Sometimes

Sometimes I think even the VA employees forget how screwed up I really am or what I've been through that makes me sometimes act that way.  Yesterday, yet again after I said something I hear the VA employees taking pot shots at me with me 3 feet from them.  The more I thought about it the more it irritated me but I can't do anything because it's one of the only groups I am still allowed to go to for various reasons.

If I blow that one up that means no more music therapy, no more singing and no more belting out like I cannot do at home.  I want to say something but how do you explain that I really can sense what others are thinking and it's not my BIPOLAR DELUSIONS telling me that?  How do I get them to understand that I often stay close to them when I feel insecure in public because often growing up my only protectors were female?

I did fairly well yesterday at the Christmas talent show but I'm struggling with the rest of it.  I don't socialize well and I know there are supportive things I was expected to return to others that I didn't do.  It's not my thing to lie to someone to make them feel better when they sing like they are strangling a cat and chase off the audience.

I'm drowning in emotions and fears everyday.  I'm not always able to push them back inside and they push me into overdrive, leaving me exhausted and wanting to sleep only I cannot sleep, I lay there upset and thinking about that crap and this run-on sentence.

The moral is that even people with severe Bipolar/Depression who live into their 50's still have bad days along with the good.  And often the bad days follow right behind the good one's it's part of my life and I am dealing with it as best I can.  So if you are younger and think you cannot survive with it, you can just look at my crazy butt....J

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.  

I'm not a leader, I a lost sheep in the herd

Many Manic-Depressives over the years have thought of me as some kind of leader because through it all I have lived somewhat of a life and survived attempts that would normally kill someone.  Don't please for the love of everything you hold don't follow my lead, I am nothing but a lost sheep in the herd.

I wander through life letting others ego's and what-not push me aside as I fight the urge to let the beast out of his cage, to unleash him as one of my exes used to say.  Because when I let him out of his cage bad things happen even to people who are just trying to be there for me.  Even occasionally I hurt myself along the way and when I put him back in his cage, I try so hard to take it out on myself.

In the meantime like so many others, I take it out on myself all of it past & present with little to no exceptions.  And when the nights come when I can't do anything but dream and I spend the night with someone who used to love me I wake up with a rage most could not understand or live with.  And  of course that is part of why I am no longer married because often it was taken out on the nearest source of emotional support.

So whatever you think of me don't follow me, think of me as some kind of representative of what it is like to live with it.  No, I wasn't supposed to live this long according to doctors and yes, I am still here.  That makes me nothing more than someone who has ruined supportive relationships, chased away friends and providers alike that cared for me.  And now, I am all alone inside my mind is a daily struggle to care about anything as the rest of my body's ailing finally catch up with my high-strung manic mind working towards the end of my life that in my opinion cannot come soon enough. 

Before my beast takes away the last few vestiges of support and places to feel safe outside of my home.  Inside he is tearing at my flesh, eating away at what is left of my soul and begging me to join so many others who have gone before me.  Because when under even perceived stress my mind both races and changes mood course so many times in a day it wears me out leaving me to sleep where the dreams tear at me once more.

Lead your own course, don't follow me please for your sake not mine.

A gift really?

Over the last few years when I have told people that in my mid 20's doctors told me I wouldn't likely live past 40 they keep telling me it's a gift.  Really that's funny because a gift if I don't like I it or it doesn't fit quite right I can take it back or give it away.  This is non-returnable after all I am a Manic-Depressive alcoholic who can't drink to make myself sleep days away and have way too much time on my hands alone.

Funny word alone, because even when I am in a room full of supportive people I feel alone.  Because my entire life I have had to depend on myself to stay safe because my boundary and trust issues couldn't be counted on.  Only to have failed me again and again until well...you know either I attempt to harm myself by death or burning.  Neither really ever made me feel better or guilty just hurt and ashamed.

Many people have come and gone from my life over the years most of them left on unfriendly terms because after all by definition a narcissist is an asshole.  Thus as I am a clear narcissist, I am an asshole who pushes people away as I grow older it becomes easier than ever.  I live in a world where I have to hide the real me though I am quite certain most people can see it but because I pretend to hide it they pretend to not see it.

I don't think most people would ever understand that those negative comments about myself hide a deep seeded self-hatred from childhood.  That over the years has only been strengthened by the way others have left my life.  I drain them of their valuable support till they like victims of a vampire bite, they waste away to an emotional death leaving me in their wake.

I am of late facing a fact that as I grow both older and in poorer health that I will be dying alone.  I can't have a "relationship" because even I don't know who or what I want anymore.  After several failed one's all I learned was that my life became theirs and as our relationship failed so did my life.  And how can anyone love me when I can't even love myself?

