Labeled Crazy

I have a personal favorite blog. I have to check it, even though it could get me fired, its not necessarily updated every day, there is just something about it that provides me with a much needed stress relief laugh, even when the poor guy is trying to be serious. Squid Check him out.

So in my hiatus from blogging he asked me basically how a person knows they are crazy, knows they are in need of professional help. I'm gonna try to explain how I came to that realization. Everyone has a different story, everyone has their own experience, this is mine.

My life seemed relatively normal and I knew what I wanted. I had some very strange experiences as a child in my parents home and could not wait to escape the unbalanced unfairness that plauges this family to this day. I was on a mission, I wanted the hell out.

I got married and had a baby. Still things seemed normal. Nothing too unusual. My husband was 12 years older than me, yet I had more focus and had to be the one pushing the make money principal in our home. I pushed him into whatever direction would lead us to the most financial security in my 19 year old mind. I had a part time job as a bookkeeper, and was going to college full time to pursue a business degree. I took care of all of the finances, looking back I really had my shit together. I felt on top of the world, focused and on a mission.

During my junior year of college my sister needed a kidney transplant. I was the lucky one, the closest match. I was willing, went through all of the testing, but a panic button was struck in me when someone told me it may effect my ability to have more children. I wanted one more, it just wasnt time yet. I didnt want to have to deal with the possibility of a strain on my own organs and end up on dialysis for the sake of a child. So we decided to get pregnant and then proceed with the transplant after the baby. I didnt realize then the strain that that would put on my education. I juggled one, why not two.

After her birth I fell into a depression. I lost my focus. I didnt enroll back into school. i didnt have the energy it required to meet all of my responsibilites and since money was becoming a bigger factor since we needed a more spacious house, I pursued my job full time. For months I took her with me. There were daycare nightmare stories I could write a book about. The ensuing chaos created a deep depression. I burst into tears at the slightest provocation. After several months of seeing myself as less motivated, less focused, more emotional and my life seemingly slipping down the tubes, I saw a doctor. It was post partum depression. I was given an anti depressant. Within a week i was having urges to drive off the cliffs on my way to work. It became so clear to me that I chose a different route to work, afraid of myself, afraid of my urges. I stopped taking the medication. I struggled through the depression but never felt the same.

A few months later I found out I was pregnant again. I wasnt happy about it, I burst into tears. It seemed that with each birth I lost IQ points, I lost focus and energy and was becoming something else. I didnt like the change. After her birth I again went back to work, this time seriously struggling with two infants. I couldnt focus at work, I couldnt sleep. My ex was a selfish moron. I would walk the house in a zombie state, unable to so simple tasks, and struggling to take care of the childrens needs while he watched football and handed me all of the repsonsibility. We went to counseling. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from lack of sleep. Up all night with two babies, working full time, my body went into a total revolt. The doctor told him he had to help out, I was suffering from extreme exhaustion, the kind that makes you hallucinate. The one night I told him it was his turn to feed the baby he pulled her from her crib, slammed the cradle into the wall and shoved a bottle in her mouth, obviously quite preturbed he had been bothered. I took over and never asked him again.

My baby was around three months old. I got up one Saturday to wash clothes. Hubby comfortable in his lazy ass spot on the couch with football. I went into the laundry room and burst into tears. I couldnt remember how to sort clothes. I sat onthe floor crying for several minutes, unsure what to do and panicked that this should be automatic. I went up to try to explain to him my frustration. He patted me on the head and told me to go take a nap. I went upstairs, kissed my children and took an entire bottle of Excedrin PM. I then laid down for my nap.

Within 45 minutes my body went numb. It felt good to be relaxed but with that came the realization that I wasnt going to see the children I could hear playing in the next room again. They would find their mother dead. i couldnt do that. I went into the bathroom and tried to force myself to vomit. I then found the ex and told him what I had done. He called an ambulance. Lucky me a police officer that showed up was a guy I went to school with. Could this get any more humiliating?

After days in the hospital, I was put on an anti depressant and sent home. Within a few weeks I felt much better, and was feeling back on track. i had new ideas, many inspirations, I was a genius. I plugged away at work earning a promotion and a large raise. It seemed I was back in the game. I was so over confident that I needed more and more stimulus. I stopped going home after work and started hanging out in the bars. Dancinga all night, meeting new people. I saw nothing wrong with what I was doing, even when I showed up at work once still drunk, wearing last nights clothes.

The trouble went on. A DUI, and legal problems that I wont get into on this blog. My life became a nightmare but in my mind nothing was wrong. I was diagnosed bi-polar. i was in a major manic state and wreaking havoc on my family, risking jail and was fairly oblivious to the entire thing. At the time of my diagnosis everything was so far out of whach that in my report the therapist suspected I may be exaggerating my symptoms. Funny, because i was actually downplaying them slightly out of fear they would lock me up!

I guess the bottom line and the short version would have been much easier. When you are unable to function, when others notice changes in you, when your life is falling apart without a rational explanation......there could likely be a chemical imbalance going on.

I havent ever been the same. Im still unable to focus to my potential, my creativity has its ups and downs. I do not function in the same way that other people do. I suffer from constant exhaustion, I dont enjoy things I used to and find myself going through the motions of what I know I should be doing on a daily basis.

Im on a new drug. It has slowed the mania and stopped the majority of the madness. Im more emotional, which Im not happy about, but I cant just keep numbing life's pain.

Its difficult being on drugs. You arent yourself, which in a sense is what you want, but you dont want to be so different that you dont recognize yourself. You just want the crazy symptoms gone. I want the old me back, but its been 10 years and I think shes dead. (smile)