Ask me how I'm doing.

Ask me how I'm doing.

Usually I hate that question. But now--try me.

Because for the first time in months, I can say "good."

I mean, I'm not doing great by any means, but that sense of dread and hating being alive...it's dimmed significantly. Maybe it's even gone? and I don't even know how.

There is nothing I've been doing differently. I mean, I started being more active last week, but it's not like I haven't tried that multiple times in the past year.

So the only conclusion I can think of is that my medication, which was supposed to kick in after a few weeks, finally started making a difference after two months?

Or maybe the storm has just passed? Or there's a break in the clouds? I have no idea. But after the two worst weeks, I never thought this relief would come. They say it's always darkest before the dawn,  but holy cow that was a longggg darkness.

But now, I think maybe I can start to become me again.

I don't know what else to say. I think I have motivation again, but since I haven't had it in months, I don't know what to do with it.

I still feel like crying, I still feel useless, I still feel unappreciated and whatever, but...the terrible, awful darkness has subsided, and I have only had about one breakdown in the past week.

I don't know how long this will last, but I can finally say: hey. I think your prayers are working.

When you don't hear the music anymore

I used to be a songwriter. I'd like to say that I still am, but I have only written one song in the past year. Two in the past year and a half.

They say that great art comes from pain. Songs, stories, poems, paintings, dance, and I'm sure many other expressive mediums. And that's what I used to do with my pain. I put them in poems. I let it flow into my hand, out of my pen, into ink-filled notebooks that encapsulated my soul's deepest hurt.

When I learned the guitar, I transformed my art into songwriting, combining my two loves of music and poetry. Every emotion could be put into a song, and those songs were my rock: my evidence that I knew, that I learned, that I grew, and that I lived. 

But my soul's deepest hurt has gotten deeper. And I can't hear the music anymore. 

My favorite thing used to be driving with the windows down and the music up loud, singing along to every word. But now, the wind just makes my hair a bird's nest, and the music doesn't speak loud enough for my heart to hear. 

I try to play the guitar and sing to songs I once loved. I used to be able to do that for hours and never tire. But now it feels like a chore, and I don't even like the sound of my own voice anymore. 

I can write again, and I am so thankful for that. There was a period of time that I couldn't even do that. But now the music is gone. And I wish that would come back, too.

I know I can turn this pain into art. I have had ideas upon ideas upon ideas that have piled up for a year. But how can I do that when I can't hear the music anymore? 

What do you do when the music has faded? When the only sound you hear is the distant wind, sweeping up all the remains of your brokenness and carrying them away to a place where you can't even try to put them back together?

I'm not okay.

I know it's not true, but I feel like I'm programmed to fail.

Every good intention, every honest effort to succeed, somehow seems to betray me.

And I can't win.

I'm not okay. This is the third time this week that I have been up all night, staring at blank documents, trying to make myself do something productive. But I've just been paralyzed every time.

These past two weeks have introduced me to a new low. After trying so hard this semester to stay on top of things, I've finally let everything go. It all started with a research paper and a conference grading session.

A week and a half ago, my research paper was due and my teacher wanted us to conference grade with her, so I signed up for the time right after class to get it over with, went in to her office, expecting that it would be bad but that at least I'd be done with it.

I felt very anxious in a one-on-one setting, but I wiped away my tears as quickly as I could when they would come so that she wouldn't see me being weak. It's not that I think people should go easy on me because of my condition (and also she didn't even know about my condition) but it's just that I am so fragile that I honestly can't handle criticism. Even when it is constructive and deserved.

So she started pointing out flaws in my paper. I didn't argue, I knew she was right, so I just agreed with everything she said. I guess that wasn't satisfying because then she started asking me questions, like

"did you even pay attention during class when we discussed this?"

"so you knew where to look to get help but you didn't look at it?"

"you transferred from a junior college, right? Didn't they teach this there?"

"what it looks like you did was just give me the minimum effort of what was required."

"this is your chance to defend yourself, don't you have anything to say?"

By this time, I can't even hide it anymore. Tears are just freely flowing from my eyes and down my cheeks while I sit there silently, not even knowing what to say.

"are you crying because you think I'm being hard on you or because you know this isn't your best work?"

I can't speak. I have no words. I just cry.