It's amazing how some people can't understand how easily I can be triggered if emotionally I am worn down.  How one damn TV show can rip a hole in my positive momentum and drag me back into the abyss without much effort.  How I can't keep a better attitude when I walk outside my home and the way people look at me only strengthens that self-image no matter what I do.  

I see an animal as well only the animal I see doesn't want to harm you.  He wants to tear my throat out and watch me die on the pavement as the blood leaves my ugly, deformed body.  I don't have necessarily deformities you can see but I can't miss them each time someone looks at me as if I might harm them if they get to close to me.  It's not as if I was blind I couldn't tell they feel that way my body doesn't miss that energy coming from others ever.  

Which is probably why I am so tired lately because I have been taking it on more and more and want to crawl inside myself waiting for my life to end.  There isn't enough time in a mental ward to vanquish this pain from my mind and certainly there isn't enough drugs to make it go away...

So what the hell do I do with this gift since I cannot give it back?

I'm one of those unlucky people who didn't stay in touch with friends from college

The reasons are simple enough, I tried to kill myself back then several times as well as, tried to drink myself to death.  After one attempt several of them got me in a room and talked to me.  One in particular was very hard for me, her name was Donna.

Donna with the exception of my girlfriend at the time was my best friend though we didn't spend a lot of time together.  When we were around one another we were nearly inseparable we had that many laughs together.  I remember having a bit of a crush on her as she was a real stunner though very married and I had was in love myself or at least I thought I was.

One evening after the attempt I was put in a room with Donna and we were left alone to talk about what had happened.  By the end of this conversation I was asked to promise something I begged her to not ask me to make.  At the time my self hate was on overdrive despite all the good things going on in my life away from my destructive family.

About a year later, I broke that promise winding up locked away in a mental hospital upon my return I went back to my night class.  By then she was already ignoring me as I recall wouldn't even make eye contact.  But she wasn't the only one many people in the heart of the bible belt were understanding enough before the attempts but when I went through with it that all ended.

Including my relationship at the time because her parents didn't want her near me.  I can't blame them but honestly your her parents and wondering why I didn't come to you?  How about your her parents and my explanation would have been a laundry list of reasons my Manic-Depressive brain was throwing at me at that time.  I had even been sober for a few months before that time.

Keep in mind that my memory isn't what it once was after ECT but there was one thing I won't ever forget.  Those people who when my own family was dragging me down for what I seemed incapable of doing they were supportive and caring for me.  I let them and myself down by listening to all the negative stuff till I couldn't take it anymore pain.

It was a pain that I cannot describe to you.  I hurt from the Army no longer caring for me. I hurt from thoughts that my gf and my male bf were together behind my back (wasn't true).  I hurt from trying so hard and seemingly getting nowhere.  The mood swings and no meds were wearing me down in a hurry.

One shrink at that time returned me to the drug & alcohol rehab center stating there wasn't anything mentally wrong with me despite my clear description of my symptoms I could recognize well enough through magazine searches & what there was of online searches as this was the early 1990's after all.

But this isn't about him, it's about Donna really because last night she visited me in my dreams.  And I was happy to see her but by morning I had once again broken my promise and poof she was gone again.  And I won't likely ever see her again before I pass on.  And with my health issues bearing down on my mental health issues hopefully I won't be suffering long because it hurts more knowing I broke her heart than does the fact I know one soon enough I won't be here anymore.

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.

Am I what they thought I am?

Lately, I have been contemplating whether some people were right in the first place, I am a big ole pile of steaming...you get the idea.  It's just the way things are going, I am able to pay my bills but there just feels like something is missing in my life.  Maybe it's just a life itself.

After all, I have never really felt like I belonged anywhere past a certain age because once the doting adults saw me as an older child I was no longer that "Cute little kid."  I became something of a lesser being in many people's eyes, the same people who used to ooh and aah over me.  

As I got older I felt less and less of a connection and am fully aware that I often stare blankly at people but I don't know why I do it.  I do know it unnerves some, irritates the hell out of others.

I don't do any of it for that reason at least not anymore there is no point is there?  I learned long ago to hide most of who I really am and maybe after all these years its' why I hate myself so much.  No one should have to hide for fear of retribution, humiliation or abuse.

I know what you might be thinking, "who gives a shit anyway what others might think of me?"  Well if you ever have felt like you don't belong and need acceptance you'd understand otherwise like most you'd just give me that advice and move on...I can't do that.