking roller coaster ride on a daily basis.

Over the years I have been told this or that about if I don't work harder to take care of my health.  They fail to understand that at times and that's more times than not after 20 plus years of the struggle I have just about resigned myself to the idea that dying a natural death while eating what I want and doing what I want just like my Great Uncles is the better way to go.  At least I am not stressing over how many calories I eat at each meal, am studying the clock figuring out how much time I have before I can eat again to keep on a diet without cheating...

As for the personality issues I am all too aware that some of my so-called closest friends make every attempt to avoid me when I arrive.  I know what I sound like and I know how hard it is to deal with me after all I have been divorced twice and if I could leave me somewhere and live a happier life don't you think I would have long since done that?  Of course I would.

So, just don't do it.  Don't tell me to freaking cheer up, think positively.  I have been spared death on several occasions in my entire lifetime all the way back to age 5 when I nearly went over the falls on the Baldwin River (my Dad jumped in just in time to snatch me before he wouldn't be able to)  and at times I am quite sure my family wished he hadn't.