"did you feel like you couldn't come talk to me and get help?"

I open my mouth to talk and I just lose it.

"No, because every time I try to talk to a teacher at this school, they're condescending and belittling, and I can't handle that."

By this time, I'm sobbing. Every time I inhale, it sounds like a goose is honking. I am humiliated, uncomfortable... I can't believe this is happening. I wish I was curled up in a corner, away from sight and sound of anybody else, instead of in front of one of my professors during a conference grade, my hair a mess, my leg shaking uncontrollably, and gasping for breath in the same clothes I wore to bed the night before because I woke up ten minutes before class.

I sit there for about ten or fifteen more minutes (I honestly don't actually know because it felt like forever) and tried to answer her questions, but it was all completely incoherent.

"do you have anxiety attacks like this often?" she asked me.

"every day,"  I say. but it sounds more like...nothing. It probably, honestly, sounded like loud, breathy, noise.

She says she wishes there was something she could do to help.

I tell her that no one can help. Professionals have been trying for months and nothing has helped. but that probably didn't sound like anything coherent either. She told me I could take my paper back and try again, so I scooped up the pages and walked out of her office, still unable to compose myself and my uncontrollable blubbering.

That weekend, I do the thing that always makes me feel better: road trip. I can usually go a day or two without an episode when I take a road trip, and that was something I definitely needed. The first night was good, but then I woke up the next morning with nowhere to go. I tried texting people. Busy. I went to my safe place which was my car, but the air conditioning is broken (just in time for summer, yay) and it was miserable.

I tried to go into public buildings where it was cooler to work on some homework maybe, but I knew that I needed to break down. I knew that I needed a place where nobody would ask me if I was okay. Where nobody would see or hear me hurting. But I didn't have that place.

Finally, I ended up at the park and sat underneath the shade of the tree, laid on the grass, and wondered how on earth I was going to make it through the weekend.

Then I got some more bad news--my old real estate management company had inappropriately allocated the money I paid them when I sold my contract and was now ripping off the new tenant. I feel like this is a common thing, but nothing makes me feel more frustrated and anxious and stressed out than owing people money.

And then my dad talked to me about the test that my doctor had done to determine good and bad medications, and the test was $3400. Of course, that was before insurance, but the insurance wouldn't pay for it until they knew why the test was taken.

As I sat there, sweaty, baking in my overheated car, right outside my friend's house, I knew that that was the moment that I would most like to be dead. If there was any time I wanted it the most, it was then. I could not even imagine being able to live another day. It sounds so... dramatic. And by definition, I guess it is. But it was real.

I made it through the weekend, painfully.

The Monday after I got back was the first night I stayed up all night trying to get myself to rewrite that paper. I looked at sources, I looked at my document, and I couldn't even think. I couldn't even imagine how I could write it the "right" way so that my teacher wouldn't trash it again. Everything I typed, I deleted, knowing that she would probably cross it out when going over it.

I was on the phone with my best friend back home crying and said that I wanted to drop out and come home. He told me I should because I needed to do what was right and healthy for me. I texted my other friend what I was thinking and she expressed the same sentiments. I knew that my dad had told me he's support me in whatever decision I made.

So I decided: I will drop out. I will pack up, I will go home, and I will just cut my losses. I'll get a job so I can start paying back my debt. I considered the fact that I knew I had already paid for housing and school, but I came to terms with wasting that. I imagined talking to people back home and having to tell them why I dropped out mid-semester. I planned my entire blog post. My mind was made up.

I called my mom as soon as the sun came up to tell her what I decided, and she stopped me. She reminded me of how close I was and how I could do it. She told me to drop another class if I needed it, but that it was worth it to stay and finish the semester. I hated that she was right, but I knew I should stay. All I could think was that I probably shouldn't have even come up here in the first place.

I avoided that teacher's class for almost the whole next week. I forgot to take the midterm. I did all the homework, but since I knew it would only be torn apart again, I figured: why bother? I decided to drop just that class, but after wrestling with that idea, I just couldn't rationalize it. Great decision to try and stay after you blow it big time like that, huh?

That week was dark. I stayed in my room and didn't talk to anyone. I watched all 7 seasons of Parks and Recreation, so that gives you an idea of how useless I was. But I just sunk, deep. I didn't know it was possible for me to get lower than I already was, but it was. And it happened. My dad who I had leaned on for support started seeming more apathetic, and for the first time in months, I went a few days without calling him. It was bad, considering he was half of my support, but I guess I was hoping that he'd miss me or worry and call. He didn't.

One day I didn't go to any of my classes. I knew I would take a huge hit, miss a quiz, and a presentation, but I just didn't go. I just slept through it, woke up, and then cried and thought "I am ruining my life and all I can do is sit back and watch it burn knowing that it's all my fault but there's nothing I can do to stop it."

It's like I am rational enough to know that I am making the wrong decision, but not strong enough to stop myself. Luckily I have deep rooted values and live in a pretty safe place so my bad decisions aren't as bad as they could be, but it still terrifies me.

I don't know what other types of challenges are coming my way with this disorder. Every time I learn or experience something new, I realize how in over my head I am and how scared I am. I don't want to be classified as a psychopath. I don't want people to hear that I'm bipolar and think "oh, wow, that makes so much sense." I just want to be normal.

But what I'm learning--and what I hate to learn--is that I'm not who I once was. I can't do what I once could. I can't care about what other people will think of me if and when I decide that I need to do what's best for me. And let me tell you, it is the most hopeless lesson I've ever had to learn. Because that person I became? I loved to be her. Those things I could do? I took pride in those. Those people whose thoughts I care about? I hate letting them down.

People tell me I can be that way again--that I'm not a let down. I don't know if that's true. But I just hope that I can be happy to be me again one day.

I don't know what to do.

I say that a lot.

"I don't know what to do."

I feel incapable of making decisions, because all of the decisions I've made lately have just made my life even more of a tangled up mess. Even the ones I've felt good about. I feel like I am not receiving any revelation or direction or idea of where my life should go. So I keep on guessing. And just like the trial and error process with all the medications I've tried--it feels like they've all been error.

So whenever I try to sort out what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, and figure out what to do with the all-consuming sense of dread and stress, I can only utter the words: "I don't know what to do."

I mean, obviously I know what to do. I know that I have to just get up and get on with my life. I have to keep on waking up day after day and stay away from the black hole of darkness that keeps sucking me in. I know that's what I have to do.

But I guess what I'm saying is: I don't know what to do with this darkness. It's overflowing and I don't know where to put it. I don't know what to do about the fact that I'm in over my head but too stubborn to take some of the weight off of my shoulders. I don't know what to do about the fact that I continuously let down people who are relying on me because I've over committed myself and am to ashamed to say it.

I just don't know what to do. And maybe that's okay. But waiting out this storm is harder than I imagined. And I don't know what to do.

Cycles.

Bipolar is a very cyclical disorder. And if that really is what I have (who knows anymore, I feel like a lost cause) it's so interesting to see, especially in retrospect, the cycles in my life. With my mood, my money, my pant sizes.

Now this is a pretty sensitive topic, because I've done some pretty stupid things, and I continue to do stupid things almost on the daily because of it.

So if you've been reading my posts, you pretty much know about my mood cycles. I mean, I usually write about the bad because that's when it all hits me and I have to slow my boat, but I mean, I'd be lying if I said there hadn't been any good moments. On the whole, though, the past many months have definitely been low. Very, very low. Throughout my life, I've seen some definite periods of high and low, but I don't know if that's just how life goes or if that was this...disorder. I am having a hard time differentiating the two, it's still all pretty crazy to me.

But lets talk about money.
So about a year ago, I was good, right? And then I spent all my money on tuition and was broke again. And then I was broke for the summer and then moved to Provo and had a job that paid super well, right? and I was pretty much a star employee, what with never calling in sick, always doing what I was supposed to do, etc. But then I just started slipping into bad habits. I stopped working effectively and did the bare minimum. I took longer breaks and lunches than I should have. And then I started leaving early sometimes and not even coming in other times. That was around the time that I was having a hard time even getting out of bed in the morning (or afternoon, because I didn't work til 1:30 and let's be honest, I didn't get out of bed til 1:10.) I remembered that when I sunk into a depression at 15 years old, one of the things that got me out of it was shopping for new clothes. It was some real retail therapy. So I thought, why not do that again?

So I took all the money that I had saved up in my account, and spent nearly all of it. About $2000 of it was on the Russia trip, so that was fine, but then a couple more hundred was on some really useless stuff that I really didn't need. A 3DS, for example. When have I ever in my life been a gamer? Never. But for some reason I just needed that.

Let me just say, I am the kind of person who doesn't spend more than $10 on an article of clothing. Mostly I even think $10 is too much. I am ridiculously frugal. I get it from my mother. But in this instance, I just didn't care. I just spent a lot of money.

A few weeks later I spent a few hundred on a road trip. And then, I spent $100 on a perm. ON A PERM. you know how much I spend on my hair? About $1.50 a month on the cheapest shampoo and conditioner I can find. And then like $20 twice a year for a haircut. But I shelled out $100 on a perm because why the heck not.

And then my recklessness at work finally got me let go and I had...not a lot. So for the next few months I did nothing. I only ever spent money on gas and medical bills. I started donating plasma so that I could make some extra money. I started applying at other jobs, knowing that I couldn't handle having a job but also knowing I wasn't going to make it without having another source of income.

Well, another job never did come. I had a heck of a time trying to sell my contract, and moving up to Rexburg was a trip. I had to borrow a lot of money from my dad knowing that my tax returns were going to come back soon so I could at least pay him back and then after that, nothing besides plasma money was gonna help me out.

Then, one of my friends from home who lives up in Rexburg invited me to what she called a "beauty night." I knew that she did Mary Kay, and I knew how those beauty nights worked--they wanted to sell to you or to recruit you--and I was not even thinking about it. But then I ended up being recruited. I thought--if I look better on the outside, I'll feel better on the inside, and if I join, I'll have to look presentable because I'll need to represent the product I sell. And then I'll sell and make so much money. So I used my plasma money for the $115 start-up fee, and then the director talked to me about having inventory on hand and how I could get a loan or open up a credit card to make that happen. I don't know what happened, but I felt excitement and that I wanted to do that, and they made me feel like I could, so I opened a credit card, got approved for a $3000 credit limit, and spent nearly all of it on ordering inventory.

I then realized what I did and called my dad and my mom crying about how I couldn't afford that. My mom ended up getting me out of it by having me just send the packages back, but for a second there, I was $2700 in debt. I felt really bad about sending the stuff back at first, because I hate backing out of a commitment, but I am so up and down all the time that I am glad I don't have to worry about that debt because it would make my low points so much lower. And I can't take that right now.

But hey, all that money on accessories and my hair and make-up and guess what? I'm still ugly, and I still feel awful, because I cant get out of bed to even make myself presentable before I have to rush to class in the mornings.

And then in addition to my moods and bank account fluctuating, so does my weight. It's a particular kind of sadness when you don't even want to look in the mirror anymore because you're afraid of your own reflection and what it will do to you. A year ago, I was about 50 pounds lighter. 6 months before that, I was about the same as where I am today. I went through a period of hitting the gym 5 times a week, viewing food as only a means to fuel my body, and caring about my appearance, to barely moving, using food as a means of comfort, and not ever wanting to leave my house because of the lack of things I have to wear that will fit me. I didn't just stop exercising and then get depressed. I started getting depressed and then became unable to do anything but stay alive. People always think it's the other way around. Trust me, it's not.

It's been, well, terrible. Can't sugarcoat it. Those highs are great but those lows are so hard. And the hardest part is I know that when they pass, they are just going to come back again and punch me in the stomach when I am least expecting it.

They say that suicide is selfish...

...and I understand why.

It is selfish because one person thinks they have the right to play God and take their own life.
It is selfish because it makes other people suffer.
It is selfish because that person who is taking their life is focusing on themselves and their own pain rather than the problems or feelings of others.
It is selfish because they are leaving behind their mess for other people to clean up.
It is selfish because it hurts the survivors.

Yes, they say that suicide is selfish...

...but I don't think they should.

Because first of all, a person in that position is already dealing with enough. What is calling them selfish going to accomplish? I think it would only make them want to die more.
Because a person wanting to take that step is hurting so much.
They hate living, they quite possibly hate themselves.
Every thing that goes wrong in their life is another wave in a pool they're already drowning in.

It's true that everyone experiences hard times. There is no shortage of disappointments and struggles and tears and pain. But if we're going off the comparison of keeping your head above water, there are those who are swimming, who are getting stronger, who are able to kick and fight and, yes, they're exhausted, but they do it. They make it. But then there are people with broken arms, with legs that are paralyzed, with lungs that are filling up with water, who, with each passing second, wonder how much longer they can fight the waves until they drown. Sometimes they just can't take it anymore. Sometimes they give up trying and stop trying to prolong the inevitable. Sometimes they let go.

Lately my thoughts have travelling to darker places. Like, really dark. And,

dare I write this?

I want to kill myself.

I'm not going to, and here's why, but the desire grows stronger as the time passes without improvement. And I think of all the people who have been there for me, helping me, caring about me. And I hold on for them, because I know it's not fair to them.

It's not fair to my family to talk about how much I want to die, because I know how hard it hit them when my brother died. I know it hurts them to even imagine that happening again.
It's not fair to my friends, who try every day to help me, to say that the only thing that sounds good is death.
It's just not fair to them.

But this is where I am at.
I am at that place where the people I talk to about it have heard everything I have to say.
I'm at that place where nothing I say holds any weight anymore, because even though it does feel like it's getting darker, I don't have any more words to describe. It comes out in the same phrasing as it did the first time, even though its stronger now than it was then.
I am at that place where the words have become empty, but the pain has not.
And I can't think of many things that are more helpless than not being able to express that darkness.

But honestly, and maybe my rationality is altered here, but when I think about putting a stop to my mortal existence, I feel that I am not thinking solely about myself. I feel like there is definitely some selfishness in there, but it's mostly that I don't want to drag others down to the place that I'm at.
I hate having to let others help clean up my mess because I just cant do it alone. Believe me, I've tried.
And hate being a burden.

I'm sick of people asking how I am, because I'm not going to lie and tell them that I'm doing well. Because I haven't had a good day in a really long time.
I'm sick of my friends having to hear about my struggle all the time, and that I can't just be positive for them, put on a happy face and pretend everything is fine.
I hate having to call my dad and have him sit there on the phone with me, oftentimes in silence, because I can't voice the hurt.  I just need him there, on the line, just to feel his support. I know he's busy, he has things to do, but I just need him too much.
I hate being unable to hold a job and therefore broke and therefore needing to borrow money to get professional help.
I hate having already paid so much money on co-pays and tests and medications without any positive results.
I hate having to text people in the middle of the night because there are demons in me that I can't fight by myself, and I need someone to help me not succumb to them.
I'm tired of not even having an excuse, of there not being an actual problem to solve, of people who I can tell want to help but not being able to. It's frustrating for them, I know.
I hate being that burden.
And slice it however you want to and tell me that I'm not one, but I still feel like one.

I think of how dying would mean my parents would have to pay for a casket and burial plot, so I imagine how I can maybe burn instead? Or get a job that gives me life insurance before I do the dying so that they wouldn't have to pay out of pocket?

I think of how many mountains there are between Idaho and Colorado and how driving off of any one of them could cause the perfect tragedy. But then I think of those who have attempted and failed. And if there is anything that sounds worse to me than dying in that situation, it's living through that situation.

Like I said, my mind has been travelling to some dark places. Places that I'm not going to follow it, but places that I can't vocally speak of.

And that's why I can't call suicide selfish. I can't look at my friend from high school, who told me that if I ever killed myself, she'd bring me back to life and kill me again twice only to bring me back and slap me, who then took her own life, and say that she was acting selfishly when she shot herself. I can't look at people who are in so much pain and agony, who feel like they are burdens, who have grown weary of picking themselves back up again, and say that they are only thinking about themselves when they decide to try and take their life. Because in all reality, they are probably thinking what they're doing is the best, and sometimes the only, option for everyone involved. That may be warped thinking, but if you've experienced first or second-hand mental illness, you know that warped thinking is a part of the package.

I'm not advocating suicide. I'm not even justifying it. I'm just saying that I understand the desire.

Because if I didn't believe and know the things that I do, I would be right there with those who attempt, and hopefully those who succeed. And I can't imagine how people make it through this life without the knowledge and hope and faith that I have.